Nature (philosophy)

How to understand the meaning and significance of nature has been a consistent theme of discussion within the history of Western Civilization, in the philosophical fields of metaphysics and epistemology, as well as in theology and science.

In Physics II.1, Aristotle defines a nature as "a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily".

Natural things stand in contrast to artifacts, which are formed by human artifice, not because of an innate tendency.

Science, according to Strauss' commentary of Western history is the contemplation of nature, while technology was or is an attempt to imitate it.

Whether it was intended or not, Aristotle's inquiries into this subject were long felt to have resolved the discussion about nature in favor of one solution.

To describe it another way, Aristotle treated organisms and other natural wholes as existing at a higher level than mere matter in motion.

[11] Ajñana was a Śramaṇa school of radical Indian skepticism and a rival of early Buddhism and Jainism.

c. 800), author of the skeptical work entitled Tattvopaplavasiṃha ("The Lion that Devours All Categories"/"The Upsetting of All Principles"), has been seen as an important Ajñana philosopher.

[16] The first book of Yoga Vasistha, attributed to Valmiki, presents Rama's frustration with the nature of life, human suffering and disdain for the world.

It debated not only "how does man ever learn or know, whatever he knows", but also whether the nature of all knowledge is inherently circular, whether those such as foundationalists who critique the validity of any "justified beliefs" and knowledge system make flawed presumptions of the very premises they critique, and how to correctly interpret and avoid incorrectly interpreting dharma texts such as the Vedas.

[21] Because ignorance to the true nature of things is considered one of the roots of suffering, Buddhist thinkers concerned themselves with philosophical questions related to epistemology and the use of reason.

[22] Dukkha can be translated as "incapable of satisfying,"[23] "the unsatisfactory nature and the general insecurity of all conditioned phenomena"; or "painful.

This overcoming includes awakening to impermanence and the non-self nature of reality,[26][27] and this develops dispassion for the objects of clinging, and liberates a being from dukkha and saṃsāra.

[37] Feuchtwang explains that the difference between Confucianism and Taoism primarily lies in the fact that the former focuses on the realisation of the starry order of Heaven in human society, while the latter on the contemplation of the Dao which spontaneously arises in nature.

[37] In contrast, Modern Science took its distinctive turn with Francis Bacon, who rejected the four distinct causes, and saw Aristotle as someone who "did proceed in such a spirit of difference and contradiction towards all antiquity: undertaking not only to frame new words of science at pleasure, but to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom".

He felt that lesser known Greek philosophers such as Democritus "who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things", have been arrogantly dismissed because of Aristotelianism leading to a situation in his time wherein "the search of the physical causes hath been neglected, and passed in silence".

This part of metaphysique I do not find laboured and performed...In his Novum Organum Bacon argued that the only forms or natures we should hypothesize are the "simple" (as opposed to compound) ones such as the ways in which heat, movement, etc.

The above-mentioned difference between accidental and substantial properties, and indeed knowledge and opinion, also disappear within this new approach that aimed to avoid metaphysics.

[39] In contrast, roughly contemporary with Bacon, Hugo Grotius described the law of nature as "a rule that [can] be deduced from fixed principles by a sure process of reasoning".

[40] And later still, Montesquieu was even further from the original legal metaphor, describing laws vaguely as "the necessary relations deriving from the nature of things".

[41] One of the most important implementors of Bacon's proposal was Thomas Hobbes, whose remarks concerning nature are particularly well-known.

His most famous work, Leviathan, opens with the word "Nature" and then parenthetically defines it as "the art whereby God hath made and governes the world".

In the late 18th century, Rousseau took a critical step in his Second Discourse, reasoning that human nature as we know it, rational, and with language, and so on, is a result of historical accidents, and the specific up-bringing of an individual.

Specifically, Kant argued that the human mind comes ready-made with a priori programming, so to speak, which allows it to make sense of nature.