Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago the Greek thinker Heraclitus supposedly uttered the cryptic words "Phusis kruptesthai philei." How the aphorism, usually translated as "Nature loves to hide," has haunted Western culture ever since is the subject of this engaging study by Pierre Hadot. Taking the allegorical figure of the veiled goddess Isis as a guide, and drawing on the work of both the ancients and later thinkers such as Goethe, Rilke, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, Hadot traces successive interpretations of Heraclitus' words. Over time, Hadot finds, "Nature loves to hide" has meant that all that lives tends to die; that Nature wraps herself in myths; and (for Heidegger) that Being unveils as it veils itself. Meanwhile the pronouncement has been used to explain everything from the opacity of the natural world to our modern angst. From these kaleidoscopic exegeses and usages emerge two contradictory approaches to nature: the Promethean, or experimental-questing, approach, which embraces technology as a means of tearing the veil from Nature and revealing her secrets; and the Orphic, or contemplative-poetic, approach, according to which such a denuding of Nature is a grave trespass. In place of these two attitudes, Hadot proposes one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schelling, who saw in the veiled Isis an allegorical expression of the sublime. "Nature is art and art is nature," Hadot writes, inviting us to embrace Isis and all she represents: art makes us intensely aware of how completely we ourselves are not merely surrounded by nature but also part of nature.

作者皮埃爾•阿多（Pierre Hadot，1922—2010），法國20世紀著名哲學傢、史學傢與文獻學傢，法蘭西學院榮譽教授。主要從事古希臘羅馬思想研究，以研究古代哲學尤其是新柏拉圖主義和斯多亞主義而聞名世界。阿多是福柯最欣賞的哲學傢之一，也是最早把維特根斯坦介紹到法國的主要人物之一。他強調古代哲學並非一套理論學說，而是一種與生活方式、生命品質密切相關的精神修煉。代錶著作：《精神修煉與古代哲學》、《古代哲學的智慧》、《作為生活方式的哲學》、《維特根斯坦和語言的界限》、《伊西斯的麵紗》等。

譯者張蔔天，1979年生，中國科技大學物理學學士，北京大學科技哲學博士，現為中國科學院自然科學史研究所副研究員。研究方嚮為西方中世紀和近代早期科學思想史。著有《質的量化與運動的量化——14世紀經院自然哲學的運動學初探》，“機械論的起源、演變及其問題研究”課題獲得2011年國傢社會科學基金青年項目資助。主編“科學源流譯叢”。主要譯有《大問題——簡明哲學導論》、《韋洛剋拉丁語教程》、《世界圖景的機械化》、《現代性的神學起源》、《科學革命的編史學研究》等二十餘部著作。