History Of Metaphysics Class

the history of the concept of

METAPHYSICS ■ First problem of Western philosophy : “origin of everything” : metaphysics is the science investigates ultimatewas ground The first which question theytheasked :

of absolutely everything. What do all things have in common, that which Hence -the metaphysics proposes a final answer to a makes universe one?

totalisproblem. What the common element in all things? What are all things made out of? ■ PRESOCRATICS - shared the common conviction that somehow behind the bewildering multiplicity of appearances the universe is one, bound together in bonds of unity.

QUESTION OF ORIGIN

 breaks through to the ultimate universal  focuses on the intelligibility of process or concept change and attribute of all things,

being  all things in our cosmos are in a constant pro- itself cess of flux  or law - the immanent stable to law  logos radical orientation of thought governing the sequence of changes and being: only bringing change being,order whatinto is, can be thought  makes change intelligible?  what all ingredients of the REAL, thus

being itself, is conceived as a concrete single thing. hence, the elimination of all difference,

Heracl P armenide

Plato Two-World View of Reality

came to this realization through Parmenides two ways: ➨ reacting the world against of ideas the Sophists is the realm and theof relativization true being.of They truth are (knowledge truly real / morality bec-ause not they posRealm remain sible!) always self-identical and ➨ truths, unchanging. then,of must beTo immutabe is to ble,be im-mutable, Ideas always the ➨ if same, truth exists hence and the is immutaground of ble, truth. it can only be about immutable Sensibl objects. ➨ e since Thetruth world is about of the sense real, perception being , it follows therefore, that true being of Realm changing must itself,particulars, as the object ofistruth, not the be immutable, truly real, ever but self-identical a dim shadowy to Heraclitu itself. image, participation of it, only half

s

Plato

Two-World View of Reality two worlds world or true being  the need :for unityof of ideas particulars  are of able to understand andweworld sense perception,particulars of changonly by subsum-ing them under universal ing particulars always in flux, where notpredicates. hing is principle what it is is always  Thestable general is but “before every becoming something else many there is a ONE ”. – And this ONE opposition of BEING and BECOMING . grounds the intelligibility, and hence being.  Hence, there is no true knowledge, One is speaking, the world ofofthe authentic truth , the strictly individual, only of other is matter predicates only for opinion . the universal or ideas, which alone are immutable, necessary, hence can ground TRUTH.

Aristotle

 Agrees with Plato: Plato there must be truth; reality is intelligible; ■ Substance is that which truth is immutable, exists in itselfnecessary. and not in universal,

another.  Disagrees with Plato: Plato in locating the ideas ■ The “this-being ” thatoris the forms, and in of locating the ultimate subject attribution truly real. (of which all other predicates It is this sensible world of are predicated). human experience which is clearly real.

 The really real is the particular - SUBSTANCE.

Aristotle took the word “metaphysics” in several different senses:  A first meaning was that metaphysics simply was the science SUPRASENSIBL of the suprasensible. E  However, since, he derived the knowledge of the suprasensible from the knowledge of sense objects, he arrived at a CAUSES OF ALL second meaning of metaphysics: it is the science of the causes THINGS of all things, material, formal, efficient and final.

 Third conception: science of being as beings. Thus the object of metaphysics is all reality visible and invisible: WHATEVER whatever exists. It investigates all realities insofar as they are beings, it tries to disEXISTS cover what belongs to them in their quality of beings.

Aristot

Aristotle The four CAUSES or principles of explanation:

SUPRASENSIBL MATERIAL CAUSE: that out of which CAUSE E something is made (raw material);

FORMAL CAUSE: CAUSE that in a thing which CAUSES OF ALL makes it to be such a thing (this kind THINGS of thing); EFFICIENT CAUSE: CAUSE that by which something is made, the active agent; WHATEVER FINAL CAUSE: that for the sake of which CAUSE EXISTS something is done, the goal or purpose.

Metaphysics has threefold object:

beings as principles of

beings,

the first beings, and suprasensible

beings, especially beings.

GOD

as cause of all

The immediate object of metaphysics is beings as beings. However, every science must investigate the causes of its object. In the case of beings as beings, these causes may be the extrinsic or intrinsic causes of each particular being: existence and

essence,

form

and EFFICIENT and FINAL causes.

matter,

This conception of metaphysics St. Thomas Aquinas held by all Scholastic philosophers.

was

Aristotle’s metaphysics – the study of the real requires the study their causes. 4 Causes – Formal – that in a being that makes it to be such, this kind of being; Material – that in a being out of which it is made; Efficient – that which by its action makes a being to be; Final – that for the sake of which something is made or done.

• Neo-Platonic Theory of Participation – Where many beings are found to be – intrinsically similar in that they share some one perfection common to all yet are diverse (dissimilar), (1) this common perfection of similarity cannot find its adequate sufficient reason in these many participants precisely as many and diverse. (2) The only adequate sufficient reason for this common sharing must be some one unitary source from which this common perfection derives. (3) What all beings share in common is the act of existence itself. Hence, all beings necessarily point back to one single ultimate source of existence itself.

■ Thomistic Synthesis:  Aristotle’s concern with change, Aquinas transformed FINAL CAUSE into the question of existence: God is both efficient and final cause of all beings. EFFICIENT CAUSE

 Relation between beings and Being is conceptualized in terms of the Neo-Platonic theory of Participation.

Aquinas existentialized both Aristotle and Plato to show that all beings not only come from God as their First Cause but also return to Him as to their perfect-ion as the

Final Cause.

Christian And soWolff: ...

 Equated metaphysicsthe with theoretical philosophy, Wolff transformed very notion of thus considerablyHe widening its object. He distinguished metaphysics. defined philosophy as the further of between general things, metaphysics and as special science all possible insofar theymetaare physics.. The also called ONTOLOGY, is the basic ONTOLOGY possible He former, was inter-ested not in reality, but in philosophical discipline, investigates being as mere possibility as such.which Possibility referred only conception of metaphysics). tosuch the(traditional possibility of thinking or conceiving the objects without contradiction. The question that  However, he whether held that the task of of metaphysics is arises, then, is thereal object metaphysics deduce, fromasclearly defined concepts and the is to still beings beings, or whether it isaxioms, the first statements ofwhich apply to, every object be of principles knowledge from possible which may thought. the In this way,that metaphysics no longer a real deduced rules determine what is mental study of are being, but a mere formal doctrine of axioms or contents possible or contradictory. principles. It is no longer rooted in being. Metaphysics studies not the real, but the possible. The doctrine of principles is totally separated from the doctrine of beings. Metaphysics has become a study of essences.

The foregoing allows us to understand KANT’s position with respect to METAPHYSICS. How is metaphysics possible as a science?

KANT proceeded beyond both rationalism and empiricism. Against he maintained that Thus rationalism, the problem of the universal and necessary principles cannot possibility of metaphysics be merely analytic, that they must be be-comes theareproblem of synthetic, if they to increase our the of knowledge; in possibility other words, they must not merely explain what we that know already,are they judgments must add something to our knowledge. synthetic a priori.which must be But synthetic judgments,

IMMANUEL KANT

universally and necessarily true, cannot derive sensemust experience, cannot be, Thusfrom we turn our in the sense of empiricism, synthetic attention away from the judgments a posteriori. Sense experience object knowledge of refers onlytoto our the singular and to the contingent. it, or, as Kant put it, “to

our way of byknowing Kant solved this problem stating that there must exist judgmentsas whichthis are objects, insofar synthetic a priori, previous to experience, should be possible a yet yielding really new knowledge.

RECALL: The problem about the possibility of metaphysics involved the problem of whether or not there exists SYNTHETIC A PRIORI (prior to experience yet yielding really new) knowledge.

IMMANUEL KANT

Thus we must turn our attention away from the object to our knowledge of it, or, as Kant put it, “to our way of knowing objects, insofar as this should be possible a priori.”

This is the turn to the TRANSCENDENTAL METHOD. For Kant it meant a passage from the conditioned to the condition, from the object of experience to pure reason which determines this object. Thus metaphysics turns into transcendental philosophy. It is “pure knowledge of reason from mere concepts.” “Metaphysics is a logic of the pure intellect.” “It comprises the a priori concepts and principles which bring together the multiplicity of empirical representations so as to make them into empirical knowledge, into experience.”

K ant

Insists that the whole of Western metaphysics has Aalways real been difference between beings is an interested in beings, not in the being of beings, difference. in the relationONTIC of truth of our minds to these ONTIC difference refers to Metaphysics, he as says, is an beings, truth conceived conformity of our minds with, the difference between two beings. what these beings are. But it has forgotten something not an , way of ONTOLOGICAL: This is the fundamental deeper, underlying and rendering possible all such difference or distinction between beings and thinking because no the attention conformity: the very Beingit of pays beings, i.e., ontological Being itself, is not reducible shining forth of i.e., beingsBeing to this consciousness of man, to the to the ontological difference between any of the particular beings in concealment which it is process of aletheia or passage from to beings anditbeing. immanent; transcends each onerelation in its unconcealment, upon which any subsequent of immanent omnipresence. conformity must depend as its ground.

ONTIC

ONTOLOGICAL

Martin Heidegge

Man’s fundamental nature and role, what characteristically defines him►as Because distinct from metaphysics other beings, among which he lives in a has forgotten common world is that he dwells in the midst of beings as a Dasein being in behalf of the beings, it is (a there-being), as one who can receive the revelation of beings characterized Seinsvergessenheit orunity through the light of their by Being, draw this Being together ,into oblivion being .”rich ancient meaning of ideaand“speak it out as of a logos (in the word).

► Recovery of metaphysics: This is onto-logy. Man is the being that bears witness to Being, It must consider and firmly establish gives voice to Being through the logos. His fundamental privilege, being asvocation, that is through whichtheall beings responsibility, to do onto-logy, speaking out of are beings. Being . Thus Being needs man, in order to have its self-revelation

received and spoken out in conscious awareness; and reciprocally The question of being must first turn man needs Being, since he must receive, listen to, the revelation of towards for more than other what really is, notman, construct it wholly out of his ownall vitals.

beings, man, as Dasein (being-there), excels in“the comprehension of being. Man stands in the openness

of being.”

Heidegger’s summary judgment of Western philosophy may be unfair to some of the greatest thinkers within this tradition, he nevertheless points to real problems and tasks which the methodical reconstruction of metaphysics, on the basis of past experience, cannot afford to ignore. Since the time of Aristotle, classic metaphysics has considered as its object “beings as beings.” This formula mentions only the beings, not No thinker of the past has been more clearly the being of beings. But to consider being as beings aware the inontological difference than means toof consider them that which is common to all Thomas Aquinas, nobody has more of them, which makes them into beings, namely,clearly being. The fact that the classic definition mentions only and the distinguished between beings (ens) beings, not their being, as the object of metaphysics, being (esse), or interpreted beings more intimates that being as such is never given to us as an consistently in the light being. object, that it reveals itself of to us only in the beings whose ground it is.