The fundamental problem of metaphysics is the classification of what it is. This is already the case in those books in Aristotle’s work placed after his books on physics (metà ta physikà biblia): being is expressed in many ways, but all these ways have a common meaning, one which concerns the properties which transcend specific investigations into entities considered from a given standpoint (mathematics studies being from the viewpoint of quantity, physics from the perspective of nature). That science which investigates being in its entirety is, of course, metaphysics, which Aristotle calls “first philosophy” and in other similar ways. From the sixth book on, (Metaphysics comprises fourteen volumes), having terminated his considerations on introductory issues, Aristotle deals with substance, with potency and with actuality, with the one and the many, and he advances a critique of Plato’s theory of ideas. His classificatory system is based on one fundamental assumption, namely that there are no universals in the world, (they exist only in thought), there are only individuals, composed of matter and form. What is first presented to experience is the last in the order of causes. The starting point of metaphysics is experience, but metaphysics transcends experience, and does so in two directions which are closely interconnected in Aristotelian thought: God as the prime mover, and the first principles of all things.
Ontology. A Brief History
FERRARIS, Maurizio
2005-01-01
Abstract
The fundamental problem of metaphysics is the classification of what it is. This is already the case in those books in Aristotle’s work placed after his books on physics (metà ta physikà biblia): being is expressed in many ways, but all these ways have a common meaning, one which concerns the properties which transcend specific investigations into entities considered from a given standpoint (mathematics studies being from the viewpoint of quantity, physics from the perspective of nature). That science which investigates being in its entirety is, of course, metaphysics, which Aristotle calls “first philosophy” and in other similar ways. From the sixth book on, (Metaphysics comprises fourteen volumes), having terminated his considerations on introductory issues, Aristotle deals with substance, with potency and with actuality, with the one and the many, and he advances a critique of Plato’s theory of ideas. His classificatory system is based on one fundamental assumption, namely that there are no universals in the world, (they exist only in thought), there are only individuals, composed of matter and form. What is first presented to experience is the last in the order of causes. The starting point of metaphysics is experience, but metaphysics transcends experience, and does so in two directions which are closely interconnected in Aristotelian thought: God as the prime mover, and the first principles of all things.
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