LOGOS
Reasoned Discourse, Giving a Rational Account
The Greek word logos (traditionally meaning word, thought, principle, or speech) has been used among both philosophers and theologians. In most of its usages, logos is marked by two main distinctions -
The first: dealing with universal intelligence (the universal ruling force governing and revealing through the cosmos to humankind, i.e., the Divine). The Greek philosopher Heraclitus appears to be the first to have used the word logos to refer to a rational divine intelligence, which today is sometimes referred to in scientific discourse as the “mind of God.”
The second: the etymology of logos, the Greek word behind “reason” and “logic”, indicates synthesis and communication. The Greek logos is the verbal noun of lego, which, if we follow one root leg means “to gather”, “to collect”, “to pick up”, “to put together”, and later “to speak or say”. We have the basic ideas of any rational endeavor. We begin by collecting individual facts and thoughts and put them together in an orderly way and communicate what we have discovered.
Through the years -ology and -logy have come to mean, “study of” or “science of” and either of these suffixes often utilize the form of -ologist, a person who studies or has knowledge of a particular kind of science: i.e., a Biologist, a Psychologist, etc.
