Contemporary naturalism is the doctrine which insists that nature is whatever is not supernatural, and/ or whatever natural science tells us it is. This is rather like insisting that a man is whoever is not superman, and/or whatever the science of man tells us a man is. This sort of definition would be fine if nature could not be understood in terms of more well known or basic concepts, but a few years’ reflection on Arisotle’s definition of nature shows that isn’t so:
Principle and cause of motion and of rest
in that of which it is [or "interior"],
first,
as such,
and not per accidens.
The bold face is the genus, the rest is the specific differnce, with the terms progressing from more general to more specific. Each of the terms is broader, more well known, and easier to understand than “nature”. It took me a few years reflection to see that that’s what I meant when I used the word “nature”, and I suspect that this is simply how long it takes.
T. Chan said,
July 11, 2009 at 1:50 pm
The discussion of nature is also a reminder that we know causes from their effects? But if we cannot grasp causality, then nature can only be used to name whatever we sense, individually or the sum? I have not read the modern empiricists that much, so I don’t know if this chain of reasoning is to be found in their works.
Will Duquette said,
July 12, 2009 at 6:33 am
So nature is what happens when you don’t interfere: when you let things do what they do. A tree grows naturally, for example.
So suppose a strong wind blows a tree over. This is not an artificial motion, no man did it. And yet the tree didn’t fall over by itself, it was pushed. This is surely a natural event. How does that square with Aristotle’s definition?
Or perhaps a beaver comes and gnaws at the tree until it falls over. This would seem to me to be a natural event.
Or perhaps a man comes and chops the tree down. This, we would say, is an artificial event. But what distinguishes it from the case of the beaver? Is it simply that a man is involved?
Will Duquette said,
July 12, 2009 at 6:34 am
I’m not trying to be difficult, by the way; I’m trying to understand the definition, which seems limited to motion and rest that comes from within a thing, rather than from outside.
Will Duquette said,
July 12, 2009 at 6:36 am
Oh, wait a minute. Aristotle is speaking of “nature” as in “the nature of an oak tree”, not as in Nature vs. Supernature.
Never mind.
Mike said,
July 12, 2009 at 10:29 am
Right. The tree blown over by the wind does not fall over by its own nature.
T. Chan said,
July 12, 2009 at 10:50 am
Mr. Duquette — by “artificial” are you referring only to those motions which man brings about in others?
Aristotle distinguishes between “natural” and “violent” motion–wrt to the latter, something else (not necessarily a human being) moves the thing being moved.
Will Duquette said,
July 12, 2009 at 11:47 am
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. But the crucial point is that I misunderstood what James meant when he said “nature”. I believe I’ve got it now. (Thanks to all!)
James Chastek said,
July 12, 2009 at 11:12 am
Nature is understood by comparison and contrast to art, since it is like art and art is more known to us. This is the spontaneous reaction everyone has to it, even thinkers who have almost nothing in common (like, say, Aristotle and Descartes; or St. Thomas and modern naturalists). Nature works like a clock, or like something “hard wired” or “programmed” to perform certain activities and to go through certain stages. This is the bedrock insight, and until it is clear no progress can be made.
You are right to say that nature happens wen there is no interference, but you should make the point broader. Nature is an art interior to the very thing that comes forth. The art from which an artifact comes forth is always exterior to that which comes forth- since it requires an artist, and an artist comes after what he works on (we call God an artist only in an analogous sense). Nature is an interior art- hence the very first specific difference given in the defintion. All the subsequent differences in the definition merely try to make this interiority more explicit, and to cut off various dead ends of understanding the interiority of nature. Nature is most like a doctor healing himself- and in fact the definition of nature only distinguishes it self from literally being a doctor healing himself by the last specific difference (of it is not essential to being a doctor that one heal oneself, but that he heal a patient, whether the patient be hiself or someone else- but nature essentially works upon itself. It is a source of coming forth that constitutes the very thing itself in its existence.)
Both beavers and bees are exterior principles of action, and so their activity is artificial when we view it from the angle of being exterior to the activity of the tress or pollen that they work on. The key note is exteriority, not rationality. Art, properly speaking, more presupposes reason (in the thing acting or something else) as opposed to being reason. This is why Aristotle dismisses in a single sentence the claim that “nature cannot act for an end, because it does not deliberate”; he points out, to my mind rightly, that no art deliberates. The more perfect art becomes, even in us, the more we are able to perform the art without thinking about what we are doing.
James Chastek said,
July 12, 2009 at 11:15 am
Another way to visualize it: art is an active form that comes after what it works on; the divine art is an active form that comes before what it acts on; nature is an active form that is simultaneous in existence to that which it works on.