Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

68 ARISTOTLE’S METHOD IN METAPHYSICSthe paradox of searching, i.e. his theory of recollection, is necessary or evensufficient to answer the problem. But it is <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s answer to the aporiaabout searching that interests us here, especially since there can be littledoubt that when he says in our passage (i.e. Metaphysics III. 1, 995 a 34– b 1)that:those who search without first engaging with aporiai are like peoplewho don’t know where they need to be going; moreover, they donot even know whether or not they have found what they aresearching for…he is directly alluding to, or even paraphrasing, Meno’s statement of theparadox in Plato’s Meno. But this is not the first time that <strong>Aristotle</strong> hastried to answer the aporia about searching, and to do so with an allusion oreven express reference to Plato’s Meno (see especially Posterior Analytics I. 1and II. 19 for earlier responses). So he takes the aporia about searchingseriously, and he thinks that there is a genuine question and problemabout what it is that enables us to search for knowledge. But he arguesagainst Plato’s view that it is innate knowledge that enables us to search forknowledge. For he argues that what enables us to search for knowledge israther, ultimately, our capacity for sense perception, although othercapacities may also become involved (see especially Posterior Analytics II.19, 99 b 25ff.). So this appears to be his answer to the completely generalquestion, ‘How is searching for knowledge possible?’On a different reading, his answer also centrally appeals to ourknowledge of the meaning of words: when the search for knowledge ismotivated by the asking of a question about something, X, it is ourknowledge of the meaning of words, and in particular of the words that weuse to signify X, that enables us to search for knowledge about X. Forexample, if we ask ‘What is virtue?’, as Plato does in the Meno, or ‘What isa rose?’, it is our knowledge of the meaning of the words ‘virtue’ or ‘rose’that enables us to search for knowledge about virtue or roses. This readingdraws especially on Posterior Analytics II. 7–10.But it is striking that this, i.e. the view that it is our capacity for senseperception that enables us to search for knowledge, does not appear to be<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s answer to the more specific question, ‘How is searching forknowledge in metaphysics possible, i.e. knowledge of the nature of being?’For he appears to think that there is a special problem about how searchingin metaphysics is possible. And the answer that he proposes appeals not toour capacity for sense perception (or to our knowledge of the meaning ofthe relevant words, such as the verb ‘to be’), but appeals rather to our