Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATIONS OF ALL THINGS 49fifteen aporiai that he lists in book III, and which it is his aim to engagewith and eventually to answer, appear to have this source. They are toogeneral and abstract to originate directly in sense perception andexperience. More important, these aporiai contain concepts that appear tobe not at all familiar to us directly on the basis of sense perception andexperience. This is above all true of the central concept of primary being(prōtē ousia, often simply ousia), which occupies an important position inthese aporiai. But it is also true of the very concept of all beings and being asa whole, which is absolutely central to his characterization of metaphysics.Indeed it seems wrong to think that even such central concepts in <strong>Aristotle</strong>’smetaphysics as those of particulars, universals and essence, which likewiseoccupy an important position in the aporiai, originate directly in senseperception and experience.In general, our sense perception and experience do not directly provideus with a recipe for how the things that we know by their means must beconceptualized in order to be intelligible and subject to explanation. Soconcepts such as those of particulars, universals and essence appear rather tobe concepts that the special sciences presuppose when they search forexplanations of what is initially known through sense perception andexperience. So the special sciences, when they seek to explain things,presuppose that there are particulars, universals and essences— they do notthemselves ask questions about these presuppositions. With regard to thecentral concept of primary being, it is even arguable that this conceptcomes from within metaphysics itself, once metaphysics raises certaingeneral aporiai about all beings and being as a whole. The same can be saidof the concept of all beings and being as a whole, i.e. this absolutely centralconcept of metaphysics originates within metaphysics itself.This suggests a very different view of how metaphysics is related to thespecial sciences. In searching for explanations of things that are initiallyknown through sense perception and experience, the special sciences makeuse of certain fundamental concepts and certain fundamental assumptions—assumptions to the effect that these concepts really apply to reality. Butmetaphysics examines these concepts and assumptions themselves, and itdoes so by engaging with and trying to answer certain fundamental aporiai(‘questions’, ‘puzzles’, ‘problems’) which have their source in theseconcepts and assumptions. In this sense we may even say that metaphysicsis the foundation of the sciences. Of course this does not mean that it is amaster science from which the other sciences can be derived. Neither doesthis mean that metaphysics is purely a priori and can ignore the specializedand more empirical sciences. Rather, metaphysics is, as he says, ‘furthestremoved from the senses’ (982 a 25), but it is still related to the senses, even