Metaphysics

Metaphysics

1. By Aristotle

   • Aristotle called the metaphysics as the "first phylosophy"
   • One tought that Aristotle had was that everyone has wisdom (sophia) to be "worried" with is primary cause (aitia)
     • and the starting-points (or principles, archai), and it is these causes and principles that he proposes to study in this work.
   • Aristotle distinguished between things that are “better known to us” and things that are “better known in themselves”, and maintained that we should begin our study of a given topic
     • with things better known to us and arrive ultimately at an understanding of things better known in themselves.
   • Aristotle’s description does not involve two things: a study and a subject matter (being qua being)for he did not think that there is any such subject matter as ‘being qua being’
     • Rather, his description involves three things: a study, a subject matter (being), and a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua being).
   • Natural science studies objects that are material and subject to change, and mathematics studies objects that not subject to change are however not separate from matter,
     • there is still room for a science that studies things that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter.
   • Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the “first” and “highest” science. Aristotle’s identification of theology, so conceived, with the study of being qua being has proved challenging to his interpreters.