Symbolic Ontologies of Origin: from Classical Philosophy to Modern Cosmology

This essay analyses the different forms of symbolic inscription of the origin of the universe, from classical philosophy to contemporary cosmology, in the light of the Ontology of Emerging Complexity (OEC). In Plato and Aristotle, the intelligibility of the cosmos is guaranteed by concealed subjects: silent instances that ensure order without voice or narrative agency. In the biblical narrative, this function is reorganized in the figure of God as a fully functional subject: the word creates, legislates, and intervenes, fulfilling in full the criteria of subjectivity defined by the OEC. In modern science, intelligibility no longer derives from a single voice, but from a plural, collective, and distributed subject, constituted by networks of researchers, technical apparatuses, and mathematical languages. In all cases, what is at stake is not the direct description of the absolute origin of the universe, but its symbolic reinscription according to the operative grammars of each epoch. The OEC provides the conceptual framework to understand this transformed continuity: the history of thought on origin is not a succession of definitive essences, but a series of symbolic reorganisations that render the enigma of beginning habitable