The concept of nature has accompanied the entire history of Western
philosophy as one of its foundational notions – underpinning ontological,
cosmological, ethical, and scientific inquiries. Precisely because of its
ubiquity, however, it is often treated as self-evident or static, whereas in truth
it has undergone deep and complex transformations over time. This essay
offers a brief history of the idea of nature, tracing its evolution from the
Pre-Socratics to Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of process, through
the lens of a single key text: R.G. Collingwood’s The Idea of Nature. Largely
neglected in Italian philosophical discourse, The Idea of Nature stands as a
remarkable attempt – both historical and theoretical – to reconstruct the
principal models through which Western thought has understood nature.
This essay is not intended as an exhaustive survey, but rather as a critical traversal
of Collingwood’s book, highlighting its philosophical relevance even
beyond the author’s stated aims.