b) The point of departure of our inquiry back from the inner
construction of the essence of the assertion: the 'either/or'
potential of the revealing and concealing that points out and
expresses being in the 'both/and' of ascribing and denying.
Our initial concrete task is to start from the λόγος and inquire back into the ground of its possibility. We must do this by taking our point of departure from the inner essential construction of the λόγος that has now been illuminated. This is what we constantly have to keep in view above all else, while confining ourselves to the simple λόγος. The formal example of the simple λόγος is: 'a is b'. However, we must now ask whether we here have the essential construction of the λόγος. What we are advancing here is one particular form of the λόγος, namely an example of κατάφασις and—we are assuming—of ἀληθεύειν, that is, the form of the positive and true assertion. Wherever the λόγος, the statement, or the judgement is dealt with in logic, this form is always the primary and exemplary one, if not the only one. In addition, however, we have the negative true assertion, as well as the positive false one and the negative false one. Consequently we must also take these into account. And this indeed happens within certain limits in conventional theories of judgement. Precisely here, however, we find the fundamental mistake and the fundamental difficulty of the whole problem. We may neither advance the positive true judgement, nor any other form, as the sole privileged form of the λόγος and then take all the others into account retrospectively (in supplementary fashion). All these procedures still leave us outside the dimension of the real problem. We have not yet attained the correct approach at all. The correct approach is missing in Aristotle too, and consequently throughout the following eras. Nonetheless, Aristotle came closer to the problem. He explicitly emphasizes something that is no longer even noticed in contemporary logic, namely that the λόγος is not true and false, but true or false: ἀληθεύειν ἣ ψεύδεσθαι. On the other hand, we can understand why the central problematic is not grasped by Aristotle, since his primary and sole intention was the necessity of first making the structures of the λόγος visible in general, in contrast to the provisional and extrinsic theories of his predecessors, including even Plato. If we may speak of "easier" and "more difficult" at all here, then radicalization is always "easier" because it has already been prepared. This is how the problems first come to light.
The form of the assertion taken as positive and true makes an interpretation of the λόγος easier, for reasons we shall not discuss now. This kind of approach in logic which starts with the positive true judgement is justified within certain limits, but for this very reason it gives rise to the fundamental illusion that it is only a matter of simply relating the other possible forms of assertion to this one in a supplementary fashion. I myself—at least in carrying out the interpretation