Arche

The other fundamental concept of the Milesians is the term arche. It means beginning; principle; original substance; in German, urstoff, ruling element. In alchemy the term arche was translated as prima materia or first matter.

Edinger establishes arche as the foundational Milesian concept, directly homologizing it with the alchemical prima materia and tracing its lexical progeny through archetype, archeology, and terms of governance.

Edinger, Edward F, The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One Early Greek Philosophy thesis

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“tau de apeirou auk estin arche: eie gar an autou peras, there is no arche to the apeiron, for that would be its limit…. That is why it has no arche, but is the arche of other things; it envelops and governs everything.”

Vernant reconstructs the Anaximandrian and Melissan argument that the apeiron transcends arche precisely because arche implies limit, yet simultaneously functions as arche for all other beings — making the concept logically self-exceeding.

Vernant, Jean-Pierre, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, 1983thesis

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Anaximander, in contrast, declares that there was nothing that was arche with respect to the apeiron (since that had always existed), but that the apeiron was arche for all the rest — that it encompassed (periechein) and governed (kybernan) everything.

Vernant clarifies Anaximander’s cosmological innovation: by attributing arche to the apeiron alone, he severs the concept from mythic sovereignty and repositions it as a structural-philosophical principle of encompassing governance.

Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought, 1982thesis

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In this discussion the term archai, first principles or starting points, occurs in various senses. Plato says that it is not fire or water or the four elements that are the true archai. There are two: Nous and Ananke, Reason and Necessity.

Hillman marshals the Platonic distinction between material candidates for arche and the true archai — Nous and Ananke — to argue that necessity as errant, irrational cause is irreducible to rational first principle.

Hillman, James, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis

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Analysis attempts to bring about a renewal of the individual’s psychology. It follows then that the most profound and the most satisfying and enduring renewal in the analytic process needs to be deeply rooted in the best spiritual tradition that the individual is a part of.

Edinger contextualizes the philosophical recovery of arche within analytic practice, arguing that conscious relation to foundational historical-spiritual origins transforms rather than merely informs the individual’s psychology.

Edinger, Edward F., The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus, 1999supporting

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Physis is still a living entity in our evolving language. The products of the unconscious are pure nature… nature is not, in herself, a guide… the ego is not a piece of nature. It is, in fact, contra naturam to a very large extent.

Edinger juxtaposes physis with the implicit framework of arche, underscoring that the ego’s conscious correction of natural process is the precondition for using foundational principles as psychological guides.

Edinger, Edward F., The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus, 1999supporting

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archai, Gnostic, 22; archaic: God-image, 345; residues in dreams, 347

An index entry in Jung’s Alchemical Studies links Gnostic archai to archaic residues in dreams and God-images, registering the term’s operative presence in the alchemical-psychological lexicon without extended analysis.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, 1967aside

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These Greek words, Arendt observes, originally had to do with ‘beginning,’ with setting something into motion, as well as with leading; while the complementary verb prattein originally referred to the achievement or completion of a course of action.

Via Arendt, the passage recovers the political-phenomenological dimension of archein — beginning and leading as inseparable — illuminating arche’s dual valence of origination and authority that depth psychology inherits.

Hannah, Barbara, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981aside

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