Essence and existence

Abstract

First philosophy, divine science, and the science of ‘being as being’ The recovery of Aristotle's Metaphysics by medieval Western thinkers prepared the way for them to concentrate on the science of ‘being as being’ in the high Middle Ages. This work was enhanced by the translation into Latin of Avicenna's Metaphysics in the twelfth century and of Averroes' Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics in the early thirteenth century. But as medieval Latin thinkers began to examine Aristotle's text more closely, they encountered a problem of interpretation relating to the very nature of metaphysics. In Metaphysics IV, c. 1 (1003a21–32), Aristotle speaks of a science which studies being as being and contrasts it with more particular sciences which restrict themselves to investigating the attributes of a portion of being. But in Metaphysics VI, c. 1 (1026a23–32), after referring to his investigation of ‘beings as beings’ and presumably, therefore, to his science of being as being, Aristotle distinguishes three theoretical sciences – physics, mathematics, and first philosophy or ‘divine science’ – and then seems to justify the viability of the last-mentioned one only insofar as it concerns itself with separate and immobile entities. One might wonder whether this first philosophy or divine science can be identified with Aristotle's general science of being as being, a difficulty which he himself recognises. He concludes the discussion by asserting that if there were no separate and immobile entity, then physics would be the first science.