Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago the Greek thinker Heraclitus supposedly uttered the cryptic words ""Phusis kruptesthai philei."" How the aphorism, usually translated as ""Nature loves to hide,"" has haunted Western culture ever since is the subject of this engaging study by Pierre Hadot. Taking the allegorical figure of the veiled goddess Isis as a guide, and drawing on the work of both the ancients and later thinkers such as Goethe, Rilke, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, Hadot traces successive interpretations of Heraclitus' words. Over time, Hadot finds, ""Nature loves to hide"" has meant that all that lives tends to die; that Nature wraps herself in myths; and (for Heidegger) that Being unveils as it veils itself. Meanwhile the pronouncement has been used to explain everything from the opacity of the natural world to our modern angst.
From these kaleidoscopic exegeses and usages emerge two contradictory approaches to nature: the Promethean, or experimental-questing, approach, which embraces technology as a means of tearing the veil from Nature and revealing her secrets; and the Orphic, or contemplative-poetic, approach, according to which such a denuding of Nature is a grave trespass. In place of these two attitudes Hadot proposes one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schelling, who saw in the veiled Isis an allegorical expression of the sublime. ""Nature is art and art is nature,"" Hadot writes,
inviting us to embrace Isis and all she represents: art makes us intensely aware of how completely we ourselves are not merely surrounded by nature but also part of nature.
By:
Pierre Hadot
Translated by:
Michael Chase
Imprint: Harvard Uni.Press Academi
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 210mm,
Width: 140mm,
Spine: 30mm
Weight: 522g
ISBN: 9780674030497
ISBN 10: 0674030494
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 15 September 2008
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Further / Higher Education
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Preface Prologue at Ephesus: An Enigmatic Saying Part I: The Veil of Death 1. Heraclitus' Aphorism: ""What Is Born Tends to Disappear"" Part II: The Veil of Nature 2. From Phusis to Nature 3. Secrets of the Gods and Secrets of Nature Part III: ""Nature Loves to Hide"" 4. Heraclitus' Aphorism and Allegorical Exegesis 5. ""Nature Loves to Wrap Herself Up"": Mythical Forms and Corporeal Forms 6. Calypso, or ""Imagination with the Flowing Veil"" 7. The Genius of Paganism 8. The ""Gods of Greece"": Pagan Myths in a Christian World Part IV: Unveiling Nature's Secrets 9. Prometheus and Orpheus Part V: The Promethean Attitude: Unveiling Secrets through Technology 10. Mechanics and Magic from Antiquity to the Renaissance 11. Experimental Science and the Mechanization of Nature 12. Criticism of the Promethean Attitude Part VI: The Orphic Attitude: Unveiling Secrets through Discourse, Poetry, and Art 13. Physics as a Conjectural Science 14. Truth as the Daughter of Time 15. The Study of Nature as a Spiritual Exercise 16. Nature's Behavior: Thrifty, Joyful, or Spendthrift? 17. The Poetic Model 18. Aesthetic Perception and the Genesis of Forms Part VII: The Veil of Isis 19. Artemis and Isis Part VIII: From the Secret of Nature to the Mystery of Existence: Terror and Wonder 20. Isis Has No Veils 21. The Sacred Shudder 22. Nature as Sphinx 23. From the Secret of Nature to the Mystery of Being Conclusion Notes Index"
Pierre Hadot is Professor Emeritus, College de France. His books include Philosophy as a Way of Life and What Is Ancient Philosophy (Harvard).
Reviews for The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature
[Hadot] is an extraordinary guide to the history of the idea of nature from Heraclitus to now. You will find yourself in the company of a wise Greek, a pagan, a philosopher who believes that a role of philosophy is to teach us how to live. - Ian Hacking, London Review of Books
- Nominated for Lois Roth Award 2006
