NATURA E CULTURA: ALLE ORIGINI DI UNA DICOTOMIA

ABSTRACT Nature (φύσις) and (νόμος) are two key terms of a long-standing debate in ancient Greek philosophy. My dissertation is chiefly concerned with the ways the concept of “culture” (νόμος) is related with that of “nature” (φύσις) in the history of ancient ethical and political thought. In particular, it aims to reconstruct and assess the historical-philosophical path leading to the formulation of the dichotomy between φύσις and νόμος in the Sophistic debate. On purpose, my dissertation is divided, as to the structure, into three main parts: 1. the first chapter is entirely dedicated to the ways nature and culture are conceptualised in some medical treatises of the Hippocratic Collection (e.g. Airs, waters and places and The sacred disease). I will show up that the two concepts are deeply interconnected and interwoven here in such a way that we are not allowed to trace clear-cut boundaries among them. 2. the second chapter is focused on Archelaus. I will attempt to argue that nature and culture are conceived for the first time as two autonomous and independent concepts from one another in his doctrine. On one hand, Archelaus promotes a conception of nature in merely materialistic terms, ruling out thereby the possibility that nature is endowed with some intrinsic ethical qualities. On the other one, he is furthermore reported by ancient sources as claiming that the origins of ethics (DK 60 A1) and of politics (DK 60 A4) are grounded on a conventional basis and, therefore, do not exist at a natural level. According to the interpretation I will be endorsing, human beings give rise to socio-political institutions and conventions for they cannot appeal to any kind of natural ethics. Therefore, political conventionalism and ethical subjectivism can be considered as pragmatic ways of reacting to the endorsement of a radical form of materialism. 3. lastly, the third chapter is about two Sophists, namely Protagoras and Antiphon. As we shall see, Protagoras aims to overcome the dichotomy between nature and culture, pointing to the evidence that human beings are by nature social and political animals. On the opposite corner, Antiphon will oppose nature to culture and remark that the laws of a city are often in contrast with the natural necessities, needs and desires of human beings. To conclude, I hope to have unravelled and displayed some of the major theoretical problems involved in relationship between nature and culture and the ways the process by which they come to be opposed one to another.