Nature as a Palimpsest – Conceptual Histories Across Cultures

Abstract

This article conceptualizes nature as a dynamic and multilayered construct, whose meanings emerge through continuous processes of accumulation, transformation, and cross-cultural interaction. Rather than replacing earlier meanings, new interpretations of nature are added to pre-existing ones, resulting in a palimpsestic structure in which different semantic layers coexist. Drawing on a comparative framework, the study traces the historical evolution of the concept across Western and Chinese traditions, emphasizing both internal developments and intercultural exchanges. In the European context, nature has its roots in Ancient Greece, when it was defined as a dynamic process. Its understanding has constantly changed, being shaped by theological, scientific, and industrial paradigms, becoming a term defined by its opposition to culture. In parallel, the Chinese conceptual field – articulated through paradigms of thought such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism – develops a relational understanding of the world, in which humans are embedded within a continuous process of transformation. The encounter with Western modernity in the early twentieth century introduces new semantic layers into the Chinese conceptualization of nature, while contemporary ecological thought echoes Chinese concepts such as 自然 (ziran – nature as a self-generating process). Methodologically, the article combines conceptual history and comparative analysis, within the interdisciplinary field of Environmental Humanities, paying particular attention to the interplay between linguistic, philosophical, and cultural dimensions. By foregrounding the stratified nature of the concept, the study argues that nature cannot be understood as a stable category, but rather as an open, evolving construct shaped by ongoing processes of reinterpretation and intercultural negotiation.