The concept of φθορá in the Greek tradition: a philological and philosophical analysis

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of the various meanings of φθορά in ancient Greek tradition. The research is developed from a philological and philosophical approach, combining semantic analysis and conceptual interpretation. The method is analytical and argumentative, aimed at reconstructing the historical and ontological senses of the term. It is argued that φθορά, traditionally translated as corruption or decay, should not be understood as a negation of being (τὸ ὄν), but rather as one of its constitutive dimensions. Against the interpretation of being as something immutable, eternal, and unmoving, a dynamic conception is proposed in which φθορά does not represent an anomaly or mere disappearance, but a mode of ontological becoming. Far from opposing the unity of being, φθορά makes it possible to think that unity through a different logic: not as immobility, but as a process of reinstatement in which being becomes unconcealed and reconstitutes itself in its own becoming. φθορά does not annul being —it reveals it in its essential mobility.