- published: 07 Jul 2015
- views: 103362
Arche (ἀρχή) is a Greek word with primary senses 'beginning', 'origin' or 'first cause' and 'power', 'sovereignty', 'domination' as extended meanings. This list is extended to 'ultimate underlying substance' and 'ultimate undemonstrable principle'. In the language of the archaic period (8th-6th century BC) arche (or archai) designates the source, origin or root of things that exist. If a thing is to be well established or founded, its arche or starting point must be secure, and the most secure foundations are those provided by the gods-the indestructible, immutable and eternal ordering of things. In ancient Greek Philosophy, Aristotle foregrounded the meaning of arche as the element or principle of a thing, which although undemonstrable and intangible in itself, provides the conditions of the possibility of that thing.
In the mythical Greek cosmogony of Hesiod (8th-7th century BC) the origin (arche) of the world is Chaos, an unlimited (formless) void considered as a divine primordial condition, from which everything else appeared. This is described as a large gap without bottom (yawning abyss) where are the roots and the ends of the earth, sky, sea and Tartarus. In the Orphic cosmogony the unageing Chronos produced Aether and Chaos and made in divine Aether a silvery egg, from which everything else appeared.