“Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain.” Aristotle, Politics
“Can you deny that a woman is by nature very different from a man?”
Plato, Republic
It is not surprising that the most controversial, and personally challenging, moral issues of our day touch directly upon what is ‘by nature.’ An important distinction can help us think more clearly about this.
It is one thing to discern what is ‘by nature’ or not. It is another thing to see whether and to what extent what is ‘by nature’ should be a guide for our action. Failure to grasp this distinction leads to much misunderstanding and miscommunication. For instance, one person argues that such and such is by nature, assuming that to secure this point in itself makes clear the path of action, while another person is not interested in the question of what is by nature since his view of human moral agency gives no importance to the category of ‘natural.’
This appears especially in the cluster of issues surrounding what it is to be a man or woman—again, many of the central issues of our society and in our own lives.
The place to begin is the second side of the above distinction, namely, whether nature provides guidance and norms for our action. In the fifth century B.C. the Greek Heraclitus expressed what is thematic for pagans, Jews, and Christians alike: “wisdom is to speak the truth and to act, according to nature, giving ear thereto.”
Somehow, the path of a truly human life has been chalked in human nature itself. But finding it is no given; and learning to ‘give ear’ will require communal and long-term effort. To realize that what is given in nature is a gift to guide our life, is itself an astounding gift, not to be taken for granted.
So then what can one do? What does one do if many around us seem either uninterested, unable, or unwilling to give ear to nature? And this regarding things about which nature seems to speak quite insistently! –such as the astounding and always somewhat mysterious reality of being a man or being a woman, and all that it implies.
Perhaps we begin at home. In my own life, do I exemplify a disposition of humbly and courageously giving ear to nature—even when personally difficult for me, or even when it’s hard to grasp precisely what nature is saying? Do I ever speak disparagingly of what has been given to me? Or to others?
There is of course a time for public and private disputation, geared toward helping all of us think more clearly about these matters. But surely, the most powerful force helping others see the gift of nature, is that those who have begun to see, exemplify it in their own lives. There is no witness to the natural gift of being a man or a woman that can compare with this: a man or a woman who courageously receives the gift, and lives it with joy.
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Thank you for bringing to our attention this beautiful passage from Heraclitus, summing up as it does the essence of wisdom.
I completely agree, Tony, that this is a real gem for its pithy brevity.
Thanks for another bit of good counsel Dr. Cuddeback.
A bit of background to my response: I’m currently on to a second read through Aristotle’s _De Anima_, this time with a more consistent translation and the guidance of a professor. It’s been 14 years since this poet has handled philosophy texts in a classroom. Speaking of which, blessed Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
That said, in relation to your article, I’m turning to the Aristotle’s _Physics_, I’m finding that nature is “a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself, and not accidentally” (195b22-23).
Now, given this definition, we turn to your point of distinction regarding the extent to which one’s actions ought to be guided by one’s nature. You have turned to Heraclitus regarding the wisdom of giving ear to nature. Well enough; one cannot speak of being guided by one’s nature if one is not first observant of it.
To this I have to ask, as it appears that the act of cultivation is an activity proper to man’s nature. This is well enough in the discussion when we speak of growing orchards or swineherding. How do we speak of it in light of the cultivation of human behavior, as with children or … students? It is in man’s nature, or at least we might have said so since the agricultural revolution, that we have by way of a natural act of cultivating turned to fashioning natural human activities into something else.
Does this not indicate that by cultivating what is of nature that we have ipso facto fashioned the activity into something unnatural? To restate, doesn’t improving one’s activities from their initial natural order render them unnatural?
Daniel, You ask an excellent and extremely important question. One of the richest aspects of the Aristotelian notion of ‘nature’ is thinking about what is ‘in accord’ with nature or not. In short, I offer might is perhaps an obvious answer but nonetheless what I think must be said. Some ‘cultivation’ in fact draws out and completes what is there by nature, while other cultivation in fact perverts. To discern the distinction is at the heart of discerning the nature itself. Regarding word usage we might ask then, how can you call a perverting activity a ‘cultivation?’ To which I say, exactly! It is our challenge, especially in the role of parents and educators, to discern what is real cultivation–which wonderfully brings out what nature itself intends, and what is not.
The progression from the Greek/secular realization of natural law into the Jewish understanding of one true God, all happening “in the fullness of time”, is one of the most remarkable displays of Divine Providence. And it is a historical fact. Our social & political upheavals today stem mostly from a denial or ignorance of this history.
I agree, Bob.