Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATIONS OF ALL THINGS 25consider: what sort of explanations and what sort of principles iswisdom [i.e. metaphysics] the science of?(1.1–2, 982 a 1–6)He answers that metaphysics is the science, i.e. the explanatory knowledge,of ‘the first explanations’ and ‘the first principles’:this [i.e. wisdom, metaphysics] must be the science [epistēmē] thatconsiders the first principles [prōtai archai] and [the first]explanations [aitiai].(982 b 9–10)He clarifies what he means by ‘the first explanations’ and ‘the firstprinciples’ as follows:It is through them and from them [i.e. the first principles and thefirst explanations] that the other things are known; but they [thefirst principles and the first explanations] are not known through thethings under them.(982 b 2–4)In other words, the first principles and explanations are what provideexplanatory knowledge of other things—the things ‘under them’—butother things do not provide explanatory knowledge of the first principlesand explanations. In general, <strong>Aristotle</strong> argues that if something has anexplanation, it has a final and complete explanation, i.e. an explanationthat does not itself have a further explanation. So he rejects the view that,if something has an explanation, then that explanation may itself have afurther explanation, which may itself have a further explanation, and so onwithout end. (We will return to the question of why he holds this view andwhat he means by a complete explanation.) This final and completeexplanation of a thing he calls ‘the first explanation’ of the thing. He alsocalls it ‘the first principle’; for in general he means by a principle (archē):‘the starting-point from which a thing either is, or becomes, or is known’(V.1, 1013 a 18–19).So <strong>Aristotle</strong> thinks that one characteristic of metaphysics is its being theknowledge of the first or ultimate explanations of things. But there is asecond characteristic of metaphysics, which is equally important, for heargues that metaphysics is the explanatory knowledge of ‘all things’ (panta,982 a 8–10, a 21–25). So metaphysics searches for the explanations of allthings, i.e. explanations that explain something not only about some