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Single Idea 1740
[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
]
Full Idea
Nature does nothing in vain.
Clarification
'Nature' is the Greek word 'physis'
Gist of Idea
Nature does nothing in vain
Source
Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 434a31)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'De Anima (On the Soul)', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,H.C. [Penguin 1986], p.218
The
34 ideas
with the same theme
[everything existing in known reality]:
589
|
'Nature' is just a word invented by people
[Empedocles]
|
454
|
If there are many things they must have a finite number, but there must be endless things between them
[Zeno of Elea]
|
310
|
The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible
[Plato]
|
311
|
The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique
[Plato]
|
1740
|
Nature does nothing in vain
[Aristotle]
|
632
|
Why are some things destructible and others not?
[Aristotle]
|
5085
|
'Nature' refers to two things - form and matter
[Aristotle]
|
5092
|
Nature is a principle of change, so we must understand change first
[Aristotle]
|
5113
|
Nothing natural is disorderly, because nature is responsible for all order
[Aristotle]
|
3556
|
Stoic 'nature' is deterministic, physical and teleological
[Stoic school, by Annas]
|
5716
|
Nature runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods
[Lucretius]
|
2652
|
Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement
[Cicero]
|
18456
|
Unified real existence is neither great nor small, though greatness and smallness participate in it
[Porphyry]
|
15987
|
Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything
[Descartes]
|
19676
|
Nature is devoid of thought
[Descartes, by Meillassoux]
|
17190
|
We can easily think of nature as one individual
[Spinoza]
|
15997
|
We are so far from understanding the workings of natural bodies that it is pointless to even try
[Locke]
|
19429
|
The principle of determination in things obtains the greatest effect with the least effort
[Leibniz]
|
22053
|
The Critique of Judgement aims for a principle that unities humanity and nature
[Kant, by Bowie]
|
8256
|
Kant identifies nature with the scientific picture of it as the realm of law
[Kant, by McDowell]
|
22052
|
Kant's nature is just a system of necessary laws
[Bowie on Kant]
|
3779
|
Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent
[Bentham]
|
19595
|
Nature is a whole, and its individual parts cannot be wholly understood
[Novalis]
|
22065
|
Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility
[Schlegel,F on Fichte]
|
23229
|
Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything
[Fichte]
|
4347
|
When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural
[Hegel]
|
22057
|
Schelling sought a union between the productivities of nature and of the mind
[Schelling, by Bowie]
|
22031
|
Schelling made organisms central to nature, because mere mechanism could never produce them
[Schelling, by Pinkard]
|
4179
|
The essence of nature is the will to life itself
[Schopenhauer]
|
17649
|
If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one
[Goodman]
|
15822
|
The concept of physical necessity is basic to both causation, and to the concept of nature
[Chisholm]
|
17305
|
I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields
[Schaffer,J]
|
7478
|
Greek philosophers invented the concept of 'nature' as their special subject
[Watson]
|
22198
|
Aristotelian physics has circular celestial motion and linear earthly motion
[Gorham]
|