Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

4 ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICSis. But he thinks that such fundamental and universal explanations are,precisely, explanations of what it is for something—anything—to be.We will gradually become more familiar with the basic question ofmetaphysics, ‘What is it for something, anything, to be?’ But it is worthemphasizing that <strong>Aristotle</strong> from the outset associates the search for ananswer to this question with a search for explanatory knowledge(epistēmē), i.e. knowledge why things are as they are. So the basic questionof metaphysics can also be formulated as, ‘Why are the beings (ta onta)beings, things that are?’ This must not, of course, be confused with thequestion, ‘Why are there beings, things that are?’ In general, we must notconfuse questions of the type, (1) ‘Why are there things that are F?’, withquestions of the type, (2) ‘Why are the things that are F F?’ The basicquestion in the Metaphysics, ‘What is it for something, anything, to be?’, isassociated with questions of type 2, not type 1.Finally, it is worth noting that <strong>Aristotle</strong> does not think that this basicquestion of metaphysics, ‘What is being?’, is his own invention. On thecontrary, in a memorable passage at the centre of the Metaphysics, heemphasizes that this question is as old as the trees, never ceasing to be ‘thatwhich is sought after’ (to zētoumenon) and ‘a source of puzzlement’ (toaporoumenon):Indeed, that which is always, both now and long ago, sought afterand which is always a source of puzzlement, i.e. the question, Whatis being?,…(VII. 1, 1028 b 2–4)From the beginning of the Metaphysics (I. 3–10) it is clear that he thinksthat earlier thinkers have just as much been engaged in the investigation ofbeing in general and as a whole (see, e.g. I. 3, 983 b 1–3). Here (in I. 3–10)he enlists a wide variety of earlier thinkers in this shared search: Thales,Anaximenes, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Pythagoreans and, above all, Plato,who is only recently dead.2Sources of the question, ‘What is being?’But why does <strong>Aristotle</strong> think that we may want to ask this question, ‘Whatis being?’? At the opening of the Metaphysics (I. 1), he argues that it isbecause we are human that we want to ask this question. He argues that allanimals desire some kind of knowledge (to eidenai), and in particular senseperception (aisthēsis). But one thing that distinguishes us humans from