Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

136 THE DEFENCE OF PNCSomething crucial hangs on the difference between the twointerpretations. On the former interpretation, <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s conclusion isthat PNC is true of things because it is a necessary condition for thepossibility of thought and language about things. But this is to conceive ofPNC as a transcendental principle, in a Kantian sense of the term‘transcendental’; i.e. it is a principle about what things must be like forthought and language about things to be possible. On the latterinterpretation, PNC is true of things, and it is a necessary condition for thepossibility of thought and language about things; but it is not the case thatPNC is true of things because it is a necessary condition for the possibilityof thought and language about things. PNC is not, therefore, atranscendental principle, a principle about what things must be like forthought and language about things to be possible. Rather, PNC is ametaphysical principle, a principle about what things must be like simplyin order to be; i.e. it is about things, and it is about things simply in so faras they are beings, things that are. So the two interpretations differ overwhether PNC is a transcendental or a metaphysical principle.Why cannot PNC be both a transcendental and a metaphysicalprinciple? In a sense, it can. That is to say, in so far as PNC, in itsmetaphysical formulation, is true simply about things, it is a metaphysicalprinciple; and in so far as PNC is a necessary condition for the possibilityof thought and language about things, it can in a loose sense be called atranscendental principle. The question, however, is whether PNC is trueof things because it is a necessary condition for the possibility of thoughtand language about things. Only then is PNC a transcendental principle ina distinctively Kantian sense; i.e. it is primarily about thought andlanguage about things, and only as a consequence is it about things. Thequestion is whether, according to <strong>Aristotle</strong>, PNC is in this sense atranscendental principle.It appears that <strong>Aristotle</strong> does not think that PNC is a transcendentalprinciple; i.e. a principle that is primarily about thought and languageabout things, and only as a consequence about things. In other words,although he thinks that PNC’s being true of things is a necessary conditionfor the possibility of thought and language about things, he does not thinkthat PNC is true of things because it is a necessary condition for thepossibility of thought and language about things. In other words, <strong>Aristotle</strong>distinguishes sharply between the logical question, ‘What role does PNCplay in thought and language?’, and the question, ‘What is PNC about?’and ‘Of what is PNC true?’ Kant, of course, argued that logic andepistemology are prior to, and the key to, metaphysics. But there is no suchtranscendental turn in <strong>Aristotle</strong>, whether in general or with regard to PNC