The Greek Concept of Nature

1 The Meaning of Peri Phuseos

PROLOGUE There is no doubt the Greek notion of phusis (usually translated as nature from the latin natura), has been decisive both for the early history of philosphy and for its subsequent development. In fact, it is often said the Greeks discovered “nature.” But what did the earliest philosophers actually have in mind when they spoke of phusis? There is a great deal of discussion on the subject. In this opening chapter, this question begins with a linguistical analysis of the word, then examines the first (and only) occurrence of the word in Homer, the first use of the term by a pre-Socratic, and finally examines in detail the use of the term in the famous expression (and possible book title), peri phuseo\s. The aim here is to help us understand not only what the earliest thinkers understood by phusis, but also how they conceived nature and why they developed the distinctive cosmologies we are familar with. The Etymology of Phusis In ancient Greek, an action noun and its result can be derived from every type of verb by means of the suffix -sis (Holt 1941, 46). According to Benveniste (1948, 80), the general meaning of words ending in -sis is “the abstract notion of the process conceived as an objective realization,” that is to say “one expresses by -sis the notion as being outside the subject, and in this sense objective and established as accomplished from the fact that it is objective” (1948, 85). In other words, contrary to action nouns ending in -tus, when the 11 1 The Meaning of Peri Phuseo\s word ending in -tus always refers to the same subject as the verbal form (i.e., pausethai mne\stuos, “to cease courting”), nouns ending in -sis are in syntactic liaison with transitive/factive or operative verbs (to make, to place, etc.). The verb takes the word ending in -sis for its object. Thus, the verb indicates (Benveniste 1948, 82) “the concrete actualization of the notion conceived on the noetic plan as effective and objective” (i.e., dote bro\sin: to give something to eat; or ze\te\sin poieisthai: to realize an inquiry). As an action noun ending in -sis, Benveniste defines phusis as the (completed ) realization of a becoming—that is to say, the nature [of a thing] as it is realized, with all its properties.1 Since the root holds a precise meaning, it logically suffices to find the root of the verb stem, from which the term phusis is derived, to discover its precise meaning. Phusis is derived from the verb phuo\-phuomai. In ancient Greek, the phuo\ family has a number of particular characteristics. While it is easier to analyze the formation of the present starting from the Indo-European root *bhu\-, everything happens as if the group phuo\-phuomai were derived from the root *bhu¨-. Indeed, the nominal phusis as well as the present phuo\-phuomai, has a short u¨, while the root, *bhu\-*bhu¨-, has a long u\. The reason for the supposition that *bhu\- is the original root is because the primary meaning of the ancient root *bhu\- is to grow, to produce, to develop (Chantraine 1968–80, 4:123). Just as in the active transitive, phuo\ has the meaning “to grow, to produce , to bring forth, to beget”2 and, in the middle passive and intransitive forms of phuomai, the meaning “to grow, to spring up, to come into being, to grow on, to attach to.” Moreover, Homeric Greek knows no other meanings than “to grow, to produce,” (in particular, in the context of vegetation), and in addition, these meanings are the only ones found in a number of other Indo-European languages besides Greek: in Armenian busanim, “I grow,” boys, “plant”; in Albanian bêin, “to germinate,” bimë, “plant;” not to mention the Slavic languages , which have representatives of a bhu\-lo- meaning “plant.” (Burger 1925,1; Chantraine 1968–80, 4:123). Again, although the group composed of the old aorist ephun (skr. abu\t) and the perfect pephuka (skr. babhu\va) evolved and took on the meaning of “becoming”—such that the root could be employed to complete the system of *a, es-, “to exist, to be”3 —its etymological meaning of “growth” still persists in Homer.4 If one considers that all the compounds of the term phusis5 and its corresponding verb phuo\-phuomai conserve the primary meaning of “growth, growing” throughout antiquity (and, in particular, in the context of vegetation ), then...