The book demonstrates the fertility of a reconstruction perspective based on structural genetics for the analysis of historically and culturally different worldviews. By examining the central concepts in the history of thought systems regarding the nature-culture distinction and physical causality, it critically assesses the scope and limitations of the thesis of a universal developmental logic. The historical studies provide a novel perspective on Aristotelian physics and its medieval developments. Finally, the material results are interpreted towards a theory of the emergence of the new in development that is oriented around the theory of difference.