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03 Nov 15
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Metaphysics is the science of being as being
<!--k95-->This is Aristotle's <!--priority4=04675b.htm-->definition<!--category=76.2--> (peri tou <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->ontos<!--category=44.3--> ê on)
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What is peculiar to <!--k23-->metaphysics is the difference "of being as being". In this phrase are combined at once the material object and the formal object of <!--k23-->metaphysics
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The material object is being, the whole world of reality, whether subjective or objective, possible or <!--priority3=01124a.htm-->actual<!--category=66.1-->, abstract or concrete, immaterial or material, infinite or finite.
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Since the formal object of his study is, again, being, the point of view of <!--k23-->metaphysics is different from that of the other sciences.
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Taking the term now in its widest sense, so as to include both general and special <!--k23-->metaphysics, when we say that <!--k23-->metaphysics is the science of the immaterial, we mean that whatever exists whether it is an immaterial being or a material being so long as it <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->offers<!--category=44.3--> to our consideration immaterial concepts, such as <!--priority4=14322c.htm-->substance<!--category=66.4--> or <!--priority4=03459a.htm-->cause<!--category=66.4-->, is the object of <!--k23-->metaphysical investigation. In this way, it becomes evident that this <!--priority4=04675b.htm-->definition<!--category=76.2--> coincides with that given in the preceding paragraph.
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The objection therefore, that <!--k23-->metaphysics is an abstract science would, in the estimation of the <!--priority4=13548a.htm-->scholastics<!--category=66.4-->, militate not only against <!--k23-->metaphysics but against all the other sciences as well. The peculiarity of <!--k23-->metaphysics is not that it is abstract, but that it carries the process of <!--priority4=01074a.htm-->abstraction<!--category=66.4--> farther than do the other sciences. This, however, does not make it to be unreal. On the contrary, what is left out of consideration in <!--k23-->metaphysics namely <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->individuating<!--category=44.6--> <!--priority4=06612a.htm-->qualities<!--category=76.7-->, physical movement and specific <!--priority4=12591a.htm-->quantity<!--category=66.4-->, derive whatever reality they have as conceptions from the concept, Being, which is the object of <!--k23-->metaphysics. <!--k23-->Metaphysics, in fact, is the most real of all the sciences precisely because by abstracting from everything else, it has centred, so to speak, its thought on Being, which is the source and root of reality everywhere else in the other sciences.
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Metaphysics is the science of the first principles
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investigate the first principles in the order of knowledge, and establish the validity, for instance, of the principles of identity and contradiction.
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The followers of Kant stigmatize as intellectual formalism the view that the speculative <!--priority4=12673b.htm-->reason<!--category=66.4--> does actually attain ultra-empirical knowledge. This is the contention of the modernists and other Catholic writers who are more or less influenced by Kant. These decry <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->rational<!--category=44.7--> <!--k23-->metaphysics and <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->offer<!--category=44.3--> as a substitute a <!--k23-->metaphysics based on sentiment, vital activity, or some other non-rational <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->foundation<!--category=44.3-->.
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11 Jan 15
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Hindu philosophy
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Of all the peoples of antiquity, the Hindus were the most successful in <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->rising<!--category=44.3--> immediately from the mythological explanation of the universe to an explanation in terms of <!--k23-->metaphysics. Apparently without passing through the intermediary stage of <!--priority4=13598b.htm-->scientific<!--category=98.2--> explanation, they reached at once the heights of the <!--k23-->metaphysical point of view. From polytheism or monotheism they proceeded very early to pantheism, and from that to a monistic <!--k23-->metaphysical conception of reality.
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Their starting-point was the realization that <!--priority4=09580c.htm-->man<!--category=66.2--> is born into a state of <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->bondage<!--category=44.3--> and that his chief business in <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->life<!--category=44.4--> is to deliver himself from that <!--priority4=04211a.htm-->condition<!--category=66.2--> by means of knowledge. The knowledge, they taught, which avails most in the struggle for freedom is this: the world of sense phenomena is an illusion (mâya), all real things are identical in the one supreme <!--priority4=14322c.htm-->substance<!--category=66.2-->, the soul is part of this real <!--priority4=14322c.htm-->substance<!--category=66.4-->, and <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->will<!--category=44.4--> ultimately return to the Whole.
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The first, and most important of all truths, then, is that reality is one, and each of us is identical with the All: "That art thou" is the highest expression of self-knowledge, and the gate to all <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->salutary<!--category=44.3--> truth. Thus, the Hindus, actuated by an ethical, or <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->ascetic<!--category=44.3-->, motive, attained a <!--k23-->metaphysical formula to which they reduced all reality.
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The first <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Greek<!--category=44.3--> philosophers were students of <!--priority4=10715a.htm-->nature<!--category=66.2-->. They were actuated not by an ethical motive, but by a kind of <!--priority4=13598b.htm-->scientific<!--category=98.2--> curiosity to know the origins of things.
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Out of the problem of origins, however, the <!--k23-->metaphysical problem was developed by the Eleatics and Heraclitus. These philosophers considered that the explanations of the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Ionians<!--category=44.6--> — that the world originated from water or air — were too naïve, relied too much on the verdict of the senses.
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The Eleatics, on the one hand, asserted that the permanent element, which they called Being, alone exists, and that change, motion, and multiplicity are illusions.
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They formulated <!--k23-->metaphysical principles of reality, but both in the language which they used and in the mode of thought which they <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->adopted<!--category=44.8-->, they seemed to be unable to <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->rise<!--category=44.3--> above the consideration of <!--priority4=10053b.htm-->matter<!--category=66.2--> and material principles. Nevertheless, they did immense service to <!--k23-->metaphysics by bringing out clearly the problem of change.
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Plato, the pupil of Socrates, carried the Socratic teaching into the region of <!--k23-->metaphysics. If knowledge through concepts is the only true knowledge, it follows, says <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Plato<!--category=44.0-->, that the concept represents the only reality, and all the reality, in the object of our knowledge. The sum of the reality of a thing, is therefore the <!--priority3=07630a.htm-->Idea<!--category=66.1-->. <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Corresponding<!--category=44.3--> to the internal, or psychological, world of our concepts is not only the world of our sense experience (the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->shadow-world<!--category=44.3--> of phenomena), but also the world of <!--priority4=07630a.htm-->Ideas<!--category=66.3-->, of which our world of concepts is only a reflection, and the world of sense phenomena, a shadow merely.
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From the <!--priority4=07630a.htm-->Ideas<!--category=66.4--> comes all that is positive, permanent, intelligible, <!--priority3=05551b.htm-->eternal<!--category=66.1--> in the world. From the negative principle come imperfection, negation, change, and liability to dissolution. Thus, profiting by the epistemological <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->doctrines<!--category=44.8--> of Socrates, without losing sight of the antagonistic teachings of the Eleatics and of Heraclitus, Plato evolved his theory of <!--priority4=07630a.htm-->Ideas<!--category=66.4--> as a <!--k23-->metaphysical solution of the problem of change, which had a baffled his predecessors.
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Like Plato, he accepted the Socratic doctrine that the only true knowledge is knowledge of concepts. Like Plato, too, he inferred from this that the concept must represent the reality of a thing. But unlike Plato, he made at this point an important distinction. The reality, he taught, which the concept represents is in the thing which it constitutes, not as an <!--priority4=07630a.htm-->Idea<!--category=66.4-->, but as an <!--priority4=05543b.htm-->essence<!--category=66.2-->. He considers that the Platonic world of <!--priority4=07630a.htm-->Ideas<!--category=66.4--> is a meaningless duplication of things: the world of <!--priority4=05543b.htm-->essences<!--category=66.6--> is in, not above, nor beyond, the world of phenomena: there is, consequently, no contradiction between sense experience and intellectual knowledge: the <!--k23-->metaphysical principles of things are <!--priority4=08673a.htm-->known<!--category=66.3--> by <!--priority4=01074a.htm-->abstraction<!--category=66.2--> from those <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->individuating<!--category=44.6--> <!--priority4=06612a.htm-->qualities<!--category=76.2-->, which are presented in sense knowledge; the knowledge of them is ultimately <!--priority4=05407a.htm-->empirical<!--category=66.2-->, and not to be explained by an intuition which we are alleged to have enjoyed in a previous <!--priority4=05543b.htm-->existence<!--category=66.4-->.
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He is least <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->satisfactory<!--category=44.7--> in his treatment of the problem of the existence and nature of God, a question in which, as he himself admits, all <!--k23-->metaphysical <!--priority4=14211a.htm-->speculation<!--category=49.2--> culminates.
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After the <!--priority4=14726a.htm-->time<!--category=66.2--> of Aristotle, <!--priority4=12025c.htm-->philosophy<!--category=66.2--> among the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Greeks<!--category=44.3--> became centered in problems of <!--priority4=09580c.htm-->human<!--category=66.2--> <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->destiny<!--category=44.7--> and <!--priority4=09580c.htm-->human<!--category=66.8--> conduct. The Stoics and the Epicureans, who were the chief representatives of this tendency, <!--priority3=15459a.htm-->devoted<!--category=64.1--> attention to questions of <!--k23-->metaphysics, only in so far as they considered that such questions may influence <!--priority4=09580c.htm-->human<!--category=66.8--> happiness.
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As a result of this subordination of <!--k23-->metaphysics to <!--priority4=05556a.htm-->ethics<!--category=73.2-->, the pantheistic <!--priority4=10041b.htm-->materialism<!--category=66.2--> of the Stoics and the <!--priority4=10041b.htm-->materialistic<!--category=66.3--> <!--priority3=10483a.htm-->monism<!--category=66.1--> of the Epicureans fall far short of the <!--priority4=11665b.htm-->perfection<!--category=76.2--> which the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->doctrines<!--category=44.8--> of Plato and Aristotle attained.
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Contemporaneously<!--category=44.3--> with the Stoic and <!--priority4=05500b.htm-->Epicurean<!--category=66.3--> schools, a new school of Platonism, generally called Neo-Platonism, <!--priority4=08075a.htm-->interested<!--category=67.2--> itself very much in problems of <!--priority3=01767c.htm-->asceticism<!--category=56.1--> and mysticism, and, in connection with these problems, gave a new turn to the drift of <!--k23-->metaphysical <!--priority4=14211a.htm-->speculation<!--category=49.2-->.
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The Neo-Platonists, influenced by the monotheism of the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Orientals<!--category=44.3-->, and, later by that of the Christians, took up the task of explaining how the manifold, diversified, imperfect world originated from the One, Unchangeable, and <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Perfect<!--category=44.3--> Being. They exaggerated the Platonic doctrine of <!--priority4=10053b.htm-->matter<!--category=66.2--> to the point of maintaining that all evil, <!--priority4=10559a.htm-->moral<!--category=73.2--> as well as physical, originates from a material source. At the same time, they ascribed to the spiritualized <!--priority4=07630a.htm-->Ideas<!--category=66.2--> which they called daimones (spirits) all actuality, <!--priority3=08066a.htm-->intelligence<!--category=66.1-->, and force in the whole universe.
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These <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->intelligences<!--category=44.3--> were derived, they said, from the One by a process of emanation, which is akin to the "streaming forth" of light from the illuminating body. This system of <!--k23-->metaphysics teaches, therefore, that the One, and <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->intelligences<!--category=44.6--> derived from the One, are the only positive principles, while <!--priority4=10053b.htm-->matter<!--category=66.4--> is the only negative principle of things. This is the system which was most widely accepted in pagan circles during the first centuries of the Christian era.
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The first heretics among the Christian thinkers were influenced in their <!--priority4=12025c.htm-->philosophy<!--category=66.2--> by Neo-Platonism. For the most part, they <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->adopted<!--category=44.8--> the Gnostic view (see GNOSTICISM) that in the last <!--priority3=01652a.htm-->appeal<!--category=79.1-->, the test of Christian truth is not the official teaching of the Church or the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->exoteric<!--category=44.3--> doctrine of the <!--priority3=06655b.htm-->gospels<!--category=96.1-->, but a secret gnosis, a body of doctrine imparted by Christ to the chosen few.
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This body of doctrine was in reality a modified Neo-Platonism. Its most salient point was the theory that evil is not a <!--priority4=04470a.htm-->creation<!--category=66.2--> of God but the work of the devil. The problem of evil thus came to occupy an important place in the philosophical systems of orthodox Christian thinkers down to the time of St. Augustine.
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From the theological controversies concerning the <!--priority4=10662a.htm-->mysteries<!--category=76.2--> of the <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Trinity<!--category=44.3--> and the Incarnation, arose the discussion of the meaning of <!--priority4=10715a.htm-->nature<!--category=66.2-->, <!--priority4=14322c.htm-->substance<!--category=66.2-->, and person. From all these sources sprang the Christian Neo-Platonism of the great Alexandrian School, which included <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->Clement<!--category=44.7--> and Origen, and the later phase of Christian Platonism exemplified by St. Augustine.
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However, St. Augustine is careful to make an exception in the case of the <!--priority4=07762a.htm-->individual<!--category=66.2--> <!--priority4=09580c.htm-->human<!--category=66.8--> soul. He avoids the doctrine of <!--priority5=00000a.htm-->preexistence<!--category=44.3--> which Origen had taught, and maintains that the <!--priority4=07762a.htm-->individual<!--category=66.4--> soul originates at the same time as the body, although he is not prepared to decide definitively whether it originates by a distinct creative <!--priority4=01115a.htm-->act<!--category=73.8--> or is derived from the souls of the child's parents
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24 Apr 09
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20 Aug 06
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