Although Plato does not have an explicit theory of natural law (he almost never uses the phrase natural law except in Gorgias 484 and Timaeus 83e), his concept of nature, according to John Wild, contains some of the elements found in many natural law theories.[5] According to Plato we live in an orderly universe.[6] At the basis of this orderly universe or nature are the forms, most fundamentally the Form of the Good, which Plato describes as "the brightest region of Being".[7] The Form of the Good is the cause of all things and when it is seen it leads a person to act wisely.[8] In the Symposium, the Good is closely identified with the Beautiful.[9] Also in the Symposium, Plato describes how the experience of the Beautiful by Socrates enables him to resist the temptations of wealth and sex.[10] In the Republic, the ideal community is “a city which would be established in accordance with nature.”[11]
Greek philosophy emphasized the distinction between "nature" (physis, φúσις) on the one hand and "law", "custom", or "convention" (nomos, νóμος) on the other. What the law commanded varied from place to place, but what was "by nature" should be the same everywhere. A "law of nature" would therefore have had the flavor more of a paradox than something which obviously existed.[1] Against the conventionalism that the distinction between nature and custom could engender, Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotle, posited the existence of natural justice or natural right (dikaion physikon, δικαιον φυσικον, Latin ius naturale). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law.[12]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_lawIn philosophy, the natural order is the moral source from which natural law seeks to derive its authority. It encompasses the natural relations of beings to one another, in the absence of law, which natural law attempts to reinforce.
In contrast, divine law seeks authority from God, and positive law seeks authority from government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_order_(philosophy)Spontaneous order, also known as "self-organization", is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process found in physical, biological, and social networks, as well as economics, though the term "self-organization" is more often used for physical and biological processes, while "spontaneous order" is typically used to describe the emergence of various kinds of social orders from a combination of self-interested individuals who are not intentionally trying to create order through planning. The evolution of life on Earth, language, crystal structure, the Internet and a free market economy have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order.[1] Naturalists often point to the inherent "watch-like" precision of uncultivated ecosystems and to the universe itself as ultimate examples of this phenomenon.[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_orderAwareness of self. How can everything function on thought processes, but be the product of thoughtless design?
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Topic: Order From Chaos (Read 815 times)
