Why read The Greek Concept of Nature?

Book cover of The Greek Concept of Nature

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Explores the origin and evolution of the Greek concept of nature up until the time of Plato.

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Greek Concept of Nature as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

J. Baird Callicott

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According to the Bible the world was created by God. In Greek mythology, the world was born of Gaia (Earth) sired by Ouranos (Sky).

The Greek natural philosophers retained this assumption but demythologized it. Their word “phusis“ translates into English as “nature” (which is of Latin origin, itself originally meaning “birth”). The words “physics,” “physical,” “physician,” etc. are derivatives. As Nadaff explains, the primal meaning of “phusis“ is “growth” and the principal project of early Greek science was to explain the birth and growth of the cosmos.

Because humans and human society are worldly things, they…

From J.'s list on The best books on how and why science began more than two thousand five hundred years ago.