The Two Worlds - Metaphysical Anthropology

Phýsis (φύσις)

The first rational interpretation of reality as nature, originally conceived as the reality from which all things emerge, are born (natura), or spring; its best translation is "living source."

Hodòs áno kai káto (ὁδὸς ἄνω καὶ κάτω)

Heraclitus's formula, "the road up and the road down," describing a two-way path (méthodos) arriving in one direction at natural things and in the other at the nature of things.

Arkhé (ἀρχή)

An early philosophical interpretation of Nature denoting "beginning," which simultaneously encompasses the meanings of "old," "archaic," "beginning," and "command."

Physiología (φυσιολογία)

The explanatory inquiry developed by the Milesian philosophers, centered primarily on the moment of generation in reality.

Mímesis (μίμησις)

Imitation; the concept used by the Pythagoreans to affirm that things exist by imitation of numbers, emphasizing consistency alone.

Éon / Ón (ἐόν / ὄν)

Parmenides' term (later designated as ón) translating to "the consistent," signifying "entity" or "being," from whose absolute standpoint all individual consistencies dissipate and become irrelevant.

Dóxa (δόξα)

In Parmenides' philosophy, "interpretation" as opposed to alétheia; the realm where change, motion, variation, and plurality seem to exist merely as names given to things by men.

Alétheia (ἀλήθεια)

In Parmenides' thought, "patency" as opposed to dóxa; the only realm or world that truly "is," establishing truth as the act of uncovering.

Prágmata and Khrémata (πράγματα, χρήματα)

Greek terms for "things," "matters," or "tasks" of everyday life that were abandoned when early metaphysics congealed living reality into abstract entity (ón).

Légein (λέγειν)

The Greek root verb of lógos (λόγος), whose primary and original meaning is "to collect."

Eîdos / Idéa (εἶδος / ἰδέα)

The universal form or Idea sought by Plato as an upward progression beyond Socrates' search for the "what" of a definition.

Ousía (οὐσία)

Substance; the core concept in Aristotelian ontology developed when the Platonic idea was internalized into things as "form" to explain natural entities.

Kósmos horatós (κόσμος ὁρατός)

In Platonic thought, the sensible or visible world, which stands in contrast to the intelligible world.

Kósmos noetós (κόσμος νοητός)

In Platonic philosophy, the intelligible world of forms and ideas, distinguished from the sensible world.

Méthexis (μέθεξις)

Participation; the Platonic scheme interposed to connect the sensible world and the intelligible world, later dismissed by Aristotle as "a metaphor."

Active seeing

A concept from Ortega's 1914 Meditations on Quixote describing a perceptual mode above passive seeing that "interprets by seeing and sees by interpreting; a seeing which is looking."

Structure (Ortega's formula)

Defined in Ortega's first book as $\text{structure} = \text{elements} + \text{order}$; it denotes that reality itself is structure