Greetings: Aristotle Metaphysics Quote

[agnoi]

Greetings from agnoi,
I have just discovered this site and am interested in some of the material. I think the wave structure of matter thesis may be on the right track... but ...One complaint.. The supposed quote from Aristotle that metaphysics concerns primary substance is not a quote . The name 'metaphysics' was given to Aristotles work by the catelouger (Andronicus of Rhodes) and appears nowhere in the work. Nor does it seem fair as a summary of Aristotle to whom metaphysics concerns universals , first principles , forms and number, not simply substance.

I also run a metaphysics group online at (http://groups.msn.com/TheWayDivineMetaphysics)

Best regards to my fellow students of metaphysics , agnoi

[haselhurst]

Hi Agnoi,

The knowledge contained in the quote is correct, just replaced his terms of 'it is a science / first philosophy' with Metaphysics. And it is from two different locations in book. (should have ... after first sentence).

Most importantly, the Metaphysics of Space / Wave Structure of Matter confirms a lot of what Aristotle wrote on Metaphysics, by explaining the dynamic unity of reality from first principles / universals / prime mover / substance and its properties (which must be active). i.e. One infinite Eternal Space and its properties as a wave medium for spherical standing waves that form matter.
Geoff


"However, there is a science higher than natural science. For in truth nature is but one genus of that which is. It is a science whose subject matter is universal and which is exclusively concerned with primary substance. And it is also concerned with the axioms of mathematics. Natural science is a kind of philosophy, but it is not First Philosophy."
(Aristotle, Metaphysics, Gamma 3, p87)

Epsilon 1
It is the principles and causes of the things that are that we are seeking, and clearly it is their principles and causes just as things that are. (p153)

Rather, they start this, displaying it, in some cases, to the senses and, in others, taking it as a hypothesis, and go on to offer more or less rigorous demonstrations of the per se (per se - of its own nature) attributes of their proprietary genera. This sort of procedure is inductive and it is as plain as a pikestaff that it does not amount to a demonstration of essence or of what it is to be a thing. (p154)

For the principle of anything that is produced lies in that which produces it, mind, as it may be, or skill or some potentiality, and the principle of anything that is done lies in that which does it, the faculty of choice (that which is done and that which is chosen are the same thing). (p154)

It is, however, vital not to overlook the question of what it is to be a thing and the definitional account of how it is what it is. If we leave these out, scientific inquiry is mere shadow boxing. (p154)

In each case the definition must refer to change, so that in each case they must have matter. (p155)

O.K, natural science is theoretical, case concluded. What about mathematics? Theoretical too. Ah, but does its domain consist of entities removed from all change and standing apart? Too early to say. (A distinct question, to which a positive answer can indeed be given, is whether some mathematical arguments treat these entities as unchanged and separate).
Suppose, however, that there is something that is eternal, unchanging and apart. Does this putative Entity form the domain of an theoretical science? Yes, of course, but not that either of natural science or of mathematics, but of a science more fundamental than them both. The domain of natural science is things that are in a way separate but which are eminently subject to change, and at least part of the domain of mathematics is things that are not subject to change but also not separable, in the sense of being separable from matter. But First Science deals with things that are separable and are remote from change.
All the causes must be eternal, of course, but eternity must pertain more specially still to the causes of First Science, operating, as they do, to produce those effects of Divinity that are manifest even to us. Let us, then, say that there are three forms of contemplative philosophy- mathematics, natural science and theology. For who can doubt that, if there is Divinity anywhere in the universe, then it is in the nature studied by First Science that It is to be found. And it is also for the Supreme Science to study the Supreme Genus. And contemplative study is to be chosen above all other science, but it is this First Science of Theology that we must prefer to all other kinds even of contemplation.
I suppose someone will raise the quibble, is the domain of First Philosophy, then, universal or concerned with some single genus and nature? Actually, you can answer this question both ways even for mathematics; geometry and astrology have single-nature domains, whereas general mathematics is universal. Anyway, our answer is this. Either
(a) there is no other substance beyond those furnished by nature, in which case the science of nature is the First Science, or
(b) there is some Substance that is without change, and, if (b) is true, then that Substance is prior to all others and the science of it is First Philosophy - and such a science is universal just because it is first. And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has. (p156)