Concept
Chaos (cosmogony)
Overview
In the context of religious cosmogony, Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) refers to the division of reality outside or in contrast to the ordered cosmos. As such it refers to a state, place, or time beyond the known, familiar, and reliable world, often said to be inhabited by strange, ominous, or demonic beings.
According to the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in early Greek cosmology, Chaos was the first being to exist.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Chaos (cosmogony) is discussed.
The Anaxagorean chaos is not an immediately evident conception; in order to grasp it one must have understood the conception which our philosopher had with respect to the so-called "Becoming." For in itself the state of all heterogeneous "Elementary-existences" before all motion would by no means necessarily result in an absolute mixture of all "seeds of things," as the expression of Anaxagoras runs, an…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays Collected Works, Volume Two
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
In both cases we find ideas of terrible demons. Sometimes these demons are said to remain on the earth, as beings of a very ancient time anteceding the creation--examples are Night and Darkness, described in Greek mythology as the children of Chaos. Other myths represent the demons as having been overcome by the world-creating god.
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
states what it is; names the idea
All these bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. And since this was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to be…
Plato, Timaeus
states what it is; author linked in the graph
10), are taken from the translation of the Sanchuniathon from Phœnician into Greek made by a Grammarian named Philo from Biblus. Philo lived in the time of Vespasian and ascribes great antiquity to the Sanchuniathon. It is there said, “The principles of things are found in Chaos, in which the elements exist undeveloped and confused, and in a Spirit of Air. The latter permeated the chaos, and with it engendered a…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
names the idea
In order to explain it let us consider for a moment what is called the reign of law. People often speak as though it were a remarkable fact that the physical world is subject to invariable laws.
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
states what it is; opens on it; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Chaos (cosmogony)
Related ideas
- Aristophanes
- Marvin Meyer
- Monad (Gnosticism)
- Genesis creation narrative
- Renaissance magic
- Anaximander
- Aphrodite
- Gnosticism
- Gospel of Luke
- Book of Genesis
- Hesiod
- Heraclitus
- Heaven
- Orphism
- Paracelsus
- Mircea Eliade
- Immortality
- Creatio ex nihilo
- Gas
- Xenophanes
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Plato
- Apeiron
- Pre-Socratic philosophy
Place in the tradition
Part of Anaximander.