The Roots of the Physis

Even though the roots of philosophy go back to a reflection on physis, its metaphysical version that has become predominant in the Western tradition is much more attached to the world of animals. It is likely that this preponderance of the animal in metaphysics, which situates it above the vegetal, has been responsible for the opposition of traditional philosophy to physis-natura, strictly tied to the world of plants. Vegetal life, in which we humans also participate, demands in its turn that we take it into account and attend to a peculiar way, in which the material and the psychic are intertwined in it.