Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2002 22:33:25 +0200
Subject: Re: "metaphysical and not phenomenology"?


Cologne 04-Aug-2002

Anthony Crifasi schrieb Sat, 03 Aug 2002 16:51:47 +0000:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> > > "if there were no substances other than those formed by nature, physics
> > > would be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, this
> > > would be prior, and the science of it would be first philosophy and
> >would be
> > > universal in this manner, in view of the fact that it is first."
> > > (1026a28-32)
> >
> >ME: This translation is totally misleading; cf. below.
> >
> > > So he explicitly says here that first philosophy is the science of the
> > > highest substances, and it is not physics if the highest substances are
> >not
> > > movable. So he is explicitly saying in these immediately proximate texts
> > > that first philosophy is first precisely because it investigates the
> > > "substances" which are the first "causes"...
> >
> >ME: What makes you think that?
> >More to the point, what on earth do you have in view as the being of
> >beings? The
> >being of beings is never substance. This is one of the misconceptions among
> >his predecessors which Aristotle clears away.
>
> AC: If you mean his analysis of being qua being, he mentions that in the next
> line:
>
> > > "And it would be the concern of this science, too, to investigate being
> >qua
> > > being, both what being is and what belongs to it qua being."
> >(1026a32-33)
> >
> >ME: Metaphysics is not concerned with uncovering ontic causes, but rather the
>
> >cause of what something is (_ti to on;_).
>
> AC: But he says BOTH. First philosophy is concerned with both immovable
> substances AND the analysis of being. Heidegger is concerned with the latter
> question, but not the former. This shows that what Aristotle had in mind was
> first philosophy as a scientific enterprise, what Heidegger calls the mode
> of knowing. Otherwise, he would not have placed the investigation of the
> immovable substances specifically within the domain of first philosophy.

Totally off the mark. Aristotle's metaphysics is concerned ENTIRELY with
uncovering the being of beings, even and including when the domain of the beings
considered is restricted. Aristotle's Physics, for instance, is metaphysics and
purest phenomenology -- of physical beings cast as _onta kinoumena_.

Your rationalist conception of science continually gets in the way of you seeing
the question of being.

> > > I understand what sophia means, but I am pointing out that Aristotle
> > > explicitly specifies sophia as something that is not phenomenological -
> >ie,
> > > the knowledge of the highest substances which are the first causes.
> >
> >ME: He doesn't say anything of the kind. He is saying that there are other
> >_ousiai_
> >besides natural _ousiai_ and that the metaphysics of these other _ousiai_
> >are
> >the subject of the first philosophy in "theorizing being insofar as it is a
> >being, i.e. what it is and is ascribable to it as a being" (1026a32)
>
> AC: That cannot be what he means because insofar as metaphysics investigates
> being qua being, EVERY ousia falls under its scope, not just immovable
> ousiai. The line you quote here is in ADDITION to the immediately preceding
> line, in which he places the specific investigation of immovable ousiai as
> first causes squarely within the domain of metaphysics. In other words,
> insofar as metaphysics investigates being qua being, every ousia falls under
> its scope, but insofar as metaphysics investigates the highest causes, it is
> concerned with only one kind of ousia, so every ousia is excluded except
> immovable ousia. In the immediately preceding text (1026a8-23), he had just
> excluded what is inseparable and movable (physical things) as well as what
> is inseparable and immovable (mathematics) from first philosophy insofar as
> it investigates the highest causes. So the specific investigation of
> immovable ousiai is not the same as the analysis of their being, since the
> latter includes every ousia, not just one kind. He says both.

Not so; cf. above.

> >I'm not claiming any originality here. Heidegger does not go in search of
> >any
> >"substances" in his interpretations of Aristotle proclaiming them to be
> >"causes". In fact, he avoids talking of "substances" -- for good reason.
> >
> >Your problem seems to be with the highly misleading and obfuscating word
> >'substance'. In the vernacular 'substance' refers to things like 'narcotic
> >substance', 'dangerous substance', and this is indeed akin to one meaning
> >of
> >Greek _ousia_ as simple substances such as water, earth, fire (cf. Met.
> >Delta
> >Chap. 8).
> >
> >'Substance' is the translation of Gk. _hypokeimenon_, which is also one
> >meaning
> >of _ousia_, i.e. that which is addressed, but which itself does not address
> >and
> >is attributed to anything else.
> >
> >But the prime meaning of _ousia_ has nothing at all to do with substance.
> >The
> >word itself is the noun-form of the feminine present participle of the verb
> >to
> >be, _einai_ -- _ousa_ (fem.) _on_ (neut.) meaning 'being';  _ousia_ the
> >noun-form, meaning literally 'beingness'.
> >
> >What metaphysics seeks is the beingness, i.e. the _ousia_ of beings. The
> >_ousia_
> >is the _to ti aen einai_, i.e. 'the what it was being', which is
> >"separable",
> >i.e. _choriston_. This is not 'substance'.
> >The _logos_ (word, formula) for  'the what it was being' or 'beingness' is
> >the
> >_horismos_, i.e. the 'definition' of what something is in its being, in its
> >_ousia_.
>
> The meaning of ousia in Met. Delta 8 which comes closest to what you are
> saying here is the fourth one: "The essence, whose formula is a definition,
> is also said to be the substance of each thing" (1017b23) since that is not
> any specific being, but the very substance of a being, so to speak. But the
> first meaning of ousia in that chapter is that of a specific substance -
> what is "not predicated of a subject" (1017b14).

Actually, it's the second.

> Aristotle says that first
> philosophy is concerned with BOTH the analysis of being itself and the
> investigation of a specific ousia - immovable ousia.

Think again. Aristotle also thinks through the being of _ta akinaeta_ and that
with regard to them possibly being the _archae_ of all beings.

> >So metaphysics, as Aristotle practises it, seeks _tas taes ousias archas
> >tas
> >protas_, i.e. "the first governing beginnings of beingness" (Met. Beta
> >995b7).
> >These 'beginnings' are the categories, _dynamis_ and _energeia_ and
> >_entelecheia_, and to show these things up means doing phenomenology, as
> >Heidegger demonstrates so lucidly in his enlivening interpretations of
> >Aristotle.
> >
> >Throw away your standard English translations of Aristotle.
>
> The problem here is not the translation, but philosophical, because your
> identification of the metaphysical investigation of immovable ousia with the
> analysis of their being contradicts Aristotles explicit exclusion of
> physical and mathematical things from first philosophy. The analysis of
> being qua being includes EVERY being, not just immovable ones. So there are
> two enterprises which belong properly to metaphysics: (1) the analysis of
> being qua being, which includes all beings, not just immovable ones, and (2)
> the investigation of the highest causes, from which he explicitly excludes
> what is inseparable and movable, as well as what is inseparable and
> immovable, leaving only what is separable and immovable for first
> philosophy.

Aristotle has a metaphysics of mathematics and of physics in which he
investigates the being of mathematical and physical beings.

Michael
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