Mantas Adomėnas

Vilnius University / Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology

Mantas Adomėnas is an Associate Professor at the Classics Department of Vilnius University and Secretary General of the Community of Democracies. Previously, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge (2000-2004), Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania (2021-2023) and Member of Parliament of Lithuania (2008-2020). He has translated into Lithuanian with an introduction and commentary the fragments of Heraclitus (Aidai, 1995) and published papers on Heraclitus and Plato in OSAP, Phronesis and elsewhere.

Abstract

ΚΟΣΜΟΣ ΕΠΕΩΝ: World as a Text in Presocratic Philosophy

This paper examines the Presocratic conception of the cosmos as a “text,” wherein the structures of reality and discourse are inherently parallel, reflecting a deep commensurability between being, thought, and language. Focusing first on Heraclitus, the study argues that his logos should be understood not only as discourse but also as a textualized model of reality, in which the grammar of opposites and their unification mirrors both linguistic and ontological structures. Turning to Parmenides, the analysis highlights his diagnosis of humanity’s epistemological “original sin”: the linguistic imposition of dual forms, which generated doxastic cosmology and distorted access to being. The paper then considers Democritus, whose analogy between atoms and letters extends the textual paradigm, situating atomic theory within a grammatological framework that emphasizes combinatory structures and the possibility of a language of reality. The study concludes by tracing two corollaries: Gorgias’ negation of the Presocratic identification of language and being, and the etymological section of the Cratylus, which is rooted in Presocratic antecedents. By bringing these strands together, the paper situates Presocratic thought as an early reflection on the isomorphism of world and text, anticipating later philosophical debates on the relationship between ontology, epistemology, and language.