Metaphysics (Aristotle) Explained

Metaphysics (Greek: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, "those after the physics"; Latin: Metaphysica[1]) is one of the principal works of Aristotle, in which he develops the doctrine that he calls First Philosophy. The work is a compilation of various texts treating abstract subjects, notably substance theory, different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects and the cosmos, which together constitute much of the branch of philosophy later known as metaphysics.

Date, style and composition

Many of Aristotle's works are extremely compressed, and many scholars believe that in their current form, they are likely lecture notes.[2] Subsequent to the arrangement of Aristotle's works by Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century BC, a number of his treatises were referred to as the writings "after ("meta") the Physics", the origin of the current title for the collection Metaphysics. Some have interpreted the expression "meta" to imply that the subject of the work goes "beyond" that of Aristotle's Physics or that it is metatheoretical in relation to the Physics. But others believe that "meta" referred simply to the work's place in the canonical arrangement of Aristotle's writings, which is at least as old as Andronicus of Rhodes or even Hermippus of Smyrna.[3] In other surviving works of Aristotle, the metaphysical treatises are referred to as "the [writings] concerning first philosophy"; which was the term Aristotle used for metaphysics.

It is notoriously difficult to specify the date at which Aristotle wrote these treatises as a whole or even individually, especially because the Metaphysics is, in Jonathan Barnes' words, "a farrago, a hotch-potch", and more generally because of the difficulty of dating any of Aristotle's writings.[4] The order in which the books were written is not known; their arrangement is due to later editors. In the manuscripts, books are referred to by Greek letters. For many scholars, it is customary to refer to the books by their letter names. Book 1 is called Alpha (Α); 2, little alpha (α); 3, Beta (Β); 4, Gamma (Γ); 5, Delta (Δ); 6, Epsilon (Ε); 7, Zeta (Ζ); 8, Eta (Η); 9, Theta (Θ); 10, Iota (Ι); 11, Kappa (Κ); 12, Lambda (Λ); 13, Mu (Μ); 14, Nu (Ν).

Outline

Books I–VI: Alpha, little Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon

Books VII–IX: Zeta, Eta, and Theta

Books Zeta, Eta, and Theta are generally considered the core of the Metaphysics. Book Zeta (VII) begins by stating that "being" has several senses, the purpose of philosophy is to understand the primary kind of being, called substance (ousia) and determine what substances there are, a concept that Aristotle develops in the Categories.Zeta goes on to consider four candidates for substance: (i) the 'essence' or 'what it is to be' of a thing (ii) the universal, (iii) the genus to which a substance belongs and (iv) the material substrate that underlies all the properties of a thing.

Finally, he concludes book Zeta by arguing that substance is really a cause.

Book Eta consists of a summary of what has been said so far (i.e., in Book Zeta) about substance, and adds a few further details regarding difference and unity.

Book Theta sets out to define potentiality and actuality. Chapters 1–5 discuss potentiality, the potential of something to change: potentiality is "a principle of change in another thing or in the thing itself qua other." In chapter 6 Aristotle turns to actuality. We can only know actuality through observation or "analogy;" thus "as that which builds is to that which is capable of building, so is that which is awake to that which is asleep...or that which is separated from matter to matter itself".[8] Actuality is the completed state of something that had the potential to be completed. The relationship between actuality and potentiality can be thought of as the relationship between form and matter, but with the added aspect of time. Actuality and potentiality are distinctions that occur over time (diachronic), whereas form and matter are distinctions that can be made at fixed points in time (synchronic).

Books X–XIV: Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, and Nu

Legacy

The Metaphysics is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical works. Its influence on the Greeks, the Muslim philosophers, Maimonides thence the scholastic philosophers and even writers such as Dante[9] was immense.

In the 3rd century, Alexander of Aphrodisias wrote a commentary on the first five books of the Metaphysics,[10] and a commentary transmitted under his name exists for the final nine, but modern scholars doubt that this part was written by him.[11] Themistius wrote an epitome of the work, of which book 12 survives in a Hebrew translation.[12] The Neoplatonists Syrianus and Asclepius of Tralles also wrote commentaries on the work, where they attempted to synthesize Aristotle's doctrines with Neoplatonic cosmology.[13]

Aristotle's works gained a reputation for complexity that is never more evident than with the Metaphysics — Avicenna said that he had read the Metaphysics of Aristotle forty times, but did not understand it until he also read al-Farabi's Purposes of the Metaphysics of Aristotle.

The flourishing of Arabic Aristotelian scholarship reached its peak with the work of Ibn Rushd (Latinized: Averroes), whose extensive writings on Aristotle's work led to his later designation as "The Commentator" by future generations of scholars. Maimonides wrote the Guide to the Perplexed in the 12th century, to demonstrate the compatibility of Aristotelian science with Biblical revelation.

The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) facilitated the discovery and delivery of many original Greek manuscripts to Western Europe. William of Moerbeke's translations of the work formed the basis of the commentaries on the Metaphysics by Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. They were also used by modern scholars for Greek editions, as William had access to Greek manuscripts that are now lost. Werner Jaeger lists William's translation in his edition of the Greek text in the Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis (Oxford 1962).[14]

Textual criticism

In the 19th century, with the rise of textual criticism, the Metaphysics was examined anew. Critics, noting the wide variety of topics and the seemingly illogical order of the books, concluded that it was actually a collection of shorter works thrown together haphazardly. In the 20th century two general editions have been produced by W. D. Ross (1924) and by W. Jaeger (1957). Based on a careful study of the content and of the cross-references within them, W. D. Ross concluded that books A, B, Γ, E, Z, H, Θ, M, N, and I "form a more or less continuous work", while the remaining books α, Δ, Κ and Λ were inserted into their present locations by later editors. However, Ross cautions that books A, B, Γ, E, Z, H, Θ, M, N, and I — with or without the insertion of the others — do not constitute "a complete work".[15] Werner Jaeger further maintained that the different books were taken from different periods of Aristotle's life. Everyman's Library, for their 1000th volume, published the Metaphysics in a rearranged order that was intended to make the work easier for readers.

Editing the Metaphysics has become an open issue in works and studies of the new millennium. New critical editions have been produced of books Gamma,[16] Alpha,[17] and Lambda.[18] Differences from the more-familiar 20th Century critical editions of Ross and Jaeger mainly depend on the stemma codicum of Aristotle's Metaphysics, of which different versions have been proposed since 1970.[19] [20] [21]

Editions and translations

Ancient and medieval commentaries

References

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.isnature.org/Files/Aristotle/ Aristotelis Opera
  2. E.g. J.A.K. Thomson, The Ethics of Aristotle, (Penguin, 1953) p. 13 and E. Barker The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (Dover, 1959) p. 65.
  3. [W. D. Ross]
  4. Jonathan Barnes, "Life and Work" in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (1995), pp. 18-22."Farrago": Barnes, "Metaphysics" in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, p. 68.
  5. 981a
  6. [Robert Maynard Hutchins]
  7. 1029a
  8. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Aristot.Met.9.1046a 1048b1–4
  9. S. Fazzo, 'Sì come rota ch'igualmente è mossa'. Dalla Metafisica di Aristotele al Paradiso di Dante, Storie e linguaggi, Vol 4, N° 2 (2018)
  10. Donald J. Zeyl, Daniel Devereux, Phillip Mitsis, (1997), Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy, page 20.
  11. William W. Fortenbaugh, R. W. Sharples, (2005), Theophrastus of Eresus, sources for his life, writings, thought and Influence, page 22. BRILL
  12. Todd. Robert B.. Themistius. Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum. 2003. 8. 59. 25 August 2015.
  13. Monad And Dyad As Cosmic Principles In Syrianus, Soul And The Structure Of Being In Late Neoplatonism, H.J. Blumenthal and A.C. Lloyd, Liverpool University Press, 1982, pp. 1–10.
  14. Cited by Foster, in his translation of Aquinas' commentary on the De Anima, Indiana 1994.
  15. Aristotle's Metaphysics (1953), vol. 1, p. xxiii.
  16. Myriam Hecquet, Aristote, Métaphysique Gamma, Peeters 2008
  17. (Oliver Primavesi, Aristotle Metaphysics Alpha, OUP 2012)
  18. (Silvia Fazzo, Il libro Lambda della Metafisica di Aristotele, "Elenchos", Bibliopolis 2012, and Stefan Alexandru, Aristotle's Metaphysics Lambda, Philosophia Antiqua, Brill 2014)
  19. (Silvio Bernardinello, Eliminatio codicum della Metafisica di Aristotele, Padua, Antenore, 1970)
  20. (Dieter Harlfinger in 1979"Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Metaphysik", in Pierre Aubenque (ed.), Essais sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote, Paris, Vrin, 1979)
  21. Silvia Fazzo, "Lo Stemma Codicum della Metafisica di Aristotele", Revue d'Histoire des Textes, XII, 2017, 35-58.

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