The Tradition of the Concept of Metaphysics

Abstract

Metaphysics was defined by Aristotle in three different ways, firstly as the science which deals with being as being, secondly, as the science of immovable substance without matter, i.e. of God, thirdly, as the science of first principles.1 Of these three definitions, the last mentioned gives the essence of science rather than of metaphysics.2 The first and second definitions are both concerned with metaphysics in the proper sense, but there is a remarkable difference between them. This difference was taken seriously by Natorp3 and it also became the basis of Jaeger’s4 theory which postulated a development of Aristotle’s thought during his lifetime. The question of the validity of Jaeger’s theory may be dismissed for the moment. We may accept, if necessary, Jaeger’s view, and assume that the theological definition represents the thought of Aristotle’s early period, when he was under Plato’s influence, while the ontological definition represents his later thought. Even with this assumption we cannot suppose that he simply changed his view of metaphysics. For, as we have already said, Aristotle himself argued that these two definitions were in conformity with each other, for both defined the first science. We found that his argument was fallacious, as it turned on an ambiguity in the term ’the first,’ but that it was none the less completely in accordance with his teleological system. We must notice, moreover, that the science of being qua being did not mean, as we are apt to think, the science of being as an abstract predicate or as a vague genus. According to Aristotle, being was not a genus, but an analogical universal.5 The categories such as quality, quantity, relation, etc., were not species under a genus, but the summa genera, which were analogically linked together by the main category, substance. The unification of being consisted in this analogy between summa genera. Just for this reason, to explain being qua being was considered by Aristotle to be the same as to explain being with reference to substance. In other words, being was for Aristotle primarily a subject, and it was a predicate only in a secondary sense. Generally speaking, nominalism is a dominant current in modern times. It is on account of this modern dogma that the identification of universality with value appears to be strange. But Aristotle’s explanation of the coincidence of the ontological and the theological definitions of metaphysics seems to have given his school no trouble.