WORD AND IDEAThe word is logos or discourse, that which is uttered, heard and understood, that which pertains to legein, the activity of saying. The idea is eidos or form, the image, percept or concept which arises in the mind and pertains first to idein, the activity of seeing. When the two expressions "word" and "idea" (we could also say, "the two words" or "the two ideas") are set down side by side, we are first aware of a certain opposition between them. Yet as soon as we try to analyse this opposition, we find that it becomes elusive and the two terms Constituting it tend to run together. Word and idea stand together in a tension comprising elements both of opposition and affinity.The oppositions are obvious. For instance, there is the contrast between hearing and seeing. These are two of the senses by which man is open to the world and to his fellows. These are, fhrthermore, the senses by which we are able to extend our awareness into the distance. Through hearing and seeing, we become aware of a vastly extended environment. But we perceive this environment very differently through each of these senses. The word belongs primarily to hearing, the idea to seeing, and so in their origins these two come from quite different media.There is the further contrast between particularity and universality. A word embodies itself in the physical world as an event in that world. It has a certain uniqueness as it is spoken by a particular person in a particular situation. It becomes publicly accessible, as something that happens in the world. Even if one tries to preserve it by writing it down, it still retains its concrete innerworldly character -it is ink on paper, though never merely that. The idea, on the other hand, seems to float above the world. It cannot be pinned down as an event that happens at a particular time. It does not have any physical embodiment. The value of an idea is precisely that it can be universalized, so that it
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