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Pierre Aubenque
1. KCR? R? DSQGI?
1.1
“There is a science that studies being qua being and what belongs
to it essentially.”2 This assertion of Aristotle’s at the beginning of book
E of the Metaphysics may seem banal after more than twenty centuries
of metaphysical speculation. It certainly was not for his contempo-
raries. It may even be that Aristotle’s assertiveness in resolutely posit-
ing the existence of such a science reveals less an observation than it
betrays an unfulfilled wish. The insistence he makes in the following
lines to justify a science of being qua being—while such a concern does
not appear when it comes to “particular” sciences—shows, in any case,
that the legitimacy and the meaning of this new science was not self-
evident to his listeners, nor perhaps even to him.
Such a science was without ancestors and without tradition. It suf-
fices to refer to the classifications of knowledge in fashion before
Aristotle to perceive that no place was reserved for what today we call
“ontology.” Platonists generally divided speculative knowledge into
three branches: dialectics, physics, and morality.3 Xenocrates, according
to Sextus Empiricus,4 would have substituted logic for dialectics, and
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Plutarch also, where there was ignorance concerning the works of the
Master, credited it to the deficiencies of the school.
It thus seems that Strabo and Plutarch had wanted to justify the
omissions and deficiencies of the peripatetic school at least as much as
they had wanted to boast the originality of Andronicus. Underlying their
account, one especially discerns the double sentiment of astonishment
and satisfaction that learned contemporaries must have felt as they
beheld the priceless “discovery” that Andronicus’ edition brought them.
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be the effect and the cause. It is certainly the effect, since this division
would surely have been revised if metaphysics had been imposed as a
new science. But it is also the cause, in the sense that this division,
which was purported to be exhaustive, had finally permeated minds to
the point of making any new organization of the philosophical domain
psychologically impossible. It seems a phenomenon of “mental block-
age” occurred there, analogous to the one that has been described in
another domain of Greek thought.16 Perhaps it is there that can be
found the fundamental reason for which metaphysical writings were
unknown or unrecognized up until Andronicus of Rhodes. Rather than
bringing about a radical revision of philosophical concepts to make
room for these intruders, sticking to the traditional division was pre-
ferred, even if to the exclusion, first as too obscure, then, with the help
of oblivion, as non-existent, of that which could not be reconciled.
The fact remains that, even in his lifetime, Aristotle failed to pro-
voke this reorganization of the philosophical domain that was implied
by the emergence of a science that for the first time took being as its
proper object, no longer a particular being, but being qua being. It
would still be understandable that Aristotle was unable to impose his
point of view on rival schools, schools that were, nonetheless—in a
domain where the Stagirite was more fortunate—well obliged to recog-
nize him as the founder of logic. However, that Aristotle was unable to
convince his own disciples of the uniqueness of a science of being qua
being, and of the benefits they could gain by devoting themselves to it,
reveals a situation so strange that one might ask if Aristotle himself
did not provoke it. It is tempting here to appeal to the views of Werner
Jaeger on the evolution of Aristotle’s thought:17 According to him, the
metaphysical writings would not date to the last part of Aristotle’s life
(a hypothesis that comes to mind naturally for those who want to
explain their state of incompletion), but would already have been com-
posed at the beginning of Aristotle’s second stay in Athens. In other
words, before having brought them to their end, Aristotle would have
turned away from metaphysical speculations on his own, to devote him-
self to labors of a mostly historical and biological order: the collection of
constitutions, establishment of a list of masters of the Pythian games,
questions of practical physics, observations of animals. Jaeger reveals
Aristotle, at the end of his life, organizing the Lyceum as a center of sci-
entific research. A text from book I of the treatise Parts of Animals
seems to testify to this development: Knowledge of terrestrial things,
prone to becoming and to corruption, does not have less dignity, and it
has in any case more scope and more certainty, than that of eternal and
divine beings. And Aristotle cited in support of this judgment Heraclitus’
response to unknown visitors who, having found him warming himself
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at the fire in his kitchen, hesitated to enter: “Come in; for here, too,
gods dwell [h^◊ †kq^„v^ vbl·t]” (PA I.5, 645a17f.). There is certainly, in
this passage of an introductory nature, the intended design to revalue
knowledge of the human body, of which the young Aristotle did not for-
merly hide his repugnance.18 Yet if it remains true that philosophy,
plc÷^, does not concern itself with that which is born and passes away
(NE VI.13, 1143b19), must not we also see, in this rehabilitation of “ter-
restrial” investigation, the admission of a certain disaffection for this
more than human sagacity, which has the double disadvantage of being
difficult to attain and not directly concerning our condition?
Such is, moreover, the result of Jaeger’s investigations. We should
have to ask ourselves if this interpretation of Aristotle’s career is the
only possible one, and whether the gradual predominance of positive
investigations might signify an expansion of the field of philosophy or a
transmutation of its meaning, at least as much as its abandonment.19
Yet is it not plausible that the disciples had interpreted as a definitive
renouncement on the part of Aristotle the acknowledgement of an awk-
wardness that was, perhaps, essential to metaphysics itself? In any
case, it seems hardly doubtful that the disaffection of the Lyceum for
abstract speculations, and the empirical orientation of its first labors,20
could have found their origin in the preoccupations, perhaps poorly
interpreted, and, in any case, inadequately thought through, of the
aging Aristotle. Thus the external history of the Metaphysics sends us
back to the internal interpretation. Strabo’s and Plutarch’s account
only prolongs, in the form of an anecdote, the drama of a loss and a
rediscovery that first unfolds in the work of Aristotle himself.
1.2
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being qua being, and if they do not coincide, which one of them is meta-
physics?
The first mention we know of the title jbqà qà crpfhá is found in
Nicolaus of Damascus (first half of the first century CE). That it does
not appear in Diogenes Laertius’ catalogue—the source of which would
be a list dating back to Hermippe or maybe even Aristo of Ceos,21 thus
well before Nicolaus of Damascus—resulted in Aristo’s being attributed
the authorship of this designation (which figures in the later catalogues
by the anonymous writer of the Vita Menagiana and by Ptolemy). The
belated origin of this title long seemed proof enough of its non-
Aristotelian character. It was called a purely extrinsic designation, fol-
lowing the order of writings in Andronicus of Rhodes’ edition.
This traditional interpretation rests on the postulate, contestable on
first appearance, that a consideration of order is necessarily extrinsic
and could not have philosophical importance.22 Yet it was recently
shown that the three former lists of Aristotle’s works rested on a sys-
tematic classification, inspired in part by the Stagirite himself.23 It is
likely that Andronicus of Rhodes’ edition was responding to analogous
preoccupations. Moreover, an account by Philoponus attests to the fact
that the concern with the intrinsic order of teaching and lecturing,
which would become a classic matter of discussion for commentators,
was already present in Andronicus:
Boethus of Sidon says one must begin with physics, because we are
more familiar with it and know it better; for, one must begin with
the most certain and most known. But his teacher, Andronicus of
Rhodes, leaning on a more thorough investigation, said that one
must begin with logic, because it deals with demonstrations.24
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for what reason the fist publishers of the Metaphysics had to invent
this title, while Aristotle already provided them with one. Admittedly,
the commentators resolved the question by attributing the two titles to
Aristotle himself: not able to attribute it to inconsequence, they were
constrained to considering the two expressions of “metaphysics” and
“first philosophy” as synonymous. Yet, if we allow that of these two
titles only the second is properly Aristotelian, we must ask, not only
what the meaning is of the first, but to what need its invention was
meant to respond.
That there had been, in the origin of the title Metaphysics, “a difficulty
concerning the unbiased understanding of the writings of the corpus
aristotelicum,”40 can no longer be put into doubt. That the publishers
had been disconcerted by the content of a philosophical science that did
not enter into the traditional confines of philosophy; that they had thus
been brought to designate the unknown by reference to the known, and
first philosophy by reference to physics—these reasons can explain the
very letter of the title Metaphysics, but not the advisability of its
employment. For the easy solution would have been, without needing
to understand it, to reproduce a designation of which Aristotle himself
had made a title: in a passage of Movement of Animals (6, 700b7), a
work that we agree today to recognize as authentic, he refers to a trea-
tise, On First Philosophy (qà mbo◊ q´t mo¿qet cfilplc÷^t). In the
absence of Aristotle, Theophrastus could have furnished a title: in the
first lines of the work that publishers would call Metaphysics by way of
analogy with that of Aristotle, it is a question of “speculation on first
principles” (≠ Âmûo q¬k mo¿qsk vbso÷^),41 as if there it were a matter
of a time-honored expression designating, in contrast to the study of
nature, a sort of clearly defined theoretical activity.42
The quandary of the first publishers thus seems to be of a different
order than the one typically attributed to them; and if they gave proof
of initiative, this was less in inventing a new title than in refusing one
or those suggested by a tradition going back to Aristotle. Everything
encourages us to believe, then, that the title, On First Philosophy, did
not seem to them to apply adequately to the ensemble of writings,
united by a prior tradition, that they had before their eyes.
In fact, what does the expression “first philosophy” designate in
Aristotle’s own texts? The qualification “first,” whatever its meaning,
seems to come out of the concern with distinguishing several domains
within philosophy in general. To the question asked in book @—“Is
there one science of all the essences, or several” (Met. @.2, 997a15)?—
Aristotle clearly replies in book E: “There are as many parts to philoso-
phy as there are essences,” and he adds:
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It is thus necessary that there is, among these parts [jùoe] of phi-
losophy, a first philosophy and a second philosophy; it so happens,
in fact, that being and the one divide immediately in kinds, and
this is why sciences too will correspond to these different kinds; this
holds for the philosopher as it does for the one we call the mathe-
matician; for mathematics also correspond to parts: there is a first
science, a second science, and other more general sciences that fol-
low in this domain. (Met. E.2, 1004a2–9)
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sciences have more value [^⁄obq¿qbo^f] than other sciences, and theol-
ogy has more value than other theoretical sciences” (Met. C.1, 1026a21).
Theology thus maintains a double relation of juxtaposition and preemi-
nence with the other sciences; it is the first term of a series, but it is
not—at least not any longer—the science of the series, so that the con-
trast remains with the science of being qua being. In the beginning of
book C, Aristotle contrasts once more, to a science that, admittedly,
remains unnamed, the sciences that, “concentrating their efforts on a
determined object, in a determined kind, deal with this object, and nei-
ther with being, taken absolutely, nor with being qua being” (Met. C.1,
1025b8). These sciences are unaware of their foundation, since, demon-
strating the attributes of an essence, but not this essence itself, they
must concede it from the start as a mere hypothesis. Set in the essence
of the divine, of which it presupposes existence, theology or first philos-
ophy does not seem to escape the condition of particular sciences;48 it
also seems subjected to the jurisdiction of a higher science that would
be to first philosophy what mathematics in general is to first mathe-
matics.
This interpretation of first philosophy as theology seems confirmed
by all the passages where Aristotle uses the expression cfilplc÷^
mo¿qe. Even where it is not expressly assimilated to theology, it is put
in contrast to physics understood as second49 philosophy (while the sci-
ence of being qua being is always defined in contrast, not to physics,
but to particular sciences as such). In the works on physics, first philos-
ophy is most often described as science of the form, while physics only
studies forms engaged in matter. But form in pure state, that is, “sepa-
rate” in the double sense of the word, only exists in the domain of
divine things, and it is the existence of such a domain that founds the
possibility of a philosophy other than the philosophy of nature. If the
divine did not exist, physics would be the whole of philosophy (cf. PA
I.1, 641a36), or at least it is physics that would deserve the name of
“first philosophy.”50 The struggle for primacy51 is thus between physics
and theology, while the science of being qua being does not seem to be
directly part of this debate. If essences separate from the sensible do
not exist, there is no possible theology, and the primacy passes to
physics. Yet we do not see how the science of being qua being, even if
its content cannot help but be affected by this, for all that ceases to
exist. To study “being qua being and not qua numbers, lines, or fire”
(Met. E.2, 1004b6)—this remains possible even outside the existence of
the divine. It is clear, on the contrary, that first philosophy presupposes
this existence. Thus the science of being qua being is not in league with
first philosophy. Not only does one access them by completely different
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paths, but further, once their object is defined, their fates remain inde-
pendent.
First philosophy is thus not the science of being qua being, and it is
theology. Effectively, in the two passages of the Aristotelian corpus
where the expression “first philosophy” seems to be employed by way of
reference, the reference can only verily apply to the properly theological
exposition of book J, where the essence of the prime mover is eluci-
dated. In the treatise On the Heavens, after having demonstrated the
uniqueness of the heavens with physical arguments, Aristotle adds that
the same result could be attained with “arguments drawn from first
philosophy” (afà q¬k †h q´t mo¿qet cfilplc÷^t iÏdsk) (DC I.8,
277b10). As Simplicius remarks ad loc., one in fact finds such a demon-
stration in book J of the Metaphysics (J.8, 1073a23f.), where the
uniqueness of the prime mover is deduced from the eternity of move-
ment. In the treatise Movement of Animals, after having recalled that
“all inorganic bodies are moved by some other body,” Aristotle adds:
“The way in which the first and eternal moved is moved, and how the
prime mover moves it, has been determined previously in our writings
on first philosophy” (†k q¬k mbo◊ q´t mo¿qet cfilplc÷^t) (MA 6,
700b7). This reference appears in the same book J (chapter 8) where
Aristotle shows that the relation of the prime mover to the first moved
is that of the desirable to the desiring. It thus cannot be doubted that
by the expression “first philosophy” Aristotle wanted to designate the
study of first beings, more precisely of the prime mover: in other words,
theology.
Such is at least the most frequent use of the expression in the writ-
ings of the corpus aristotelicum. One single exception must be made for
book I of the Metaphysics. On three occasions, the expression
cfilplc÷^ mo¿qe or equivalent expressions (≠ molhbfjùke cfilplc÷^, ≠
mo¿qe †mfpq©je) are employed to designate the science of being qua
being. Here again, it is a matter of opposing primordial science to those
secondary sciences of mathematics and physics; but that which distin-
guishes them is no longer the delimitation of their respective domains
within the universal field of being. Physics and mathematics are cer-
tainly considered parts of philosophy (jùoe q´t plc÷^t) (Met. I.4,
1061b33), but first philosophy, far from itself also being a part, even a
primordial part, of philosophy, seems to merge with philosophy as a
whole. Thus, while “physics considers the accidents and the principles
of beings, qua moved and not qua beings,” the first science studies
these same subjects “qua beings, and not under any other relation”
(h^v~ Úplk Òkq^ qà Âmlhb÷jbká †pqfk, äii~ l‰u æ £qboÏk qf) (Met. I.4,
1061b28). Likewise, it belongs to this science to study the principles of
mathematics in as much as they are common (Met. I.4, 1061b19).
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2.1
To the question, “Why does first philosophy come after physics in the
order of knowledge?” we have seen that the majority of commentators
responded with the Aristotelian distinction of priority in itself and of
priority for us.62 But does this explanation go back to the Stagirite him-
self? And, first of all, did he himself recognize the necessarily post-
physics character of his first philosophy?
In fact, what Aristotle insists on is the priority of first philosophy in
relation to the secondary sciences, mathematics and especially physics:
If there is something eternal, immobile, and separate, it is obvi-
ously a theoretical science that has knowledge of it: a science that is
most certainly not physics (for physics has for its object certain
beings in movement), nor mathematics, but a science prior to both
[äiià molqùo^t äjclÿk].63
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the science of separate and divine being, will in fact become the science
of the category of being that best imitates divine being: that is to say,
essence. As for “the most indirect” meaning of priority, the one that
designates by metaphor an order of value, without question it applies
to first philosophy, which is “the most excellent” (qfjfsqáqe) of the sci-
ences (Met. C.1, 1026a21). There remains priority according to knowl-
edge: nowhere does Aristotle specify that it does not also belong to first
philosophy, and, as the meaning of the expression when it is employed
absolutely (ãmi¬t) is found in first philosophy, there is no doubt that
first philosophy is, for Aristotle, prior to physics just as much in the
order of knowledge as in that of dignity or, further, “according to nature
and essence.”
It is thus for each meaning that priority applies to first philosophy,
and it is not clear that Aristotle took pains to specify that, because it is
first in one or several meanings, it could not be first in others.
Furthermore, all these meanings trace back to the one that the
Categories said was “first and fundamental” and that book B only
seems to omit because it goes without saying as soon as one speaks of
before and after: chronological priority. Thus, what could be the order of
knowledge, if not a relation of succession? The prior according to dis-
course is that in which discourse finds its most sure point of departure
for its procedure: the universal. The prior according to sensation is that
which sensation encounters from the start, which is the individual.
Admittedly, Aristotle repeatedly contrasts chronological priority
(uoÏkø) and logical priority (iÏdø): thus the acute angle is chronologi-
cally prior to the right angle, since it is generated before it, but it is log-
ically posterior to it, since the definition of the acute angle presupposes
that of the right angle (Met. K.8, 1084b2–19). But what does this mean,
if not that one defines the right angle before defining the acute angle,
while one constructs the acute angle before constructing the right
angle? Thus, logical priority is also only a temporal priority, except that
the time of logical definition is not that of geometrical construction. If
only the latter is called uoÏklt by Aristotle, it is because the genesis of
things, more generally the movement of the universe, is that according
to which time is defined, since it is its measure (cf. Phys. IV.11, 219b1).
The time of human discourse may well endeavor to come before that of
genesis: it still remains that it is in relation to the latter that the for-
mer is given as the inverse, and furthermore, this inversion itself
unfolds in a time that is none other than that of things. Likewise, when
Aristotle affirms that “that which is last in the order of analysis is first
in the order of genesis” (NE III.5, 1112b23) he means that the theoreti-
cal and practical investigation of the human66 recommences, but in the
inverse sense, the spontaneous unwinding of the hÏpjlt: nevertheless,
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What is there to say, if not that one defines the house before defining
the construction, while one must build the house before seeing its com-
pletion?
From whichever way one approaches the question, priority appears
dependent on the mode of consideration, that is, upon knowledge. The
primacy of essence itself is only the primacy of the consideration of
essence: this priority is not arbitrary, but expresses the obligation that
the discourse is under to begin with essence if it wants to know of what
it speaks. It is in this sense that Aristotle frequently assimilates essen-
tial priority to priority according to discourse (iÏdø), a particular case
of priority according to knowledge. Yet the order of knowledge, a
human action which unfolds in time, is itself a chronological order. If
the two orders are at times opposed, it is because human knowledge
can, and perhaps must, trace back the natural order of things, which is
that in relation to which the time of the physicist, or, what here
amounts to the same, the philosopher, is defined. One could very well
wish to empty time of the notion of priority and reduce the latter to a
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purely “logical” or intelligible order, but one would not escape the
necessity for the human mind to unfold the terms of a succession in
time. Furthermore, there is no order that is not temporal, there is no
first or second that is not first or second in time, since, for Aristotle,
time is none other than ordinal time itself: “The number of movement
in relation to the prior and the posterior” (Phys. IV.11, 219b1). Time is
that by which there is a before and an after. And even if knowledge
inverses the before and the after of things, it is still in time, which is
the number of natural movement, that this inversion takes place.
2.2
The second of these conditions only makes explicit the notion of principle
itself and coincides perfectly with the Aristotelian definition of priority
according to knowledge.72 But if the principle is that upon which knowl-
edge of other things depends and if this relation is not reciprocal, on
what would knowledge of the principle depend? Descartes—and this is
to what the first condition answers—would resolve the difficulty with
the theory of evidence, which institutes a relation of immediacy
between human knowledge and the clarity of first truths. Thus, episte-
mological primacy can coincide with ontological primacy and the philos-
ophy of principles can at the same time be the principle of philosophy.
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It does not seem that Aristotle posed the question otherwise, nor
that, at least in his first writings, he resolved it in a much different
way. In the Protrepticus, he develops at length the thesis of the easiness
of philosophy. The proof that “the acquisition of wisdom is easier than
that of other goods” is first given through the consideration of its his-
tory: Although humans may well have devoted themselves to other
branches of knowledge, the fact remains that in little time their progress
in philosophy surpassed the progress they were able to make in other
sciences.73 In another argument: “the fact that all men like living in
[philosophy] [qÌ mákq^t cfilusobÿk ^‰q∂]74 and wish to devote them-
selves to it after having taken leave of all their other worries.” Yet this
is only the confirmation, historical and psychological, of an optimism
founded on the very nature of philosophy and its object: “The prior is
always better known than the posterior [äb◊ dào dksofj¿qbo^ qà
moÏqbo^ q¬k Âpqùosk] and the best according to nature is better
known than the worst; for science prefers defined and ordered things
and it prefers causes over effects.”75 Thus we already see coinciding, in
their application to the object of philosophy, the multiple significations of
priority that Aristotle would recognize later on: according to time,
according to essence, in the order of knowledge, and also in the hierarchy
of values. It is important to note that at the beginning of his philosophi-
cal career, Aristotle believes the principle to be more knowable than
that of which it is the principle, the cause more immediately accessible
than the effect, and, a corollary that Descartes would not deny, the soul
easier to know than the body:
If the soul is better than the body [and it is, for the former is more
in the nature of the principle than the latter (äoufh¿qbolk dào q™k
c·pfk †pqfk)], and there are arts and sciences concerning the body,
such as medicine and gymnastics . . . , reason holds that there
would exist an investigation and an art concerning the soul and the
virtues of the soul, and we would be able to acquire them, since we
can do so with objects that contain more ignorance and are more
difficult to know [h^◊ q¬k jbq~ ädkl÷^t mib÷lklt h^◊ dk¬k^f
u^ibmsqùosk].76
If thus there are objects that contain ignorance, there are others that
contain knowledge, in this double sense that they are sources of knowl-
edge77 and that it is in their nature to be known immediately. In order
for philosophy of first things to be, at the same time, first in the order
of knowledge, Aristotle is forced to transpose in the things a sort of
knowledge in itself, an objective knowledge, which assures perfect coin-
cidence of the ratio cognoscendi and the ratio essendi. The most impor-
tant is at the same time the most knowable, the most useful is at the
same time the easiest. The apparently optimistic thesis of the easiness
of philosophy only reveals the minimum exigency proper to all philoso-
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first of all, latent (i^kvákbfk): “That is,” Aristotle says, “an absurdity,
since what results is that, although having knowledge more exact than
demonstration, we do not cease being ignorant” (Post. An. II.19, 99b27).
In other words, how could the principle, which is that by which all the
rest is known, itself be confusedly known? How could that which sheds
light on all the rest itself be obscure? Here we recognize the idea of a
cognizability in itself, tied to the very essence of the principle, appar-
ently laid out a priori outside of all reference to human knowledge.
That which, in Descartes, would have been experienced through the
mode of evidence, first appears, in Aristotle, as a logical exigency: prin-
ciples must be clear and distinct, if they are to be principles. The sci-
ence of principles must be the most known, that is, first in the order of
knowledge, if it is to be the science of principles.
Aristotle’s first philosophy is thus “prior” for the same reason that
had driven Plato to cast knowledge of first truths into a “prior” life. Yet
Aristotle is not satisfied with a mythical priority. Real knowledge
unfolds for him according to an order that is not only logical, but also
chronological: no demonstration is possible if it does not presuppose the
truth of its premises. It is proper to syllogism to depend on an
antecedent truth, and it is much more in this kind of precedence of
truth itself than in the reproach of a vicious circle, made later by the
skeptics, that Aristotle situates the inevitable imperfection of this rea-
soning. But then, if the demonstration is that which has always already
begun, there could be no possible demonstration of beginnings: the
premises of the first syllogism would be “first and indemonstrable”
(Post. An. I.2, 71b26). Aristotle insists on the paradoxical, and also the
inevitable, in this exigency: the premises are first even though they are
indemonstrable; but they are also first because they are indemonstra-
ble, “for otherwise we could not know them in the absence of demon-
stration” (Post. An. I.1, 71b27). And Aristotle specifies in what way this
primacy of premises must be understood:
They must be causes of the conclusion, a being better known than
they, and prior to it: they must be causes since we only have the
science of a thing at the moment when we have known its cause;
they must be prior since they are causes; they are also prior from
the point of view of knowledge. (Post. An. I.1, 71b29)
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be the very order of being, that the ontologically first be also epistemo-
logically prior. If nature seems to “syllogize,” it is because syllogism
only reveals the mode of the production of things. The entire theory of
demonstration and science in the Analytics presupposes this coinci-
dence between the movement by which knowledge progresses and the
one by which things are engendered.80
It would thus not be surprising that the question of beginning is
posed in analogous terms where knowledge and movement are con-
cerned. In both cases, the impossibility of a regression to infinity
results in the positing of an absolutely first term. On the one hand,
there is a non-caused cause, which is the unmoved prime mover; on the
other, there is a non-deduced premise, which is the undemonstrated
principle of demonstration.81 But then how is the principle appre-
hended? If, being the basis of all knowledge, it must be better known
than that which it makes possible to know, and if, however, it is not an
object of science, since all science demonstrates from already known
principles, it would be well to allow for a mode of knowledge distinct
from science and superior to it: “If outside of science we possess no
other sort of knowledge, the fact remains that [ib÷mbq^f] intuition will
be the beginning of science” (Post. An. II.19, 100b13).
It is perhaps not by chance that the question of beginning is posed in
the last chapter of Posterior Analytics and that it is resolved with a
regressive step. Here we sense that the order of the actual investigation is
not that of ideal knowledge and that it is not with syllogisms that a the-
ory of syllogism is made. Aristotle described knowledge as a deduction;
but all deduction is deduction from something, which, finally, is not
deduced. If all knowledge were deductive, would one have to allow that
knowledge finds its origin in non-knowledge and thus destroys itself? One
would only escape from this consequence in allowing a mode of knowledge
superior to science itself, which is intuition. There is no other way out,
which Aristotle expresses twice by the verb ib÷mbq^f: “Nevertheless,” he
writes again in the Nicomachean Ethics, “it is intuition that apprehends
principles.”82 Here we are far from the conquering approach of a
Descartes, installing itself immediately in the evidence of simple natures
in order to deduce the infinite truths that follow from it. At the end of his
regressive analysis of the conditions of knowledge, Aristotle negatively
outlines the idea of intuition, rather than brings us the experience of it.
Intuition is only the cognitive correlate of the principle, its mode of
being known: it is that without which the principle cannot be known, if
at least it is knowable. Yet nothing tells us that it is in fact knowable.
Nothing tells us either that first philosophy is humanly possible. In
the second chapter of book ? of the Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the
conditions of this science, called wisdom, which deals with first causes
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our [de chez nous] truth (Parmenides, 134A). From this analysis, the
old Parmenides drew the paradoxical conclusion that God is powerless
in knowing what is proper to us [de chez nous] (Parmenides, 134D–E).
Aristotle would cheerfully take a stand on this apparent powerlessness:
it is in the nature of divine intelligence to know that which is most
divine, and knowledge of things proper to us [de chez nous] would for it
only be a change for the worse (Met. J.9, 1074b25f.). Aristotle would be
sensitive, on the other hand, to the inverse aspect of the paradox: how
could the most exact science (q™k ähof_bpqáqek †mfpq©jek) (Parmenides,
134C), that is, the science of that which is most manifest (c^kboÏk)
(Top. II.4, 111a8), be that which is most hidden from us? How could the
most knowable in itself be the least knowable for us?88
To this aporia, certain Platonic texts could provide a partial response.
The light of the sun may well be that by which all vision is made possi-
ble (Rep. VI, 509B), but first it produces the inverse effect by blinding
the one who comes out of the darkness (Rep. VII, 515D–516A). Between
the marvelous clarity of intelligible truths and their apprehension by
the human eye, this temporary failure would thus interpose itself, pre-
venting sight from recognizing its true object. Aristotle would take up
this explanation in a text of book ^, which seems to us evidence of
another Platonic phase of his thought.89 Lessening some of the opti-
mism he professed in the Protrepticus, in this passage he recognizes
that “the consideration of truth is, in one sense, difficult, and in
another sense, easy” (Met. ^.1, 993a30). Of this duality of aspects, he
first gives an explanation, founded on the nature of error, which does
not interest us here.90 But he provides another, which consists in distin-
guishing two kinds of difficulties: there is that of which the cause is in
the things (†k qlÿt moádj^pfk) and that of which the cause is in us (†k
≠jÿk). The difficulty of philosophy would be of this latter sort: it is “not
in the obscurity of its object, but in the weakness of the human eye.
Just as, in fact, the eyes of bats are blinded by the light of day, so it is
with the intuition of our soul regarding things most evident by nature
[qà q∂ c·pbf c^kbo¿q^q^ mákqsk].”91 The metaphor of blindness here
serves to dissipate a paradox that is at bottom only apparent. The most
evident still remains the most knowable, even for us, and this is why
philosophy is easy. Yet one must take into account contingent and tran-
sient circumstances that make philosophy seem difficult. The distinc-
tion between the obstacle that is in the things and the obstacle that is
in us thus comes down here to opposing the real to the apparent, the
definitive to the provisionary, the inevitable to that which depends on
us.
Platonic pedagogy had for its goal to habituate the eye to the con-
templation of light (Rep. VII, 516A–B): Was this not to situate at the
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under the very pressure of the questions. A text of the Topics on defini-
tion, it seems, makes us witness to its genesis. The manifestation of an
essence being proper to definition, it is clear that it must proceed in
terms more manifest, that is, better known than the term to be defined:
Since the definition is only given in view of making the term
posited known, and since we make things known not in taking just
any terms, but prior and better known terms, as is done in demon-
stration (for it is thus with all teaching given, afa^ph^i÷^ or
received, jávepft), it is clear that in not defining with terms of this
sort one has not defined at all. (Top. VI.4, 141a27f.)
Yet this rule, which simply makes the universal exigency of a preexist-
ing knowledge apply to the particular case of definition, can be under-
stood in two ways: “Either, one supposes that the terms [of the poor
definition] are less known in the absolute sense [ãmi¬t], or one sup-
poses that they are less known for us; for the two cases can present
themselves” (Top. VI.4, 141b3). “In the absolute sense,” Aristotle speci-
fies, “the prior is better known than the posterior”: thus, the point is
better known than the line, the line is better known than the surface,
the surface is better known than the solid, or, even, the unity is better
known than the number and the letter is better known than the sylla-
ble. Here we recognize the coincidence, maintained by the Protrepticus,
between ontological priority and epistemological priority, between the
order of generation and the order of knowledge. But in fact, and in rela-
tion to us, at times the opposite occurs: it is in fact the solid that before
all else comes to the senses, and the surface before the line, and the
line before the point. If one thus defines by that which is most known
for us, one would say: “the point is the limit of the line, the line is that
of the surface, and the surface that of the solid” (Top. VI.4, 141b21). Yet
that is to define the prior by the posterior and to proceed obscurum per
obscurius. On the contrary, “a correct definition must define by kind
and by differences,” determinations that, “in the absolute sense,” are
better known than the species and are prior to it: “for the elimination of
kind and difference leads to the elimination of the species, so that there
they are notions prior to the species.” Here one recognizes the definition
of the prior according to nature and essence,94 which coincides now with
the prior according to discourse. That which is first from this double
point of view is the universal: generator of the species, and through the
species, of the individual,95 it must be said, thus known, before that
which it engenders. Thus the good definition of the point would be: the
point is a “situated unity” (jlkàt vbqÏt) (Met. B.6, 1016b25, 30), a defi-
nition that presupposes as known the most universal kind of unity, and
the determination, itself more universal than the defined,96 of position
in space.
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The definition of the point as the limit of the line is certainly valid,
but as a second best, in the employment of those whose minds are not
insightful enough to know first that which is the most known abso-
lutely. Aristotle has not yet lost hope of reaching the order of intelligi-
bility in itself; it is a question of the insight of the mind, thus of exer-
cise: “For the same people, at different times, there are different things
that are most known: in the beginning, it is sensible objects but, when
the mind then becomes more insightful, it is the opposite” (Top. VI.4,
142a3). It can thus happen that “there is identity in fact between that
which is most known for us and that which is most known absolutely”
(Top. VI.4, 141b23).
Yet as Aristotle’s thought develops, it does seem that the perspective
of this coincidence is deferred more and more. In book X of the
Metaphysics, it is no longer a question of a shortage of insight, but of a
permanent servitude of human knowledge. The most insightful mind
there is, that of the philosopher, does not even escape the common con-
dition: “It is among sensible beings that our investigations [on essence]
must begin. . . . Everyone proceeds thus in the examination: it is by
that which is less knowable in itself that one arrives at things more
knowable” (Met. X.3, 1029a34f.). The task (¢odlk) that befalls the
method would thus be to “render knowable for us that which is know-
able in itself.”97 Thus Aristotle considers as natural here the imbalance
between the two orders: as for their coincidence, it is to be gained by a
likely laborious approach, which defines human investigation as such.
If there are thus two points of departure, that of the investigation and
that of knowledge, or as Theophrastus would say, a point of departure
“for us,” which is the sensible, and an “absolute” point of departure,
which is the intelligible,98 could we never attain this point that is the
most distant from us and that is nonetheless the beginning of true
knowledge? But then is there not some irony in speaking of a “point of
departure,” which is for us a term barely glimpsed, and of a cognizabil-
ity in itself that would not be a cognizability for anyone? The Topics, we
have seen, was content to distinguish between the coarse and the
“insightful” mind and to reserve for the latter access to knowledge in
itself. Yet, in the Metaphysics, the mind of the philosopher is reduced to
the condition of the coarse, and the expression most knowable in itself
is finally emptied of all reference to actual human knowledge.
The commentators will deal with the consequences of this by finally
assimilating that which is knowable in itself or by nature to that which
is knowable by God.99 We thus find again, from another angle, the apo-
ria that Aristotle would encounter in his analysis of the conditions of
wisdom: Wisdom is easy in itself and first in the order of knowledge,
since it bears on that which is the most knowable. Yet perhaps it is
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only first and easy for God, that is, for a being that would be gifted in
intellectual intuition and of which the knowledge, if it exists,100 would
be descending and productive, in the image of the genesis of things.101
2.3
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“posterior.” Yet if, as we have tried to show, one must at once take seri-
ously the priority of first philosophy and the posteriority of meta-
physics, that is, see in both cases a temporal order of succession, one
would admit that the two titles cannot apply to the same speculation.
Metaphysics is thus not first philosophy. But what else could it be? The
conclusions of the previous section authorize us in responding: the title
of Metaphysics, while it does not suit first philosophy or theology,
applies without difficulty to that science, without name in Aristotle’s
own works, and that takes as its object, not divine being, but being in
its universality, that is, being qua being. To confuse under the ambigu-
ous name of metaphysics the science of being qua being and that of the
divine or, as we will say from now on, ontology and theology,105 was to
doom to ignorance the specificity of the former while altering the con-
ception of the latter; it was to attribute to the former a priority that
only belongs to the latter, and to the latter a posteriority that is the fact
of the former.
However, to expose the confusion is not yet to understand it: if meta-
physics is not first philosophy, if the science of being qua being cannot
be reduced to that of divine being, one would have to show how the one
and the other are ordinate, subordinate, or implicated, to the point
where the commentators, and after them most interpreters, sponta-
neously confused them.106
NOTES
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(Moraux, Les listes anciennes, p. 188). The Anonymous, on the other hand,
mentions a Metaphysics in ten books, which would represent the pre-
Andronican state of this treatise. Andronicus would have had no other
role but to add to this original Metaphysics the books currently designated
by ^, B, I, and J, which would finally result in our Metaphysics in four-
teen books, attested to by Ptolemy’s catalogue (ibid., p. 279). On the role of
Andronicus, Moraux moreover follows the opinion of Werner Jaeger,
Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles (Berlin:
Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912), pp. 177–80. Hans Reiner, “Die
Entstehung und ursprüngliche Bedeutung des Namens Metaphysik,” in
Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 8 (1954), pp. 210–37, drew from
Moraux’s work to conclude that the title Metaphysics would have been
directly inspired by Aristotle’s own indications and would have been used
from the first generation of the Lyceum onward: the authorship could
have been attributed to Eudemus, whom we know, moreover (Asclepius,
In Aristotelis metaphysicorum commentaria, 4.4–16; Pseudo-Alexander, In
Aristotelis Metaphysica commentaria, 515.3–11), would have been occu-
pied with updating Aristotle’s metaphysical writings. In light of these
works, one point seems henceforth gained: the title jbqà qà crpfhá does
not designate an order of succession in a catalogue (Moraux remarks on
this subject that, in the original list reconstituted by him, the Metaphysics
does not follow the works of physics, but the works of mathematics) but
responds, even and especially if it is born in the circle of Aristotle’s imme-
diate successors, to a doctrinal intention.
26. Max Heinze, Vorlesungen Kants über Metaphysik aus drei Semestern
(Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1894), p. 186. Cf. Kant, “Über die Fortschritte der
Metaphysik seit Leibniz und Wolff,” in vol. 8 of Werke, ed. Ernst Cassirer
(Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1923), pp. 301–21.
27. Rudolf Eucken, Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie (Leipzig: Veit
and Company, 1879), p. 133.
28. For Saint Thomas, metaphysics is the science of the transphysical (In
duodecim libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio [Rome: Marietti,
1977], proem.), that is, of “divine things” (Summa theologiae, vols. 4–12 of
Opera omnia [Rome: Editori di San Tomasso, 1888–], pt. II, ii, q. 9, art. 2,
obj. 2). Having the same object as theology, it only differs by the mode of
knowledge.
29. Simplicius, In Aristotelis Physicorum libros quattor priores commentaria,
1.17–21.
30. Simplicius, In Phys., 257.20–6.
31. Met. K.1, 1076a10f.; cf. Met. @.1, 995b14; Met. @.2, 997a34f.
32. Hence Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics, pp. 76ff.
33. Alexander of Aphrodisias, In Aristotelis Metaphysicorum commentaria, B,
171, 5–7.
34. Reiner, “Die Enstehung und ursprüngliche Bedeutung,” p. 215.
35. Asclepius, In Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libros ?–X, proem., 3, 28–30.
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51. One thinks of the contest instituted by Plato in the Philebus between the
different sciences for the constitution of the good life. In these passages,
Plato already distinguished between “first” sciences (62D), which are the
“divine” sciences (62B), and the other sciences, which have to do with
“that which is born and perishes” (61E). Found here is a direction of
thought that has nothing to do with the one that brings Aristotle, in addi-
tion, to the definition of a science of being qua being.
52. In particular, the use of the particle db j©k. The inauthenticity was
equally maintained, for internal reasons, by Paul Natorp, “Thema und
Disposition der aristotelischen Metaphysik,” Philosophische Monatshefte
24 (1888), pp. 37–65, 540–74; and recently by Mgr Mansion, “Philosophie
première, philosophie seconde et métaphysique chez Aristote,” Revue
philosophique de Louvain 56 (1958), pp. 165–227.
53. Pseudo-Alexander sees in book I a summary of books @, E, C. Bonitz,
Commentarius in Aristotelis Metaphysicam (1849; repr. Hildesheim: Georg
Olms Verlag, 1992); and Jaeger, Aristoteles, pp. 216–22, on the contrary,
see in it an earlier draft of these books. The reason that Jaeger gives is
the relatively Platonic resonance, according to him, of book I; it seems to
us, on the contrary, that the assimilation of first philosophy to the science
of being qua being manifests a radical evolution in relation to Platonism
and even to the “theological” definition of first philosophy: an evolution so
radical that it seems to us difficult to attribute it to Aristotle himself.
54. Theology or first philosophy, although a part of philosophy in general,
aims no less than it at universality: “it is universal because first” and, in
this sense, but only in this sense, it is not wrong to say that it also bears
“on being qua being” (Met. C.1, 1026a30–2). The fact remains that, even if
first philosophy is wholly confused with the science of being qua being, it
is first defined as theology. Yet we find an approach that is exactly the
inverse in book I: in the passage parallel to the preceding one, the author
asks himself “whether or not the science of being qua being must be con-
sidered as a universal science” (Met. I.7, 1064b6), a question that makes
no sense (or rather appeals to an obviously positive answer) from the
Aristotelian perspective, where this science is precisely defined by con-
trast to particular sciences; and the author of book I responds strangely:
yes, the science of being qua being is universal because it is theology, that
is, a “science prior to physics,” and that it is thus “universal by its very
priority” (Met. I.7, 1064b13).
55. Met. I.7, 1064a28. It is particularly in this passage that Jaeger finds a
vestige of Platonism. Yet it seems unlikely that Aristotle would have first
conceived being qua being and separate being as identical, just to then
disassociate them: being qua being and separate being are defined by
Aristotle by such independent paths that their coincidence, far from being
natural, seems miraculous. Their identification thus seems to be the work
of a zealous disciple, concerned with unifying after the fact the doctrine of
his teacher: the doctrine of chaps. 1–8 of book I bring to mind less that of
a yet Platonist Aristotle than it already announces the neo-Platonic com-
mentators.
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56. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that the passage I.1–8 reflects
Aristotle’s teaching on the other points. This is why we do not forbid our-
selves from citing it, except on the disputed doctrine.
57. And we have seen (above, pp. 11 and 40n.25), that there was reason to
doubt that it was, if it is true that the original Metaphysics in ten books,
attested to by the Anonymous’ catalogue, did not contain book I.
58. Yet it is evident that the classification of the sciences as such does not
come from theology.
59. If one allows this unitary perspective, which is that of book I and of the
commentators, it is no more, in the major part of the Metaphysics, a ques-
tion of ontology than of theology, and if the word “metaphysics” designates
this theological ontology, which bears on being qua being, that is, sepa-
rate, so it is, in most of the books of the Metaphysics, a question of every-
thing but metaphysics! This is the extreme conclusion (nowhere in the
Metaphysics does one find the actual exposition of Aristotle’s metaphysics)
of Owens, The Doctrine of Being, in taking up himself the unitary inter-
pretation that is that of book I and of the commentators, and pushing it
to its final consequences.
60. Cf. above, pp. 11–14.
61. Cf. Met., @.2, 996b3, I.1, 1059a35, I.1, 1059b1, I.1, 1059b13, etc.
62. Referring of course to those who interpret the “meta” of metaphysics as
signifying a chronological posteriority. For those who see, with Simplicus
and Syrianus, a simple relation of superiority, there is no longer a prob-
lem, since the “meta” of “metaphysics” and the first of “first philosophy”
thus have the same meaning, referring both to the transcendence of the
object. Yet this interpretation, which ignores the self-evident meanings of
these two terms, manifestly comes out of a concern with reconciling after
the fact two titles handed down by the tradition. In fact, this interpreta-
tion of jbqá is philologically untenable (“in the order of value, of rank,”
jbqá designates a relation of posteriority, that is, of inferiority: Henry
George Liddell and Robert Scot, Greek-English Lexicon [Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1889], s.v. jbqá). As for the corresponding interpreta-
tion of mo¿qe in mo¿qe cfilplc÷^, it is, as we will see, philosophi-
cally contestable.
63. Met. C.1, 1026a10; cf. C.1, 1026a29; I.7, 1064b13.
64. Met. B.11, 1019a1f. Platonic texts explicitly containing this definition of
“prior” are not known. This is why Ross allows, with Trendelenburg, that
this could be a reference to Plato’s non-written teaching. Cf. Hans
Joachim Krämer, Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik (Amsterdam:
Gruner, 1964), pp. 24, 106.
65. Met. B.11, 1019a5: mo¬qlk jûk qÌ Âmlhb÷jbklk moÏqbolk, afÌ ≠ l‰p÷^
moÏqbolk. One could be surprised by the petitio principii that Aristotle
seems to commit in presenting here the l‰p÷^ as prior h^qà c·pfk h^◊
l‰p÷^k (1019a2–3). In reality, in the latter expression, the word l‰p÷^ is
not used in the technical sense that Aristotle employs it two lines later.
The priority h^qà q™k l‰p÷^k is priority according to being; but since
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103. [Here I have translated esprit with “spirit,” whereas all earlier instances
of the term have been rendered “mind.” Esprit can often refer to one or the
other, as with the German Geist.—Trans.]
104. Reiner, “Die Enstehung und ursprüngliche Bedeutung,” p. 228. Reiner
even sees there an argument in favor of the attribution of the title, if not
to Aristotle himself, at least to one of his immediate disciples, for example,
Eudemus (ibid., p. 237).
105. This vocabulary, otherwise self-evident, is that of chap. 4 of Jaeger,
Aristoteles.
106. This work was under publication when that of Vianney Décarie, L’objet de
la métaphysique selon Aristote (Paris: Vrin, 1961), appeared, which tends
to confirm the traditional interpretation, according to which the study of
being qua being would be subordinate to that of “substance,” as the conse-
quence is to its principle. Here, let us only say: (1) that this thesis seems
to us to ignore the rhetorical and sophistical origins of the problematic of
being qua being; (2) that it falls within the critiques that we address to
the unitary interpretations (even if, on an important point, it agrees with
ours in refusing to assimilate being qua being to the divine).
50