| Physis (φύσις) is a Greek theological, philosophical, and scientific term usually translated into English as "nature". In the Odyssey, Homer uses the word once (its earliest known occurrence), referring to the intrinsic way of growth of a particular species of plant. In other very early uses it had such a meaning: related to the natural growing of plants, animals, and other features of the world as they tend to develop without external influence. But in the pre-Socratic philosophers it developed a complex of other meanings.Since Aristotle, the physical (the subject matter of physics) has often been contrasted with metaphysical (the subject of metaphysics).Leo Strauss felt this was a sign of something new in the world which the Greeks discovered – something distinct from the concept of a "way" general to other cultures. In medicine the element -physis occurs in such compounds as symphysis, epiphysis, and a few others, in the sense of a growing.see also: hypostasis, ousia, prosopon |