Questions the theory takes up

This page collects the questions Physis: A Theory of Power takes up. They are not the book's internal questions but questions from outside it: the ones the literature or an ordinary reader already asks, and which are more often named than answered.

Under each question stands the one-sentence mechanism that chapter gives in reply — not a description and not a verdict, but the causal core. The section number beside it marks where the answer is built; the chapter's full text is one link away.

The list grows as chapters are published.

Physis & Nomos

Why do revolutions, constitutions and welfare states drift from their founding aims a while after they are established?: What breaks them is not a force from outside but a difference of friction: the agonistic mechanism of Physis scales without resistance and independently of scale, while the affiliative one stays within face-to-face range — and the instruments that ought to close the gap are made by whoever benefits from the imbalance. §1
Why do reason and impulse struggle without pause — and why does that struggle never end?: Because they are not separate layers: impulse runs free and in milliseconds, conscious decision demands continuous energy and is the first thing to collapse under strain; and because modes cannot be switched, there is no door at which one could say 'now I am here' — the conflict is not a transition to be managed but the structure itself. §2 · §7
Do values such as justice and freedom exist in nature, or are they particular to the human?: Neither — the opposition is wrongly built: the raw drive (the reaction to unfairness, reciprocity) is already there in Physis; what is particular to the human is turning it into a norm — the feeling 'this is unfair' becomes the judgement 'there ought to be justice' only through Nomos. §1 · §7
What separates the human from other species?: The difference is not one of kind but of degree — yet a difference of degree that crosses a qualitative threshold: the feedback loop producing the six capacities — prefrontal capacity, language and theory of mind, cumulative culture, selection pressure — begins in other species but does not close; and this is an empirical limit, not a logical necessity. §3
Do institutions run by well-meaning people of conscience also run with good intent and conscience?: No — what makes the difference is not the quality of those inside but the source of death: the human's inevitable source of death is entropy and others can be allies, the corporate entity's is directly the others; that formula does not call up the affiliative side, it feeds the agonistic one. §8
What is a right institution — and even if institutions are built rightly, is it guaranteed that they will work rightly?: No, because the causality runs the other way: the reading that treats institutional design as decisive ties the outcome to institutions; here institutions do not determine the outcome, power dynamics determine institutions — and the structure expected to maintain the balance does not itself carry the capacity of Nomos. §8
Where do the search for meaning and the desire to leave a trace come from?: The intersection of memory and death awareness makes time linear, and linear time gives rise to a selfhood able to say 'I was here yesterday, one day I will not be'; the search for meaning and the drive for legacy are the two extensions of that selfhood. §4.2
Why is no order, no status and no value ever permanently safe?: Because the test arises not from the relation between parties but from the capacity of everything that exists to end: it requires no consciousness, it runs in both directions, and it is not won once and over — it lasts until it is lost. §6
Why are practices against freedom, equality and justice increasing even in the most democratic systems?: Affiliative balancing mechanisms — rights, oversight, the downward distribution of benefit — are not self-maintaining: they work for as long as they are operated continuously and at high cost, and the moment that maintenance stops the default beneath them returns. §1The trend is recorded by Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2026 (a twentieth consecutive year of decline) and V-Dem, Democracy Report 2026. The term “democracy” is defined in On Equality.

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