Phusis

Phusis is an Ancient Greek word often translated as 'birth'. Martin Heidegger a German phenomenologist and proto-existentialist, made the argument in An Introduction to Metaphysics that the translation of phusis (Through Latin) as something mundane and simplistic caused harm to our understanding of early Greek philosophy. Heidegger decided that the word should be translated as 'emerging-abiding-sway' and that it provided a more complex and accurate understanding of existence than the earlier translation.

The importance of such a view of earlier philosophical understanding is that it reduces the credibility of arguments that modern thinkers are more advanced than earlier thinkers. Rather, according to such an argument, translators misinterpret the claims of earlier philosophers and in doing so allow later philosophical claims to appear superior in comparison to a misunderstood and overly simplified caricature of an earlier philosophical claim.

See also