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26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature

[everything existing in known reality]

34 ideas
'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles]
     Full Idea: Nature is but a word of human framing.
     From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1015a
If there are many things they must have a finite number, but there must be endless things between them [Zeno of Elea]
     Full Idea: It things are many, they can't be more or less than they are, so they must be finite, but also there must be endless things between each thing, so they must be infinite.
     From: Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B3), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 140.29
The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: This changing cosmos was made because its maker is good, and therefore lacks envy; he therefore wished all things to be as like himself as possible.
     From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 29e)
The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique [Plato]
     Full Idea: So that our universe can resemble the perfect living creature in being unique, the universe was, is and will continue to be its maker's only creation.
     From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 31c)
Nature does nothing in vain [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Nature does nothing in vain.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 434a29)
Why are some things destructible and others not? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: A basic principle of things has to explain why some things are destructible and others are not.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075b15)
'Nature' refers to two things - form and matter [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: 'Nature' refers to two things - that is, both to form and to matter.
     From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 194a12)
     A reaction: The 'New Essentialism' (e.g. book by Brian Ellis) seems to imply that matter is basic, and that form is the result of the essence of matter. They seem to have parted company with Aristotle. Does he think matter is created on Thursday, and form on Friday?
Nature is a principle of change, so we must understand change first [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Nature is the subject of our enquiry, and nature is a principle of change, so if we do not understand the process of change, we will not understand nature either.
     From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 200b12)
     A reaction: This is a very distinctively Greek attitude which doesn't seem to concern us much, but perhaps it should. Movement is just as fundamental as forces, particles and the rest that physicist talk about. Why do particles respond to forces?
Nothing natural is disorderly, because nature is responsible for all order [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Nothing natural - nothing due to nature - is disorderly, because in all things nature is responsible for order.
     From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 252a11)
     A reaction: This sounds dangerously tautological. What is responsible for disorder? If a forest is smashed up by an earthquake, 'order' doesn't sound like a good description of the result. It is certainly no more orderly than if people smash the forest.
Stoic 'nature' is deterministic, physical and teleological [Stoic school, by Annas]
     Full Idea: 'The nature of things' matters for the Stoics because they hold strong theses about the way things are: they are determinists, physicalists, teleologists.
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.5
Nature runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods [Lucretius]
     Full Idea: Nature is free and uncontrolled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods.
     From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.1094)
     A reaction: A nice remark. This apparent personification of nature implies the application of laws to an essentially passive reality. See Idea 5442 and Nature|Laws of Nature|Essentialism for a different view.
Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero]
     Full Idea: Some regard nature as an irrational force which merely imparts a mechanical motion to material bodies.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.81)
Unified real existence is neither great nor small, though greatness and smallness participate in it [Porphyry]
     Full Idea: By its identity and numerical unity, real existence is neither great nor small, neither very large nor very small, though it causes even greatest and smallest to participate in its nature.
     From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 37(5))
     A reaction: Note the platonic word 'participate' [metechein], suggesting that he is talking about the Form of Existence here. Note also that we have 'real' existence here, implying a lesser type of existence that participates in it.
Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes]
     Full Idea: I do not accept or desire any other principle in physics than in geometry or abstract mathematics, because all the phenomena of nature may be explained by their means, and sure demonstrations can be given of them.
     From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.64), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 7
     A reaction: This is his famous and rather extreme view, which might be described as hyper-pythagoreanism (by adding geometry to numbers). It seems to leave out matter, forces and activity.
Nature is devoid of thought [Descartes, by Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: It is Descartes who ratifies the idea that nature is devoid of thought.
     From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 5
     A reaction: His dualism is crucial, along with his ontological argument, because they make all mentality supernatural. Remember, for Descartes animals are mindless machines.
We can easily think of nature as one individual [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: We may easily conceive the whole of nature to be one individual.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Lem 7)
We are so far from understanding the workings of natural bodies that it is pointless to even try [Locke]
     Full Idea: As to a perfect science of natural bodies (not to mention spiritual beings) we are, I think, so far from being capable of any such thing, that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it.
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.28)
     A reaction: It seems to me that Locke has an excellent grasp of the nature of science, except for his extraordinary and misjudged pessimism about what it might achieve.
The principle of determination in things obtains the greatest effect with the least effort [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: There is always in things a principle of determination which is based on consideration of maximum and minimum, such that the greatest effect is obtained with the least, so to speak, expenditure.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697], p.347)
     A reaction: This is obvious in human endeavours. Leibniz applied it to physics, producing a principle that shortest paths are always employed. It has a different formal name in modern physics, I think. He says if you make an unrestricted triangle, it is equilateral.
The Critique of Judgement aims for a principle that unities humanity and nature [Kant, by Bowie]
     Full Idea: The Critique of Judgement aims to show how judgement functions 'according to the principle of the appropriateness of nature to our capacity for cognition'. It is meant to provide a principle of the unity of humankind and nature.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1
     A reaction: Hence this work is often overlooked as a key part of Kant's 'system'. At first he probably didn't realise he was creating a system. Kant set an agenda for the philosophy of the ensuing thirty years.
Kant identifies nature with the scientific picture of it as the realm of law [Kant, by McDowell]
     Full Idea: For Kant the idea of nature is the idea of the realm of law, the idea that came into focus with the rise of modern science.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by John McDowell - Mind and World V.4
     A reaction: Any doubts about the existence of laws of nature (e.g. Ideas 5470, 6781, 5474) would pull the mat out from under this view. I am inclined to view nature as the realm of natural kinds, which give rise to the regularities we call 'laws'.
Kant's nature is just a system of necessary laws [Bowie on Kant]
     Full Idea: In the first Critique, nature is just a system of necessary laws.
     From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1
     A reaction: This seems to have provoked rebellion in Schiller and the early Romantics, and Kant tried to add teleology to his picture of nature. Leibniz saw nature as dimly alive, and Schiller focused on organisms. Biology is not very lawlike.
Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham]
     Full Idea: Unnatural, when it means anything, means unfrequent.
     From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], II.14 n8.9)
Nature is a whole, and its individual parts cannot be wholly understood [Novalis]
     Full Idea: Nature is a whole - in which each part in itself can never be wholly understood.
     From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 18)
     A reaction: This doesn't seem right when studying some item in a laboratory, but it seems undeniable when you consider the history and future of each item.
Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte]
     Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death.
     From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190
     A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature.
Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Nature is an interconnected whole; …you could shift no grain of sand from its spot without thereby, perhaps invisibly to your eyes, changing something in all parts of the immeasurable whole.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: Sounds like idealist daydreaming, but might it actually be true with respect to gravity?
When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural [Hegel]
     Full Idea: When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]), quoted by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.4
     A reaction: Sounds good, though I'm not sure what it means. The application of the word 'natural' seems a bit arbitrary to me. No objective joint exists between the natural and unnatural. The default position has to be that everything is natural.
Schelling sought a union between the productivities of nature and of the mind [Schelling, by Bowie]
     Full Idea: Schelling's philosophy of nature aims to connect nature's 'unconscious productivity' with the mind's 'conscious productivity'.
     From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3
     A reaction: If you have a fairly active view of nature (as Leibniz did), then this is a promising line. I like the unpopular view that the modern idea of spontaneous 'powers' in nature is applicable to explanations of mind.
Schelling made organisms central to nature, because mere mechanism could never produce them [Schelling, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Schelling made the image of the 'organism' central to his conception of nature, arguing that merely mechanical processes could never produce 'life' (as a self-producing, self-sustaining, self-directing process).
     From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 08
     A reaction: At that date this seems a reasonable claim, but subsequent biochemistry has undermined it.
The essence of nature is the will to life itself [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: The essence of nature is the will to life itself.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.60)
     A reaction: How would he have responded to Darwin? The will to life is the product, there, of a different and more remote force, such as the 'energy' of the physicist (whatever that is!).
If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman]
     Full Idea: If there is but one world, it embraces a multiplicity of contrasting aspects; if there are many worlds, the collection of them all is one. One world may be taken as many, or many worlds taken as one; whether one or many depends on the way of taking.
     From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2)
     A reaction: He cites 'The Pluralistic Universe' by William James for this idea. The idea is that the distinction 'evaporates under analysis'. Parmenides seems to have thought that no features could be distinguished in the true One.
The concept of physical necessity is basic to both causation, and to the concept of nature [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: It is generally agreed, I think, that the concept of physical necessity, or a law of nature, is fundamental to the theory of causation and, more generally, to the concept of nature.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], 2.3)
     A reaction: This seems intuitively right, but we might be able to formulate a concept of nature that had a bit less necessity in it, especially if we read a few books on quantum theory first.
I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: I myself would prefer to speak of what is fundamental in terms of the whole spatiotemporal manifold and the fields that permeate it, with parts counting as derivative of the whole.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.1.1)
     A reaction: Not quite the Parmenidean One, since it has parts, but a nice try at updating the great man. Note the reference to 'fields', suggesting that this view is grounded in the physics rather than metaphysics. How many fields has it got?
Greek philosophers invented the concept of 'nature' as their special subject [Watson]
     Full Idea: Greek philosophers may have invented the concept of 'nature' to underline their superiority over poets and religious leaders.
     From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06)
     A reaction: Brilliant. They certainly wrote a lot of books entitled 'Peri Physis' (Concerning Nature), and it was the target of their expertise. A highly significant development, along with their rational methods. Presumably Socrates extends nature to include ethics.
Aristotelian physics has circular celestial motion and linear earthly motion [Gorham]
     Full Idea: Aristotelian physics assumed that celestial motion is naturally circular and eternal while terrestrial motion is naturally toward the center of the earth and final.
     From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4)
     A reaction: The overthrow of this by Galileo and then Newton may have been the most dramatic revolution of the new science. It opened up the possibility of universal laws of physics.