It’s a grammatical one, not a philosophical one. And, now that I think of it, it’s also one with a definite answer.
If you waved a magic wand and had a chicken come out of a leathery egg lay by a lizard, a watery egg lay by a fish, or the sort of large egg an oatrich usually comes from, we wouldn’t call any of those a “chicken egg”
And, conversely, if by super-advanced genetic engineering we made chickens who lay eggs with bacon or cheese or just all whites, we’d call those eggs “chicken eggs” when we talk about the shells themselves and not the contents therein.
So the chicken came first. And the first chickens hatched from the eggs of some other bird.
It’s a grammatical one, not a philosophical one. And, now that I think of it, it’s also one with a definite answer.
If you waved a magic wand and had a chicken come out of a leathery egg lay by a lizard, a watery egg lay by a fish, or the sort of large egg an oatrich usually comes from, we wouldn’t call any of those a “chicken egg”
And, conversely, if by super-advanced genetic engineering we made chickens who lay eggs with bacon or cheese or just all whites, we’d call those eggs “chicken eggs” when we talk about the shells themselves and not the contents therein.
So the chicken came first. And the first chickens hatched from the eggs of some other bird.
What if a lizard laid a hard egg with a chicken inside?
It’s actually more of a theological discussion.