What is Nature?

Mon, Sep 04

“Nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language.”

            — Raymond Williams, Keywords

nature, n.

Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin.

Etymons: French nature; Latin nātūra.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French, French nature active force that establishes and maintains the order of the universe, group of properties or characteristics that define objects (early 12th cent.), sort, species, race (early 12th cent.), attributes, innate disposition of a person (late 12th cent.), constitution, principle of life that animates and sustains the human body (early 13th cent.), genitals (early 13th cent.), and its etymon classical Latin nātūra birth, constitution, character, the genitals, the creative power governing the world, the physical world, the natural course of things, naturalness in art, in post-classical Latin also the divine and human nature of Christ (6th cent.), the need to defecate and urinate (1300 in a British source) < nāt- , past participial stem of nāscī to be born (see nascent adj.) + -ūra -ure suffix1. Compare Spanish natura (1207), Italian natura (a, Portuguese natura (13th cent.).

The concept of nature we inherit in contemporary American culture has its origins in the Greek word physis (φύσις), which appears in the works of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, most notably Heraclitus, but is most clearly defined by Aristotle in his Physics and Metaphysics. Its meaning has changed and expanded in the millennia since, but it remains generally within three areas: 

• The essential quality and character of something: “It is in a cat’s nature to chase mice.”
• The inherent force which directs either the world or human beings or both: “Nature has given cats superb agility, acute hearing, and excellent night vision.”
• The material world itself, taken as including or not including human beings: “Though domesticated, housecats are part of nature.”

As philosopher Raymond Williams notes, “The idea of nature contains an extraordinary amount of human history.”

Goals

• Appreciate the complexity of the term “nature” and the various ways it is defined
• Understand various conceptions of nature and how they differ from or relate to each other
• Consider the role that humanity and human activity has (or does not have) in the natural sphere