2 Philosophical Abstraction: Logos and the Codification of Possibility

With the emergence of Greek philosophy, the cosmos ceased to be construed primarily through mythic genealogy and narrative drama. Instead, logos—reasoned discourse—became the mode by which possibility was structured, codified, and systematised. Where myth bound potential to symbolic actors and genealogical forces, philosophy abstracted these dynamics into principles, proportions, and relational logics. The horizon of construal shifted from story to structure.

In early fragments such as those of Heraclitus, possibility is figured not as the caprice of divine beings but as the flux of oppositions held in tension. Panta rhei—all things flow—construes potential as an ever-unfolding process of transformation, where order arises through the dynamic balancing of strife and harmony. Here, relationality is primary: the cosmos persists because of its tensions, not despite them. Heraclitus’ thought exemplifies the transition from mythic opposition (e.g., chaos and cosmos, gods and mortals) to philosophical principle, where possibility is relationally codified as the generative power of contrast and becoming.

Plato, by contrast, radicalises abstraction. In the doctrine of the Forms, possibility is no longer located in flux or narrative sequence, but in a transcendent order of pure intelligibility. The cosmos becomes the imperfect reflection of ideal structures, and potentiality is construed as participation in—or deviation from—these eternal Forms. The Timaeus presents the world as a crafted harmony, proportioned by a demiurge who aligns matter with mathematical and ideal order. Here, possibility is partitioned: the realm of becoming is subordinated to the realm of being, and construal depends on a cut between ideal essence and phenomenal appearance.

Together, these early philosophers mark a decisive reorientation of construal. Mythic genealogies give way to systems of principle; symbolic actors are replaced by categories, ratios, and logics. What can be becomes subject to reason’s codification, even as differing philosophical schools contest whether flux or form, immanence or transcendence, best accounts for the cosmos.

The shift to logos does not abolish the symbolic dimension; rather, it reorganises it into conceptual architectures. The cosmic drama becomes a metaphysical system. Possibility is no longer the unfolding of divine narratives, but the structured field disclosed by principles of order, proportion, and relational necessity. In this movement, Western thought establishes the enduring template: that possibility is not merely narrated but codified through abstraction, a construal whose legacy continues to shape philosophy, science, and symbolic systems of knowledge.