Etymology

Greek logos: what is said, an account, a ratio, a gathering into speech. Heraclitus, the Stoics, the Gospel of John, and later philosophy do not mean the same thing by it. Here it names the move of distinction.1

Semantic range

Naming, classification, source, sequence, comparison, alternative explanation, claim. Creative, not only corrective. Without it, relation cannot be said carefully.

What the gloss loses

Compressing logos into logic. Making Eros and Logos eternal gendered opposites. That pairing is ours, for two movements of attention, not a historical universal.

Misuse

Using distinction to kill the image. Using ‘just logic’ to dismiss meaning.