Netraven on Nostr: It's not true if it doesn't first make you laugh when you hear it, then make you cry ...

It's not true if it doesn't first make you laugh when you hear it, then make you cry when you understand it.

φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ

Commonly quoted as "Nature loves to conceal Herself". Only, we attribute it to the physical nature because Aristotle spoke of physical nature extensively utilizing the nomencalture φύσις, and the meaning was normalized as thus. However, according to Diogenes Laërtius, a writer and prominent philosopher around 500BC, Heraclitus was not writing about φύσις (nature), but φύσεως phýseōs which is concerned solely with the unseeable INNER nature of being. This was understood at the time, but as since been papered over by Aristotlean philosophy, as evidenced by Leucippus of Miletus, who similarly spoke of inner nature as the movement of atoms in accordance with the ontology of becoming, just like Heraclitus did. Leucippus only differed from the Eleatics in not being encumbered by the "conceptual intermingling" of being and non-being BECAUSE of Heraclitus and his attempts to reconcile "true being".

A breakdown of the component words:
φύσεως - Limitless change, ultimate being, absolute now, being and becoming as one, infinity
κρύπτεσθαι - to be that which covers, a face, a mask, avatar, skin
φιλεῖ - a friend of, companionship, a lover, togetherness

My best approximation of intent:
True nature is displayed in acts of love
Eternity hides lovingly
Infinite are the expressions of love

It is much more nuanced than three simple words can say in the void of context left by the last 2500 years of cultural loss. I want to say, perhaps, he is saying the universe is simple, only we are complicated and hide it from ourselves. That he is playfully implying that we LOVE to hide secrets from ourselves by seeing purity of trueness as something shameful, or frightening, so we cover it up and claim we see nothing.

#philosophy #ancientphilosophy