Teleology timeline

BCE

Pre-history – Animists believe that spiritual forces inhabit the physical world and animate living organisms
2375 – The Egyptian Old Kingdom societies believe in opposing universal forces, Ma’at as Order and Isfet as Chaos
624-469 – Pre-Socratic natural scientists seek the source of order in the world in the fundamental elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water
570-495 – Pythagoras refers to the ordered universe as Kosmos
500-428 – Anaxagorus teaches that the world is the product of an intelligent principle he calls Nous
470-399 – Socrates argues for the existence of God based on the self-evident presence of design, the Argument from Design
460-370 – Democritus claims that the world is composed of indivisible atoms and that these have, by chance alone, combined to form the physical objects of the world
410 – 370 – Hippocrates, founding father of medicine, teaches that the human body is animated by an inhabiting vital force
428-348 – Plato maintains that the order we see in the world is a consequence of an ‘ordering principle’ created by a God-like Demiurge

—

First published on the internet – 1 March 2019