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THE GREEK CONCEPT OF NATURE. By Gerard Naddaf. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy. 2005. Pp. x, 265.
THE GREEK CONCEPT OF NATURE is a fresh and important exploration of the Greek inquiry mto phusis, and of the origins, nature, context, and aims of the earliest Greek philosophy. Its germ was the author's 1992 L'origine et révolution du concept grec de "physis" (Lewiston, NY). It is to be the first part of a trilogy on the Greek inquiry into phusis; the succeeding volumes will focus respectively on Plato and on Aristotle and hellenistic philosophy.
The Greek Concept of Nature argues for two theses. The first thesis is that in the type of pre-Socratic philosophical work that became known as peri phuseos or as historia peri phuseos, the term phusis "refers to the origin and growth of the universe from beginning to end" (3), so that it comprises primordial stuff, the processes by which that stuff develops or changes, and the results of those changes. Naddafs arguments for this reading trace uses of the term from Homer through to Aristode (including an enlightening study of some Hippocratic texts).
The second thesis is that in keeping with this understanding of the reference of phusis, and like the myths that preceded them, pre-Socratic historia peri phuseos works included in their accounts of the present state of things a cosmogony, an anthropogony (account of the development of humans), and a politogony (account of the development of organized communities). The roster of philosophers whose work Naddaf argues should be characterized in this way consists of Anaximander (with nods to Thaïes and Hecataeus), Xenophanes, Pythagoras and his school, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the fifth-century atomists.
Chapter Three, on Anaximander, is the longest and most richly realized of the book. It benefits from Naddafs extensive and rigorous research program on Anaximander, and includes substantial material not previously published. One merit of this chapter is the exploration of connections among the variety of projects that Anaximander is reported to...