Příroda a věci – Kratochvíl Zdeněk (2025)

The book presents an original philosophical reflection on nature, reality, and knowledge, which avoids metaphysical essences, reductive scientism, and subjectivist relativism, opening up space for a new orientation in our relationship with the world. It is neither an ecological manifesto nor a romantic nature philosophy, but an attempt to preserve a sense of our naturalness and the happenings in nature. The author returns to the archaic meaning of the term fysis and traces its transformations from Homer and Heraclitus to Hippocrates, consciously distancing himself from Aristotle's reduction of nature to 'essence.' On this basis, he builds his own terminology, which aims to replace traditional ontology and avoid its flattening conception of being. He analyzes the ways in which individual 'natures' manifest in our perception, knowledge, and practical use, showing that the interrelations and interactions among things in nature are the foundation of reality. Thus, the author rejects the traditional philosophical reduction of everything to 'being,' which he considers even more radical than the cognitive reductions of modern natural science. In the central chapter - What is real? - he counters Protagoras' statement that 'man is the measure of all things' with the conviction that reality is given by the web of relationships in...