Chaos and Order

The distinction between chaos and order has been central to western philosophy, both in metaphysics and politics. At the beginning, it was intrinsic to presocratic natural philosophy, and shortly after that to the cosmology and social philosophy of Plato. Even in the pre-presocratic period there were important intimations of it. Thus Hesiod tells us that ‘first of all did Chaos come into being’ (Theogony, line 116, in Kirk et al., 1983, p. 35)—although exactly what is meant by ‘chaos’ in this context is not clear. (It could be some sort of undifferentiated, primordial mass, or just the separation (the gap) between earth and sky (Kirk et al., 1983, pp. 38–41). Nor does Hesiod concern himself with what Chaos came from (Barnes, 1987, p. 57).) The myth of origin in the Theogony, though, can be seen in contrast to the underlying theme of Works and Days, namely, Zeus's eternal rule over the world in accordance with Justice or Order (Kirk et al., 1983, pp. 34, 72). This point will become centrally important in what follows.

What distinguishes the presocratics from their predecessors, according to the modern commentators, is that the ideas of the former depend on and exemplify a definite shift from a mythopoeic to a rationalistic, philosophical, proto-scientific mode of thought.