Abstract

To bring our topic within manageable limits, the attempt will be made to approach the philosophy of nature in a systematic manner. Borrowing the quantitative categories of one, some and all, nature will be treated as first as singular, then a whole or totality and finally discussed in terms of various distinctions which set nature apart as a part. Past philosophic treatments will be discussed when germane to this treatment, as an example of a particular view of nature. I will argue that nature is not a per se being, cannot be singular or the whole and that the various distinctions that separate the natural from other—the artificial, theconventional, etc.—are inadequate.