Philosophical Writings

Author(s): Hemant Shah
Publisher: Academy of Philosophy

Page 39

Philosophical Writings
With the hypothesis that the concept of Logos, as seen in ancient (pre-Socratic) Greek philosophy, has parallels in Eastern religious and philosophic thought as well as in modern science, I shall, for clarity and simplicity, examine Logos, as discussed in philosophy, in religion, and in science, in separate sections of my paper. 2. Logos in Philosophy
2.1 The inquisitiveness to know the world is bound to be as old as mankind is. The earliest, pre-rational or irrational mythical explanations of the world led to many unsolved problems and to dissatisfaction. With the development of reason, new forms of explanations emerged: “generalizable and systematic rather than ad hoc, naturalistic rather than having recourse to supernatural gods and powers, and backed by arguments open to inspection instead of assertions based on authority or mere durability.”! In light of this emergence of a strong desire for a rational explanation of the perplexing problems, the meaning and theory of Logos, perhaps for the first time, is discussed, by the pre-Socratic philosophers "who were ‘Phusikof (from which comes the world physics), the speculators on the working of nature." The concerns of ancient Greek philosophy centered on various philosophical problems, one of which was under the heading of permanence and change. In order to have an overall and ultimate explanation for the world, the search for something 'stable behind the restless world', something that 'binds the plurality of objects and diversity into one permanent unified cosmos was a necessity. The Greek word 'Kosmos' (from which we derive cosmos)implies a universe which is ordered and beautiful in arrangement, and therefore in principle capable of explanation. With this introductory remark let us deal with the meaning concept and theory of Logos in philosophy, specially in Greek philosophy.
2.2. Logos -the Term: Logos is one of the main concepts of Greek-philosophy - "a term whose original meaning was universal law.”+. “Logos in Greek and Hebrew means Metaphysics, the