Logos in its everyday sense remains idle chatter and therefore in not disclosive but rather concealing. However, since Dasein is bound to logos, insofar as Dasein ‘presses ahead’ to ‘the things themselves,’ it must use, or ‘pass through’ as Heidegger says, logos.¹⁾ This means that logos has a peculiar standing in Heidegger. It is concealing in its most common form, but it is also necessarily part of the pressing ahead which will allow Dasein to eventually overcome dialectic and see beings themselves. Logos is not disclosive of being in itself but it is a necessary instrument through which Dasein can ‘press on to the things themselves.’²⁾ For Heidegger, logos is suspect in that it is most commonly engaged in idle chatter, however, when used in dialectic, logos can be elevated beyond idle chatter and point in the direction of actual seeing.

In this sense, Plato is credited with moving beyond ‘what is merely said,’ but he is surely not off the hook. The same Plato who was earlier credited with effecting a revolution, is now disparaged for not having gone farther in the direction of uncovering being. Heidegger says: The fact that Plato did not advance far enough so as ultimately to see beings themselves and in a certain sense to overcome dialectic is a deficiency included in his own dialectical procedure, and it determines certain moments of his dialectic.. .These characteristics are not merits and are not determinations of a superior philosophical method but are indications of a fundamental confusion andunclarity, which, as I have already said, is founded in the difficulty of the matters themselves, the difficulty of such first foundational research.³⁾ This does indeed seem to be a grim assessment of Plato, and there is no denying that Heidegger believes Plato’s reliance on dialectic was derived from confusion and resulted in further confusion. The Plato here criticized is the logocentric Plato, the Plato who was unable to ever overcome logos, the Plato who sets the stage for the future of philosophy as metaphysics and its reliance on propositional truth in the form of logos. There can be no question that Heidegger is staunchly critical of this Plato, but perhaps this logocentric Plato is not the only Plato who emerges in Heidegger’s Sophist lectures. To make this case we will begin with Heidegger’s detour from the Sophist through the Phaedrus.