Published Paper Details:

The idea of Nature as a unified entity seems to be an aesthetic, impressionistic attribute ascribed to Nature. In the western metaphysics, such unification is a divine intension or divine architecture, which is perhaps beyond the possibility of human cognition. It proclaims that such idea is not a quixotic imagination or notional image or a mere speculation of Nature. Rather there are certain understandings based upon certain logical premises that help in conceptualisation of this idea. This paper intends to present how the idea has been conceptualised and developed in the history of western philosophy. This paper is a retrospective overview of the journey of such idea of Nature from the ancient to the modern time, and the conceptual impediments it has faced in the course of its journey. It has not touched upon all ideas in the gamut of philosophy due to the constraint of space. However, views of select philosophers on the nature of natural reality have been analysed to substantiate the idea concerning the unity of Nature. Although attempt has been made to maintain chronological coherence among the ideas, yet in the course of conceptual analysis some lapses will unavoidably be present in the paper.