From the Latin convenire – together; convention means established practice or use.
It often happens that the words are conventionally and relatively used interchangeably. However, we should make greater efforts to use these words (and in fact all others).
Among the established (conventional) meanings of the word, relatively two deserve special attention.
The first is that in which the term means that which depends on the will.
The other meaning of relative that deserves attention is “that which is without reason.”
These two meanings do not necessarily coincide, as something could depend on my will and at the same time be quite reasonable. All conventions or established practices are relative in the first sense – they depend on our will to continue to do what we usually do. Separated from this will, they (conventions) would disappear. But conventions are not necessarily devoid of reasonableness or justification. The established practice of greeting each other in a civilized way may have a deep, albeit less widely accepted, basis. The fate of this convention depends on us. This does not make the convention unreasonable, but only fragile. Conventions have traditionally been opposed to nature.
The difference between nomos (habit) and physis (nature), derived mostly from Plato and Aristotle, paves the way for later thinking. For the two Greek philosophers, the appeal to nature is crucial.
As in many other cases, modern thought differs markedly at this point from the dominant trust in classical thinking. Modern thinking contains challenges to the privilege of nature and the belittling of habit.
For some contemporary authors, all appeals to nature are problematic because they know all too well how such appeals are used to justify slavery and other forms of exploitation or oppression.
Of course, the latter view is one that, shouldn’t, like the contemporary postmodernists do, be taken to an extreme. In the name of “removing slavery, oppression, and exploitation”, one should not destroy the fundamentals of free speech, and the ability of other people to connect with Nature. As pretty much everything in our world, and personal world views, staggering to extreme positions is not advised, as almost always doing so is wrong and dangerous. We ought to mention and keep in mind that appealing to nature wouldn’t be “problematic” if it is not taken to the extreme. The same, as mentioned already, is true for the total dismissal of one such appeal.
