The modern concept of “nature” was born in the XVIIIth Century: a nature as object, submitted to man’s reason. A long tradition sees the origin of the modern notion of nature in the Greek phúsis. To go from phúsis invites us on the contrary to be critical towards the modern paradigm of a nature opposed to culture. Actually the domination of nature and the exploitation by man of what are for us “natural resources” is at the core of the ideological, economical and financial model imposed on us by neoliberal capitalism. This model shapes and destroys the communities of men as well as their environments. To face anthropologically the Greek phúsis invites us to break off with a technological capitalism based on a destroying productivism. Greek reflection on the relationships between phúsis and nómos leads us to consider the inevitable interactions between the human societies, their technical abilities, and their environments, in a perspective of “anthropopoiesis” and “ecopoiesis”. This paper represents the Italian version of the first chapter and the last part of an essay devoted to the interactions mentioned above with an eco-socialistic approach.
