Subject: Re: "metaphysical and not phenomenology"?
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 14:54:00 +0000


Michael Eldred wrote:

> > >Now you're being thick to maintain that an ontological
> > >investigation has or should have nothing to do with beings!
> >
> > AC: In the text in question, it has to do with beings, but
> > specifically as a way to prove that there must be an eternal,
> > immovable, immaterial substance, not as a purely phenomenological
> > analysis of its being, which would be the OTHER metaphysical
> > enterprise that Aristotle divides from this one. As I argued above,
> > making the metaphysical investigation of first causes simply part of
> > his analysis of the being of beings makes no sense in light of his
> > explicit exclusion of physical beings from the former investigation,
> > because Aristotle explicitly says that insofar as metaphysics
> > analyzes the being of beings, it excludes nothing (obviously, since
> > physical things are beings too).
>
>And the phenomenological analysis of being plays a crucial role in the
>investigation of the unmoving mover, too.

Playing a crucial role is not enough, because the traditional reading of 
Aristotle also places the analysis of what is entailed in dynamis per se, 
mobility per se, etc. as crucial premises in his investigation of the 
existence of the first cause. All this shows is that the specific text 
itself that is in question does not support your reading over mine. As for 
showing which reading is more accurate, see below - last response.

>Texts can make sense in many ways. The point is, however, to have the
>unsaid of the text in view. This is the approach Heidegger exercises
>when he "listens" (GA18) to Aristotle.
>
>Your responses consistently fail to take account of Aristotle having
>modes of being, modes of presencing and absencing in view.

You are referring to the text at Physics III.1, yes? If I remember 
correctly, that is simply what the traditional reading calls form and 
privation, and it applies to every category. As for modes of being, the 
traditional reading also accounts for the Metaphysics as an analysis of 
being qua being - it just adds that this is not the ONLY enterprise in the 
Metaphysics, nor the one which makes it a science or knowledge.

>This is
>what Heidegger interprets as the phenomenological enterprise of
>uncovering the phenomenon of being. Your approach amounts merely to
>justifying the traditional reading of Aristotle's texts which is not
>guided by having being in view.

I first wanted to establish only that the specific text we were analyzing 
does not support your reading any more than the traditional one. In order to 
argue that the traditional reading is actually more accurate than yours, I 
would focus on the texts in which he excludes physical beings from the 
metaphysical investigation of first causes while including them in the 
metaphysical analysis of being qua being. That makes no sense if the former 
investigation is simply an analysis of the being of the first cause (as 
opposed to an ontic search for a specific substance which is the first 
cause), for the following reason. In the text in which he excludes physical 
beings from the metaphysical investigation of first causes, he explicitly 
says that the investigation of physical beings belongs to physics. 
Therefore, if this investigation of first causes (which he here reserves for 
metaphysics) was an analysis of the being of the first cause, that would 
mean that the investigation of physical beings which he is excluding from 
metaphysics and giving to physics here would be the analysis of the BEING of 
physical beings. But that would directly contradict his explicit statement 
in the OTHER text (I forget the line numbers at the moment) that the 
analysis of the being of physical beings belongs to metaphysics and NOT to 
physics. Therefore, the only consistent interpretation of these two texts is 
that the metaphysical investigation of first causes is NOT an analysis of 
their being, which means that it must be a mere ontic search for a specific 
substance which is the first cause.

Anthony Crifasi

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