Limits of Thought in the Light of Nature and Divinity. A Return to Ancient Thought or the Quest for the Being of Primordial Thinking in the Later Heidegger

by Viktor Okorokov^1
1 Oles Gonchar Dnipro National University (Dnipro, Ukraine)
DOI: http://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/20/17
Received: 29 September 2017 / Accepted: 20 November 2017 / Published: 30 January 2018

Question about the essence of thought itself may be formulated in two ways: is it a manifestation of the existential presence or a habit to considerate a Universe as a representation of its rational core? Among various methods of inquiry of essential nature of thought, I would emphasize a Martin Heidegger’s approach, which was represented in his late papers. I mean, widely accepted in oriental culture but almost forgotten in European intellectual tradition approach which considers thought as luminous and light-bearing logos – the fundamental origin and principle of the Universe. The problem of logos appearance in primordial chaos and discovery of the thought origins, on Heidegger’s opinion, becomes the crucial matter of his “fundamental ontology”. Heidegger is confident that the problem of transformation of primordial chaos into well-ordered (by “logos”) Universe was the most significant topic which the ancient philosophers (Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides) were focused on. My research, represented in this article, discovers European philosopher’s acceptation and reception of the ancient interpretation of primordial thought as a “divine light.” My conclusion is that all classical European philosophical ontological theories (since the first philosophers to Plato, Aristotle, post-Aristotelian thinkers, and to the contemporary philosophers) may be considered as the different varieties of interpretation of the primordial (given by gods) luminous thinking itself and became a simulation of the primordial nature of thought. Another conclusion is, that origins of mentioned above ancient philosophical inquiries on the divine-light essence of primordial thinking, may be found in earlier, than Heidegger thinks, texts composed by Homer, Hesiod, and perhaps even in the religious philosophical texts of the Orient heritage (India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and other ancient states), created before the sixth century BC.
Keywords: primordial thinking, return mechanism of thinking, life, Logos, nature, topos, light of mind, primordial source, beginning of thinking, divine life, Heidegger, Parmenides, Heraclitus.

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Okorokov, Viktor (2018) Limits of Thought in the Light of Nature and Divinity. A Return to Ancient Thought or the Quest for the Being of Primordial Thinking in the Later Heidegger. Philosophy and Cosmology, Volume 20, 170-184. http://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/20/17