Theoretical philosophy

Theoretical philosophy

Metaphysics

Metaphysics, or, more properly, First Philosophy, is the Science of Being as Being. That is to say, although all sciences are concerned with being, the other sciencesare concerned only with part of reality, while this science contemplates all reality; the other sciences seek proximate and particular causes while this science seeks the ultimate and universal causes; the other sciences study being in its lower determinations (quantity, motion, etc.), while this science studies Being as such, that is, in its highest determinations (substance, cause, goodness, etc.). The mathematician claims that a certain object comes within the scope of his science if it is circular or square, or in any other way endowed with quantity. Similarly, thephysicist claims for his science whatever is endowed with motion. For the metaphysician it is sufficient that the object in question is a being. Like the humansoul or God, the object may be devoid of quantity, and of all physical motion; yet so long as it is a being, it comes within the scope of metaphysics. The principal question, then, in First Philosophy is: What are the ultimate principles of Being, or of reality as Being? Here Aristotle passes in review the opinions of all his predecessors in Greek Philosophy from Thales to Plato, showing that each successive answer to the question just quoted was somehow defective. He devotes special attention to the Platonic theory, according to which ideas are the ultimate principles of Being. That theory, he contends was introduced to explain how things are, and how things are known; in both respects, it is inadequate. To postulate the existence of ideasapart from things is merely to complicate the problem; for, unless the ideas have some definite contact with things, they cannot explain how things came to be, or how they came to be known by us. Plato does not maintain in a definite, scientificway a contact between ideas and phenomena — he merely takes refuge in expressions, such as participation, imitation, which, if they are anything more than empty metaphors, imply a contradiction. In a word, Aristotle believes that Plato, by constituting ideas in a world separate from the world of phenomena, precluded the possibility of solving by means of ideas the problem of the ultimate nature of reality. What, then, are, according to Aristotle, the principles of Being? In the metaphysicalorder, the highest determinations of Being are Actuality (entelecheia) and Potentiality (dynamis). The former is perfection, realization, fullness of Being; the latter imperfection, incompleteness, perfectibility. The former is the determining, the latter the determinable principle. Actuality and potentiality are above all theCategories; they are found in all beings, with the exception of the Supreme Cause, in Whom there is no imperfection, and, therefore, no potentiality. He is all actuality,Actus Purus. All other beings are composed of actuality and potentiality, a dualismwhich is a general metaphysical formula for the dualism of matter and form, body and soul, substance and accident, the soul and its faculties, passive and activeintellect. In the physical order, potentiality and actuality become Matter and Form. To these are to be added the Agent (Efficient Cause) and the End (Final Cause); but as the efficiency and finality are to be reduced, in ultimate analysis, to Form, we have in the physical order two ultimate principles of Being, namely, Matter and Form. The four generic causes--Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final--are seen in the case, for instance, of a statue:

• The Material Cause, that out of which the statue is made, is the marble or bronze.
• The Formal Cause, that according to which the statue is made, is the ideaexisting in the first place as exemplar in the mind of the sculptor, and in the second place as intrinsic, determining cause, embodied in the matter.
• The Efficient Cause, or Agent, is the sculptor.
• The Final Cause is that for the sake of which (as, for instance, the price paid the sculptor, the desire to please a patron, etc.) the statue is made.

All these are true causes in so far as the effect depends on them either for itsexistence or for the mode of its existence. Pre-Aristotelean philosophy either failed to discriminate between the different kinds of causes, confounding the material with the efficient principle, or insisted on formal causes alone as the true principles of Being, or, recognizing that there is a principle of finality, hesitated to apply that principle to the details of the cosmic Process. Aristotelean philosophy, by discriminating between the different generic causes and retaining at the same time, all the different kinds of causes which played a part in previous systems, marks atrue development in metaphysical speculation, and shows itself a true synthesis ofIonian, Eleatic, Socratic, Pythagorean, and Platonic philosophy. A point which should be emphasized in the exposition of this portion of Aristotle's philosophy is thedoctrine that all action consists in bringing into actuality what was somehowpotentially contained in the material on which the agent works. This is true not only in the world of living things, in which, for example, the oak is potentially contained in the acorn, but also in the inanimate world in which heat, for instance, is potentiallycontained in water, and needs but the agency of fire to be brought out into actuality. Ex nihilo nihil fit. This is the principle of development in Aristotle'sphilosophy which is so much commented on in relation to the modern notion ofevolution. Mere potentiality without any actuality or realization--what is calledmateria prima--nowhere exists by itself, though it enters into the composition of all things except the Supreme Cause. It is at one pole of reality, He is at the other. Both are real. Materia prima possesses what may be called the most attenuated reality, since it is pure indeterminateness, God possesses the highest and most complete reality, since He is in the highest grade of determinateness. To prove that there is a Supreme Cause is one of the tasks of metaphysics the Theologic Science. And this Aristotle undertakes to do in several portions of his work on FirstPhilosophy. In the "Physics" he adopts and improves on Socrates's teleologicalargument, the major premise of which is, "Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence". In the same treatise, he argues that, although motion is eternal, there cannot be an infinite series of movers and of things moved, that, therefore, there must be one, the first in the series, which is unmoved, toproton kinoun akineton--primum movens immobile. In the "Metaphysics" he takes the stand that the actual is of its nature antecedent to the potential, that consequently, before all matter, and all composition of matter and form, ofpotentiality and actuality, there must have existed a Being Who is pure actuality, and Whose life is self-contemplative thought (noesis noeseos). The Supreme Being imparted movement to the universe by moving the First Heaven, the movement, however, emanated from the First Cause as desirable; in other words, the FirstHeaven, attracted by the desirability of the Supreme Being "as the soul is attracted by beauty", was set in motion, and imparted its motion to the lower spheres and thus, ultimately, to our terrestrial world. According to this theory God never leaves the eternal repose in which His blessedness consists. Will and intellect are incompatible with the eternal unchangeableness of His being. Since matter, motion, and time are eternal, the world is eternal. Yet, it is caused. The manner in which the world originated is not defined in Aristotle's philosophy. It seems hazardous to say that he taught the doctrine of Creation. This much, however, may safely be said: He lays down principles which, if carried to their logical conclusion, would lead to thedoctrine that the world was made out of nothing.