The Philosophy of Nature

The discovery and development of philosophy is part of man’s larger search for happiness. As man was hunting for happiness, he found philosophy. 

Much of human ingenuity and energy was originally directed towards removing the obstacles to happiness: for example, the arts of hunting and agriculture were developed to alleviate hunger; the art of housebuilding was developed to alleviate the suffering associated with excessive heat and cold; various martial arts and weapons were developed to protect against violence from animals and other men; medicine was developed to cure illness. But once these arts had been developed, and man had time for leisure, it became apparent that there exists in man a more fundamental desire than food, clothing, and bodily health. It is a desire not merely to avoid evils, but a desire for some positive good, and it is a desire for a positive good which is not merely instrumental to something else (such as practical knowledge), but a good desired for its own sake. Aristotle expressed this desire simply in the statement: “All men by nature desire to know.” 

It may seem strange that happiness should have much to do with knowledge. After all, very few men dedicate real effort and time to searching for knowledge. What knowledge they do search for tends to be practical in nature: that is, it is for the sake of making or doing things. And yet, it is an indisputable fact of history that once the chief practical arts had been established, and the needs of the body provided for, men naturally turned to philosophy in their leisure time. 

Aristotle recounts that “after all such arts had been developed, those sciences were pursued which are sought neither for the sake of pleasure nor necessity. This happened in places where men had leisure. Hence the mathematical arts originated in Egypt where the priestly class was permitted leisure.”1 And again: “When nearly all the things necessary for life, leisure and learning were acquired, this kind of prudence began to be sought.”2 But if this is so, how do we account for the fact that so few people consider knowledge to be essential for happiness? 

This question is like the question of why so few children prefer a high paying job or an excellent education to ice cream. 

First of all, since the goods of the body are better known than the goods of the soul, it is natural that men should seek to provide for the goods of the body first. 

Secondly, happiness is not found in the possession and exercise of just any knowledge, but only in the best knowledge, and this is very difficult to achieve. Just as it would be impossible for a child to perform well at a high paying job or to receive an excellent education all at once, so it would be impossible for someone to acquire and use the knowledge needed for happiness without first passing through years of experience and study. 

Finally, notice that Aristotle did not say all men by nature desire to come to know, but rather that all men by nature desire to know. Samuel Johnson once famously quipped about seeing a famous landmark in Ireland that it was “worth seeing . . . but not worth going to see.” 

There is a similar relationship between knowing and coming to know. Coming to know can be arduous and even painful. But if you asked the man on the street whether he would like to know some important truth if it took no effort, I suppose nearly everyone would say yes. As it is, because many obstacles stand in the way of possessing knowledge, there are few who seek it. 

So philosophy is near the end of man’s search for happiness. But even within philosophy itself there is an order of discovery which naturally arises from the search for happiness. For we want to know the supreme good of man, but to know that we need to know what man is, and since man is a natural being, we need to know what nature is. 

So philosophers began to examine nature. But once these things had been worked out in outline, it became clear that the nature of man is difficult to know, that it is even difficult to know about the existence and nature of the soul, and that the highest perfection of the human soul, wisdom, is even more difficult to know. 

Therefore, it was necessary to develop one final art: logic, which assists us in coming to know difficult truths well. Plato’s Socrates seems to have been the first to acknowledge a need for an “art about arguments” in the Phaedo, precisely as he is searching to discover the existence and nature of the human soul. 

The order of discovery in philosophy is almost inverse to the order in which philosophy should be learned. 

First, students should study logic, which is the art that treats of acquiring the good of speculative reason: truth. Since every science searches for truth, logic teaches how to proceed correctly in every science. 

Second, they should study mathematics, which among the sciences is the easiest in which to find certitude (hence there is much agreement in this part of philosophy). 

Third, they should study natural things (natural philosophy). 

Fourth, among natural things, they should focus their study upon living things, especially man (the study of the soul). 

Fifth, once they know accurately the nature of man, and the various powers and perfections of the soul, they should study the good for man (ethics). 

And since man’s supreme good consists in knowing things better than himself, the philosopher should study the first cause of all being (wisdom or metaphysics) last.3 For the very exercise of knowing these things higher than man is the happiness which man desires. That is, natural happiness consists in contemplating the truths which are the conclusions of metaphysics. 

Because this is only an introduction to philosophy, this text will not consider the last part of philosophy (metaphysics). Such a consideration belongs not to the beginning student, but to an advanced student.

 Moreover, because the science of mathematics is widely taught, and much easier than the other parts of philosophy, this text will not consider that part of philosophy either. Perhaps the best elementary treatment of mathematics according to its proper method can be found in Euclid’s Elements. 

Finally, this text will not proceed by a primarily historical method, as is typical in most introductions to philosophy. The order of history in philosophy is not necessarily a progression from ignorance to knowledge or error to truth. It is quite possible for an earlier philosopher to know more than a later one. Nor is the order of history necessarily the best order for the beginning student to follow if he is in search of truth. This text does not seek to inform the student about the positions taken by various philosophers, but rather to lay out the method best suited to human nature of coming to understand the order among the ultimate causes of reality. We study the Pythagorean theorem not to know what Pythagoras thought, but because it is true and worth knowing. It would be worthwhile to study the same theorem regardless of who it was discovered by. In philosophy, we are not so much concerned with who discovered some truth as with the truth itself, and how it can be known. 

While much of what is found in this text will be truths discovered by Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas, they stand on their own and do not rely upon the authority of those who first discovered and presented them.

1 Metaphysics 981b22-24 (independent confirmation of the leisure afforded the priestly class in Egypt is found in Gn 47:22). 

2 Metaphysics 982b22-23. 

3 This order of study is laid out by St. Thomas Aquinas at the beginning of his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and at the beginning of his Commentary on the Book of Causes.