On Ontological Connotation Of Nature

In fact, the concepts of nature (or reality) and self (or subject) have derived from the beginning ofancient Greek philosophy in a potential way. Especially from modern history, men expand and deepen thecognitions of nature and men themselves with the rediscovery of Nature and Man, although people aren’t inagreement on the relation between Nature and Man. In face of the natural world, the consciously practicalactivity of human being has demonstrated his own initiative and capacity. Accordingly, some philosophicaldoctrines tend to confine the concept of Nature merely in the horizon of Man. It seems that only bearing tothe relation of human beings is the natural world meaningful or reasonable. So, the anthropocentric viewcomes into being on the ground of the theoretical and practical consciousness and confidence of human being.But nowadays, people come to realise that “the environmental crisis” has a serious influence on thesustainable development of human beings and society. In philosophy, furthermore, the extreme emphasis onMan himself is easily trapped into the solipsistic dilemma. If the internal essence of the natural world isreduced from the social relations and human relations, then, the logically thorough method is to furtherreduce human relations into relations in “self”. Since nature is constructed through the society, it is notdifficult to conceive that the society is also constructed by “self”. If it were true, the Other’s objectiveexistence is suspicious as well, just like suspicions to the objective reality of the natural world. As a result, itis impossible to take the moral responsibility. However, according to radical empiricism (such as Hume), selfis nothing but a sequence of ideas or sensations. This means that “self” as a substance is dissolved.Because of the epistemological problem, someone inclines to have a theoretically skeptical attitude tothe objective reality of the Nature and the Other. It is plausible that when somebody refers to the physicalobject, it is certainly in some relation to him, whatever relation, epistemic or practical. In some philosophers’worldview, hence, the assertion about the objective reality must be a dogmatic assumption paying noattention to the subjective relation or attempting to be beyond it. It seems to indicate, the quest of the thing initself is only one illusion, because the called objective reality is always subjective object. Yet we need to bewell aware of that the extreme emphasis on the subjectivity of the physical object exactly neglects thespontaneous essence of the physical object. It isn’t appropriate to substitute human relation for the naturalrelation, or to equate the natural history with human history. Actually, it is not how we get rid of thesubjectivity in order to have an intuition about thing in itself. Conversely, Nature itself never loses its ownnature, neither does nature for us. And in the relation between Man and Nature, the internal and objectivelaws of Nature itself have manifested in this relation. That is precisely the crucial point. Though Man as apractical subject posits Nature in the relation between Man and Nature, the positive position is settled on thebasis of independent Nature itself and subject to the laws of it. Obviously, the existence of Man primarilydepends on the natural and environmental foundation and Man is a part of Nature. No matter what view wetake, a logical (namely epistemological) or an ontological, Nature itself is still primarily prior to Man and hispractical activity. In the very sense, the concept of Nature is an ultimately ontological category in Marxistphilosophy (i.e. dialectical materialism and historical materialism).Therefore, Nature is the objective and independent reality in itself and for itself out of human relation;and in the relation between Man and Nature, the natural world has the unsuspicious priority to Man. Whenrecognising the concept of Nature as an ontological category we can genuinely transcend the self circle of Self (such as solipsism and skepticism) in epistemology and ontology.