Physis — the Greek term for nature, growth, and the generative principle of things — occupies a pivotal and contested position across the depth-psychological corpus. The Presocratic philosophers made physis the foundational category of existence: for the Ionian naturalists, nothing existed outside it, collapsing the human, divine, and cosmic into a single order. This monistic horizon is precisely what the depth-psychological tradition both inherits and complicates. Jung, as cited by Edinger, insists that ‘religious statements without exception have to do with the reality of the psyche and not with the reality of physis,’ establishing a constitutive polarity between psyche and physis that structures much of the theoretical enterprise. Edinger traces physis as a living root in modern language — physics, physician, physiology — and as a still-animating presence in the evolution of consciousness. Giegerich presses this further: alchemy, as ‘opus contra naturam,’ had already superseded physis as its horizon, advancing to the logical level and sublating both physis and pneuma within soul as logic. Hillman maps the tension differently, identifying a ‘quantitative approach’ in psychology as the viewpoint of physis toward psyche — an Aristotelian naturalism contrasted with a Platonic soul-orientation. The Stoic gradation from tenor through physique to soul (Sedley/Long) offers yet another framework in which physis marks an intermediate ontological register. What unites these divergent treatments is the recognition that physis is never merely background: it is the term against which depth psychology defines its own distinctive subject matter.
religious statements without exception have to do with the reality of the psyche and not with the reality of physis.
Peterson cites Jung to establish the foundational depth-psychological distinction between psyche and physis, asserting that all religious and spiritual discourse belongs to the register of soul, not nature.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024thesis
There are modern words which have physis as a root: physics, physical, physician, physiology, physiognomy and so on. Physis is still a living entity in our evolving language.
Edinger argues that physis retains living presence in contemporary language and consciousness, making it a relevant and dynamic category rather than a merely archaic philosophical term.
, The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus, 1999thesis
The quantitative approach represents the point of view of physis towards psyche, of matter toward soul, and therefore it enters psychology from the science of material nature.
Hillman identifies the quantitative-naturalistic method in psychology as an expression of physis imposing its norms upon the psyche, contrasting an Aristotelian nature-based standard with a Platonic soul-oriented one.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
soul as logic contains both physis and pneuma as sublated moments within it.
Giegerich argues that the soul at the level of logic has superseded the opposition of physis and pneuma, incorporating both as sublated moments within a higher, more abstract logical plane.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
alchemy, as ‘opus contra naturam’ (!), it had precisely overcome the dimension of the physis as its horizon (the physis that used to be the horizon of mythical existence).
Giegerich contends that alchemy’s significance lies in its having transcended the physis-horizon of mythical consciousness, advancing to the logical level through its focus on ‘matter’ in a fundamentally abstract sense.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
Nothing existed that was not nature, physis. The human, the divine, and the natural worlds mad
Vernant identifies the Ionian naturalists’ radical reduction of all existence to physis as the founding gesture of Greek rational thought, eliminating the supernatural in favor of a unified natural order.
, The Origins of Greek Thought, 1982thesis
the conscious mind, advancing into the unknown regions of the psyche, is overpowered by the archaic forces of the unconscious: a repetition of the cosmic embrace of Nous and Physis.
Jung employs the mythological image of Nous and Physis in cosmic embrace to characterize the psychological danger of ego-dissolution when consciousness descends into the unconscious.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944supporting
ciples of nature physis was well aware that it is indispensable that in all existing things there must be an active cause and a passive subject
Edinger, quoting Philo’s interpretation of Moses, uses physis to articulate the Aristotelian dyad of active cause (nous) and passive matter, showing physis as the domain requiring an animating intellect.
, The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One: Early Greek Philosophy From Thales to Plotinus, 1999supporting
this has nothing to do with the Christian ‘shadow’ and Christianity’s alleged neglect of the physis through an exclusive concentration on pneuma.
Giegerich refutes the interpretation of alchemy as compensation for Christianity’s neglect of physis, insisting the alchemical transformation operates at the level of logical interiority rather than physis versus pneuma.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
intermediate between the world of the Cherubinic pure Lights and the world of physis, which includes corruptible sublunar matter as well as the astral matter of the incorruptible Heavens.
Corbin situates physis as the entire cosmic world of matter — both corruptible and astral — below the threshold of the subtle imaginal ‘climate of the Soul,’ establishing a tripartite cosmological hierarchy.
, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 1971supporting
Physique also extends to plants, and in us there are things like plants - nails and hair. Physique is tenor in actual motion.
The Stoic schema in Long and Sedley defines physique (physis in motion) as an intermediate ontological level between inert tenor and full soul, offering a graduated naturalist ontology pertinent to depth-psychological hierarchies.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
Speech is truly conceived as natural reality, a part of physis. A man’s logos may grow, just as it may shrink and shrivel away.
Detienne demonstrates that in archaic Greek thought logos itself was understood as physis — a natural, growing reality — blurring the later distinction between language and nature fundamental to depth-psychological epistemology.
, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, 1996supporting
These unnamed persons are surely the Physis men, or the pupils of the Physis men, the ‘realist’ politicians whom we meet in Thucydides.
Dodds identifies the ‘Physis men’ as fifth-century relativists and amoralists who weaponized the nature/convention distinction, showing physis as a contested ideological term in the Greek Enlightenment.
, The Greeks and the Irrational, 1951supporting
Philo uses the terms physis and nous in another passage
Edinger notes Philo’s paired deployment of physis and nous as a key moment in the Hellenistic transmission of nature-intellect polarity into theologically inflected depth-psychological language.
, The Psyche in Antiquity, Book One Early Greek Philosophy supporting
Collins English Dictionary, s. v. “physis,” April 12, 2023
A bibliographic footnote citing a dictionary definition of physis, indicating the term’s continued lexical presence in contemporary reference literature.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024aside