Aither 1/2009:9-22 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2009.002

Phusis in the Presocratics

Pavel Hobza

According to the tradition, most Presocratics should have titled their works as Peri phuseos ("On Nature"). Although it is now mostly supposed that the Presocratic s did not label their works with this title, the question arises whether they were engaged in the investigation peri phuseos or, in the other words, whether they used phusis as a philosophical concept, i.e., as an object of their philosophical investigation. The question is all the more important if we take into account that the Milesians are often considered to be the first philosophers because of their concern in the regularity and orderliness of Nature ( phusis) as contrasted with divine mythical intervention. Now, given the fragmentary evidence concerning the Presocratics and given the total lack of direct evidence concerning the Milesians, we are left only to guesses and extrapolations. The importance usually attributed to conception of Nature ( phusis) in the Milesians is also only inferred from their thought, which is, in turn, reconstructed from our indirect evidence. So if we try to solve the problem of phusis in the Presocratics, it is first necessary to review its occurrences in the Presocratics and their contemporaries. This review shows that phusis (once used in Homer and then attested only in Heractlitus and Parmenides) meant not "nature" or "genesis/origin/development" but "essential character of a thing". Thus, it is improbable that in so far as the Milesians even used it, they did it in any other meaning. But whereas the meanings "nature" or "genesis/origin/development" are capable of establishing a philosophical conception (creating a new object or direction of inquiry), the meaning "essential character of a thing" is a colloquial word stressing a quality of things. To conclude, the conception of phusis as a philosophical concept (as occurring, e.g., in a famous phrase historia peri phuseos) appeared only at the end of the fifth century in the Hippocratic writings and then in Plato and Aristotle.

Published: March 30, 2009  Show citation