Contesting Chronos: An Exploration of Competing Ontologies of Time in Early Greek Thought

Abstract

This thesis explores the diverse ontologies of time that are evidenced in the early Greek cosmologies of Hesiod, Pherecydes of Syros, and Empedocles. Through three case studies, I argue that in order to understand the temporalities depicted in these texts, it is equally critical to subject our own pre-suppositions about the concept of time to interrogation. Normative modern Western notions of time remain overtly informed by the post-Enlightenment scientific tradition established by Newton, as well as the dominant philosophical ideas posited by Plato and Aristotle in fifth- and fourth-century Athens. Despite being nurtured in these specific cultural and conceptual environments, normative Western notions of time are often assumed by scholars to represent essential and universal properties of the world. Accordingly, temporal ideas that were explored by Greek thinkers prior to Plato are often either dismissed or rationalised according to normative Western conceptual frameworks. As I will argue, however, these texts evidence a plurality of competing notions of time and temporality in early Greek thought.

In Hesiod s 'Theogony', the poet begins with an invocation of the Muses to sing of what is, what will be, and what was before , contravening the normative linear ordering of time. Pherecydes prose cosmogony, the 'Heptamychos', commences with an eternally extant god named Chronos, challenging the metaphysical dichotomy of time and eternity that is often imposed upon pre-Platonic thought. Empedocles Cosmic Cycle has increasingly been situated by scholars within a quantified and deterministic framework of time. However, in so doing, scholars obscure the temporal parallel that Empedocles draws between mortal and cosmic lifecycles. Through a close reading of these thinkers unique grammatical and narratological depictions of time, as well as their diverse uses of cosmological imagery, I contend that their temporal ideas must be assimilated with the unique ontological contentions set forth within each cosmology. By exploring the interpretive possibilities afforded by taking these claims about time seriously, I contend that these early cosmological speculations must not be situated within a developmental narrative of Western thought, but rather explored as part of a conceptual ecology of early Greek thought.