- Preface
- Prologue at Ephesus: An Enigmatic Saying
- I. The Veil of Death
- 1. Heraclitus’ Aphorism: “What Is Born Tends to Disappear”
- II. The Veil of Nature
- 2. From Phusis to Nature
- 3. Secrets of the Gods and Secrets of Nature
- III. “Nature Loves to Hide”
- 4. Heraclitus’ Aphorism and Allegorical Exegesis
- 5. “Nature Loves to Wrap Herself Up”: Mythical Forms and Corporeal Forms
- 6. Calypso, or “Imagination with the Flowing Veil”
- 7. The Genius of Paganism
- 8. The “Gods of Greece”: Pagan Myths in a Christian World
- IV. Unveiling Nature’s Secrets
- 9. Prometheus and Orpheus
- V. The Promethean Attitude: Unveiling Secrets through Technology
- 10. Mechanics and Magic from Antiquity to the Renaissance
- 11. Experimental Science and the Mechanization of Nature
- 12. Criticism of the Promethean Attitude
- VI. The Orphic Attitude: Unveiling Secrets through Discourse, Poetry, and Art
- 13. Physics as a Conjectural Science
- 14. Truth as the Daughter of Time
- 15. The Study of Nature as a Spiritual Exercise
- 16. Nature’s Behavior: Thrifty, Joyful, or Spendthrift?
- 17. The Poetic Model
- 18. Aesthetic Perception and the Genesis of Forms
- VII. The Veil of Isis
- 19. Artemis and Isis
- VIII. From the Secret of Nature to the Mystery of Existence: Terror and Wonder
- 20. Isis Has No Veils
- 21. The Sacred Shudder
- 22. Nature as Sphinx
- 23. From the Secret of Nature to the Mystery of Being
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index


The Veil of Isis
An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature
Product Details
PAPERBACK
$29.00 • £25.95 • €26.95
ISBN 9780674030497
Publication Date: 09/15/2008