Excerpt
To clarify these issues more fully and to demonstrate how philosophical
thought became possible in the Greek world, we shall begin
our inquiry with the mythical and poetic imaginary, more specifically
with Hesiod, Homer, and Ovid9.
Hesiod tells us that in the beginning there was Chaos. It was eternal,
without end, and immersed in darkness. From this primordial
indeterminacy the world and the immortal gods came into being,
together with the Mother Goddess, Gaia, the Earth. Upon the body
of this mighty and boundless goddess everything that lives is born,
while in her depths, as far beneath her as the radiant heavens are
above, lies Tartarus, enveloped in eternal darkness. From Chaos, the
source of life, Love–Eros–is born, the power that binds together and
animates all things. Thus the world comes into being.
The same boundless Chaos gives birth to eternal Darkness, which
the Greeks called Erebus, and to black Night, Nyx. From Night and
Darkness are born everlasting Light–Aether–and Day, Hemera.
Thus night and day succeed one another. Mighty and infinite Gaia
brought forth the boundless Sky, Uranus, who spread himself over
the Earth. Gaia also gave birth, of herself alone, to the Mountains,
the Sea, and everything that has no father.
It is worth noting that, unlike other ancient civilisations, the
poietic Imaginative of the Greeks conceives the birth of the world
as a creation ex nihilo, out of Chaos, rather than as an act of will
performed by a supreme anthropomorphic being, as is the case in
the majority of creation myths found among the peoples of the East.
