The Middle Included Logos In Aristotle

Logos is said in many ways. Yet the meanings of logos in Aristotle have not been submitted to a thorougphilosophical survey, either in the philosopher’s work or in his posterity. Once we conduct this survehere in this book, Aristotle’s traditional image as the father of formal logic, of classificatory or taxonomithinking, of the principles of the excluded middle and of non-contradiction, will yield to a more accuratimage of him as a thinker of inclusion. For, I shall argue, such a survey reveals that all meanings of logoin his works refer to a fundamental meaning, namely “relation,” “comprehensiveness,” or “inclusiveness.More specifically, as suggested by the etymological meaning of logos as “gathering,” “laying,” an“collecting,” this “relation” holds its terms together in their difference instead of collapsing one to thother, or keeping them in indifference.

1

So logos involves different terms—typically ones that appeaincompatible, contrary, or contradictory in light of a simply exclusive, formal version of the principle onon-contradiction or of the excluded middle. What logos does is to hold these terms together in comprehensive way that was previously unnoticed or simply ruled out.