The notion of primordial chaos and the idea of flow in the Tao Te Ching as an antithesis of the anthropocentric vision of the real

Abstract

Historically, the question about the origin of the world has been one of the concerns that has most stimulated the intellectual curiosity of human intelligence. The first answers given to the problem were almost entirely inscribed in the realm of mythical thought. Consequently, some of these conceptions harbored early features of speculative thought from remote times, such as the very notion of primeval or primordial chaos. This idea refers to an ontological moment marked by indeterminacy: the form has not made an appearance because it is a state of existence before the emergence of the subject of knowledge. This essay will address the role of primal chaos in the Tao te Ching, one of the most complex philosophical works within the cultural panorama of the Far East, and the relationship with one of the most important articulating principles within philosophical Taoism: The flow's idea.