Summary: Metaphysics (page 3)

Book α

The search for truth is both easy — in that no one fails entirely — and difficult, in that no one can grasp it fully.

To know the truth (of a phenomenon, etc.) is to know its cause:

We cannot know the truth if we do not know the cause ¹.

Eternal truths are those concerning principles — those from which all things proceed — since these principles are themselves eternal.

A cause is itself the effect of a preceding cause, which in turn results from an earlier one, and so on. Now, causes cannot continue indefinitely in direct succession ².

There must, therefore, be a first principle — and this applies to each of the four causal series corresponding to the four causes. We must therefore identify an initial movement, a primary matter, a final end, and a primary essence.

In this passage of the Metaphysics, Aristotle also returns to the argument of the Third Man, along with the question of the Idea of the Idea of the Idea.

This cause must be first not in a temporal sense, but in a logical one.

If the chain of causes were infinite and never reached first principles, it would have another harmful consequence: the annihilation of science ³. Indeed, if we can only know things by knowing their causes, then to grasp an infinite series of causes would require infinite time — rendering scientific knowledge impossible.

What methods, then, should we use in physics? Should mathematics be applied to the study of nature? Aristotle's answer is no: mathematics, as the science of intelligible objects, is only appropriate for those things which are without matter. As a result, this is not the method that should be adapted in the study of nature, since the whole of nature, it may be said, is only matter ⁴.

Book B

In this book of the Metaphysics, Aristotle raises a host of questions.

Among them:

Is it the task of a single science, or of several, to study the causes of things?

Should this science confine itself to the first principles of Being, and not, for instance, to the principles of demonstration?

Should it study only substances, or also attributes?

Is a thing better known through the genera to which it belongs, or through the elements of which it is composed?

Here, once again, we encounter Aristotle's critique of the Platonic theory. Plato's doctrine, Aristotle argues, does no more than attribute eternity to things:

This is more or less committing the fault of those who, while believing in the existence of the gods, give them a human figure; and just as these supposed gods are nothing more than men endowed with eternity, so the Ideas are nothing more than sensible objects made eternal ⁵.

Aristotle also addresses difficulties concerning the existence of intermediate entities between Ideas and sensible objects — such as numbers.

He shows that in motion, something fixed must remain — namely, form. Without it, we would be left with the paradox of absolute motion.

Form must exist; otherwise, we would have a science of nothing. Yet it must exist within the object itself, and not, as Plato believes, in some separate reality.

Book Γ

Aristotle once again raises the question: should there be a separate science for principles? Here he gives a definitive answer: yes, there is a special science, distinct from all others. He calls it the science of being as being.

It is worth noting that Aristotle gives no other name to this discipline — he does not, for instance, call it metaphysics.

The notion of being is plurivocal — it encompasses several meanings — but these various meanings share a common foundation. Thus, being can serve as the object of a single, unified science.

This science must study being precisely as being — that is, the principles of being itself. But it must also examine the axioms: in other words, the principles of thought that make this inquiry possible.

¹ Book α, 1
² α, 2
³ α, 2
⁴ α, 3
⁵ B, 2