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An originology is an analysis of discourses on origins, whatever the particular theme of the discourse can be (origin of the Universe, of life, of man, etc.).

The discourses on origins are multiple and extremely varied. This situation seems to defy any overview, as each discourse on origin has its own characteristics, its particularities. However, a deeper attention, supported by both historical and structural analysis, allows to identify a certain number of features that, in turn, allow us to construct a typology of discourses on origins. This is the purpose of an originology. In order to establish such a typology, it is first necessary to define a general structural characteristic: a discourse on origins is ascending if it starts from simple entities to account for more complex entities, in other words if it presents itself as a narrative of successive emergences. A discourse on origins is descending if it postulates a transcendental entity (whatever its nature) to account for entities that are simpler than it.

Once the notion of upward and downward discourse on origin has been established, four main types of discourse can be identified: mythical, rational, scientific and phenomenological discourse.

The discourses on origins

Mythical discourses

Mythical discourses on origin can be found in mythical narratives (the biblical Genesis, the [[Theogony (Hesiod)] of Hesiod, etc.). These are discourses that can be characterised as 'descending' in the sense that they imply a creative entity or an intention from which created things arise.

Rational discourse

Rational discourses on origins appear at the same time as philosophy, with Thales affirming that everything comes from water, thus proposing an ascending discourse on origins, which starts from the simplest to explain composed things. Aristotle presents Thales as the first philosopher. But already with Anaximander, a disciple of Thales, the discourse on origin becomes more complex. According to Anaximandre, everything that is has its origin not in water but in an abstract entity that he calls the apeiron (and that can be translated by the "unlimited", the "infinite", the "unbounded" - a, privative; peiron, the limit). Heidegger claimed that Anaximandre was the first philosopher because he felt the impossibility in principle of attributing to any being (water or any other being) the role of an originating entity . It is a discourse that is neither simply 'descending' nor simply 'ascending', but which is both ascending and descending. In the history of philosophy that follows, rational discourses will share this characteristic. The Aristotelian discourse is one of the best illustrations of this. Things are presented there as having four causes, three of which are ascending (formal, material and efficient causes) and one is descending (the final cause), this last one being considered as more important than the others by Aristotle. Numerous discourses on origins will be elaborated throughout the history of philosophy, in antiquity as well as in modern times, which will possess this structure, both ascending and descending. This is still the case with Kant. Indeed, the first of the antinomies of pure reason, which according to Kant constitutes the starting point of the theses presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, concerns the origin of what is and shows that between the two propositions 'the world has had a beginning' and the opposite thesis 'the world has not had a beginning', reason cannot decide . In other words, Kant shows that the ascending and descending discourses on origin are rationally legitimate although incompatible. Auguste Comte will conclude, for his part, that science must proscribe all discourse on origin because, he will explain, there is no science except what on what is repeatable. The origin being, by definition, what has taken place only once, cannot, according to him, give rise to a science.

Scientific discourses

Scientific discourses on origins appear with Darwin's book, The origin of species, in 1959, two years after [[Auguste Comte]'s death.] Thereafter, the discourses of origin of the scientific type will concern an increasingly large number of fields to the point of including virtually all the fields on which science has been able to develop discourses (origin of the Universe, origin of atoms, origin of planets, etc.). Scientific discourses on origins have the particularity of being exclusively "ascending" (they range from the simplest to the most complicated; in other words, they explain the most complicated entities on the basis of the properties of entities simpler than themselves). A discourse on origins that is not strictly "ascending" is immediately challenged as being not scientific, as it has been seen when theses such as the "[anthropic principle]" or the "[intelligent design]" have attempted to claim the status of scientific discourse. The concept of [emergence] expresses the requirement of an upward character for any explanation that intends to present itself as scientific. Emergence is thus the key notion that identifies scientific discourses on origins.

Phenomenological discourses

Phenomenological discourses on origins appear with Husserl then Heidegger, both of whom insist on the originary character of phenomenology. Phenomenological discourses have the peculiarity of taking their point of departure in consciousness (for Husserl) or in the 'Dasein' (for Heidegger), i.e. to be neither ascending nor descending (they do not start from a simpler entity to explain a more complex entity by one or by a series of emerging phenomena, such as scientific discourses ; nor do they start from a complex entity to explain the simpler one, like mythical discourses; nor do they combine the two types of explanation, like rational discourses on origins).

Consequences of the historical-structural analysis

Historical-structural analysis thus makes it possible to claim that these four major types of discourses are the only possible ones. Indeed, a discourse on origins is necessarily either ascending or descending, or both or neither, because one cannot see how it could fail to fall into one of these four categories.

The conclusions of the historical-structural analysis of the discourses on origins can be contrasted with the theses of Auguste Comte who, with his law of three stages, distinguished three ages of intelligence which he called religious (or concrete), metaphysical (or abstract), scientific (or positive). Under these names, one can find the characteristics of mythical, rational and scientific discourse. Historical-structural analysis thus introduces two important innovations: 1) there are no longer three but four types of discourse and, above all, 2) it is no longer possible to establish a hierarchy between discourses because they follow one another in a circular structure: phenomenological discourses, while following scientific discourses also legitimates mythical discourses on origins. The central thesis of Auguste Comte, who intended to establish a hierarchy of systems of thought, is therefore invalidated.

Conversely, the conclusions of the historical-structural analysis of the discourses on origins are to be compared with the thesis proposed by Philippe Descola in 'Beyond nature and culture', which leads him to define four ontologies: totemic, analogical, naturalistic and animist. It is possible to show that this correspondence is not fortuitous but that it stems, on the contrary, from analogous premises that bring Descola's typology of ontologies closer to an originology, as [[Pascal Nouvel]] did in his book four ways to construct narratives on origins.

In a secularised culture, descending discourses are devalued because of the opacity surrounding the notion of a transcendental entity that would order what is. As a result, in such cultures, scientific and phenomenological discourses, which do not involve a descending explanation, remain alone at the heart of philosophical discussions. The fact that philosophical debate in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries focused on the articulation between scientific and phenomenological discourses, returning mythical and rational discourses to the realm of the history of ideas, is one of the effects of secularisation. Thus, historical-structural originology makes it possible to account for the content of contemporary philosophical debates and their articulation with those that preceded them.