about what intellect and subject mean here and how the basic relation of the subject to extant entities must be defined, that is, only if we can elucidate what being-true means and how it stands in regard to the Dasein. In whatever way we may be able to set about taking hold of these central but difficult problems, we can see at first the intrinsic affinity of Aristotle's and Kant's views. Being in the sense of the copula is, according to Kant, respectus logicus, and, according to Aristotle, it is synthesis in the logos. Because for Aristotle this being, this ens, is not ἐν πράγμασιν, does not occur among things, but ἐν διανοίᾳ, it signifies not an ens reale but an ens rationis, as Scholasticism puts it. But this is merely the translation of ὄν ἐν διανοίᾳ.
The interpretation of copula and proposition advanced by Hobbes is also subject to the influence of the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition. His view of logic is usually described as an example of the most extreme nominalism. Nominalism is the view of logical problems which, in the interpretation of thought and knowledge, starts from the thinking expressed in assertion and indeed from assertion as it manifests itself as a spoken verbal complex, words and names—hence nominalism. All the problems that arise regarding the proposition, and thus also the problem of truth and the question of the copula, are oriented by nominalism toward the context of words. We saw that from early on among the Greeks the question of the proposition and knowledge was oriented toward the logos, and therefore thinking about knowledge became logic. There remains only the question in which direction the logos is made thematic, in which respect it is regarded. In ancient logic at the time of Plato and Aristotle, one form of nominalism was already widespread, that of the Sophists, and later in the Middle Ages different varieties of this tendency of thought were revived, above all in the school of the English Franciscans. The most extreme representative of late Scholastic nominalism is Ockham, whose nominalistic attitude was of significance for his theological problems but also for Luther's formulation of theological questions and the immanent difficulties associated with it. It is no accident that Hobbes elaborated an extreme nominalism. He gives his discussion of the copula in connection with his discussion of the proposition, the propositio, in his "Logica," the first part of his treatise On Body.9 We shall
9. Thomas Hobbes, Elementorum philosophiae: section 1, "De corpore," part 1, "Computatio sive Logica," chap. 3ff., "De propositione" [The German text's note erroneously omits the term "Computatio" from the title of this section on logic. The original publication was Elementorum philosophiae: Sectio prima, De corpore (London, 1655). Part 1 is entitled "Computatio sive Logica." Reprinted in Sir William Molesworth's 5-volume edition, Opera philosophica, quae latine scripsit omnia (London: J. Bohn, 1839-1845; reprinted, Aalen; &ientia, 1962). See vol. l. The original English version was contained in Elements of Philosophy: The Fint Section, Concerning Body, "written in Latin by Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, and now translated into English" (London: Andrew Crooke, 1656). The corresponding Part 1 here is entitled "Computation or Logic." Reprinted in Molesworth's 11-volume edition, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (London: J. Bohn, 1839-1845; reprinted, Aalen: Scientia, 1962), vol. l. The passages cited by Heidegger in the Latin may thus be compared with their original translation in Elements of Philosophy or The English Works.]