THE UNITY OF METAPHYSICS by Gary L. Morella
n considering the unity of Metaphysics one is invited to review what might be
categorized as "core metaphysical axioms" leading to a broader thought of this
all-encompassing science. Among these are: "all men by nature desire to know;"
"men who know the causes are considered wiser;" "wisdom will be knowledge about
principles and causes;" "a wise man orders rather than is ordered;" "knowing all
things belongs to him who has universal knowledge;" "the most universal are the
hardest to know;" "the most exact science deals with first principles;"
"knowledge for its own sake is especially found in knowledge of what is most
knowable;" "the science that knows the end for the sake of which is most
authoritative;" "to be and to be material are not identical;" "a knowledge of
the first cause leads to the ultimate uncaused cause which is called God;" "the
science most proper to God is a divine science." The union of these axioms can
be taken to be the statement "a philosopher is not a philosopher if he is not a
metaphysician."
Philosophy aims at wisdom which is the knowledge of things in their ultimate
and highest causes - another name for which is God as the "singular" Cause Who
is not caused. As such, philosophy is not signifying some particular
discipline but is simply a name of a whole set of disciplines necessary for or
useful for the attainment of wisdom which is the culminating quest of
philosophy leading to theology or first philosophy. This is inherent in man's
nature, his desire to know. Metaphysics is the name given to the unifying
whole of these disciplines as it addresses the most deep seated questions which
we have. What is the point of everything, i.e., the purpose of life? We have
an existential drive to answer these tough questions especially in these times
where refutations of the relativisms, metaphysical, epistemological, moral, and
religious are required. It's interesting to see the distinction among the
aforementioned relativisms in that metaphysical, epistemological, moral, and
religion imply no absolutes anywhere in reality, human knowledge, morality, and
religion respectively. One immediately notes a hierarchy where metaphysical
relativism is the unifying set having all others as subsets. This unifying
aspect of metaphysics applies to all of the sciences in a similar hierarchy
with logic, mathematics, natural science, and moral science all rungs on the
ladder of knowledge leading ultimately to metaphysics.
In his commentary on the Metaphysics, Aquinas notes that Aristotle in the
Politics taught that when several things are ordered to one, it's necessary
that one regulates or rules the others. He uses the analogy of the union of
body and soul as the soul is the form of the body which naturally commands and
the body obeys. A further analogy between the powers of the soul provides
insight as to the difficulties arising in the world in which we live. The
irascible and concupiscible are naturally ruled by reason. This explains the
attack on reason by the most fashionable philosophy in American universities
today, Deconstructionism, which explicitly denies the very essence of language
"intentionality" that makes quality words meaningful, significant, signs that
point beyond themselves to objective reality. There is no objective reality to
these Deconstructionists, no world beyond texts. Texts are worlds, and worlds
are texts which makes morality as arbitrary as penmanship. Nietzsche said, "We
(atheists), have not gotten rid of God until we have gotten rid of grammar."
Nietzsche let the cat out of the bag when he said, "To understand a
philosopher's metaphysics, look at the morality it leads to." We have some
wonderful examples. DeMan was a Nazi liar, Foucault, a sadomasochistic
sodomite, and the philosopher they loved, the Marquis de Sade, a
demon-possessed Satanist, perhaps the most purely evil man who ever lived. [A
Refutation of Moral Relativism - Peter Kreeft]. In essence, reason depends
upon objective grammar, order in language leading to objective truths which are
the traces of God in creation. Destroy that order and reason no longer exists
leading to sophistry. Aquinas continues with his reason analogy by noting
that all sciences and arts are ordered to one, man's perfection, which is his
happiness. This demands that one of these rule the others and rightly claim
the title of wisdom for the wise man orders.
Metaphysics is the philosophical science of being qua being, i.e., the science
of the most universal principles (reference the metaphysical axiomatic set in
the introductory paragraph) that hold true of everything that is. Every other
science implicitly presupposes some principles of metaphysics, e.g., that
nothing can both be and not be at the same time; or that whatever comes to be,
needs a cause; or that being is intelligible leading to a science of being,
a science of everything. Aristotle saw the applicability of this kind of
analysis to the word "being" which allowed him to find sufficient unity for
his sought after science. A thing called being is going to be a substance or,
if not, it will bear a meaning which relates to substance, as a property, as a
process toward or away from it, or as the negation of any of these. Aristotle
argued that the primacy of substance leant sufficient unity for the science of
metaphysics to get underway.
The science which is most intelligible ought to be regulating the others
because it considers the most intelligible things, e.g., first or ultimate
causes. There are three ways in which things can be called most intelligible.
The first is the order of understanding for the things that make the mind
certain seem to be especially intelligible. Since certitude in science is a
function of intellectual thought through causes, the knowledge of causes is
deemed especially intellectual. And the science considering the first cause
would logically rule the others. The second is the comparison of intellect to
sense. Sense perception gives us singular knowledge contrasted with our
intellect's grasp of universal knowledge. It follows that the science which is
most intellectual is most universal since it is concerned with the most
universal principles such as being, and the things which follow on being, like
one and many, potency and act. These things shouldn't be left undetermined
because complete knowledge of a genus or species can't occur without them.
They don't fall into the realm of any particular science since knowledge of
each kind of being needs them and thus they would have to be considered in all
the particular sciences. The result is that they are treated in a common
science which is the most intellectual and regulative of the others. Finally,
the third way in which things can be called most intelligible is knowledge of
the intellect as it is removal from matter that makes something intelligible
capable of apprehending universals. This implies that things farthest removed
from matter will be most intelligible. It's the application of these three
ways of considering "most intelligibility" which seem to give us three rivals
for the title of most intelligible - the first causes, the most abstract, and
the most immaterial.
Aquinas says this threefold consideration ought not to be assigned to
different sciences, but to only one. He points out that it falls to the same
science to consider the proper causes of a genus and the genus in the same
manner that the natural philosopher considers the principles of natural body.
It falls, then, to the same science to consider separate substances and common
being which is of the genus of which these substances are the common and
universal cause. Aquinas relates divine being and being as being with the
latter the subject of the science, the former its causes. However, we had
three ways to describe a sense of being most intelligible. The key is that the
science we're dealing with doesn't consider each of them as its subject but
rather only as common being. The subject of a science is that whose causes and
properties we seek but not the causes themselves of a particular genus. The
knowledge and causes of any genus is the end towards which the science moves.
Even though we're dealing with common being as a subject, the entirety or whole
is of things separate from matter in terms of being thought of and as they
exist. Not only are God and intellectual substances which never existed in
matter separate both in thought and as they exist, but also things which can be
without matter, like common being. This wouldn't be the case if it depended on
matter in order to exist.
The sum total of what we're left with can be reduced to one science which takes
on different names. It's called divine science, or theology insofar as it
considers the kind of substances mentioned, immaterial, immobile, vs. material
and mobile. It's called metaphysics insofar as it considers being and what
follows on it since this comes after physics due to the order of resolution, as
more common after less common. It's called first philosophy insofar as it
considers the first causes of things. Thus, per Aquinas, it is evident what
the subject of this science is, and how it relates to the other sciences, and
the names by which it is called.
What we have then, in metaphysics, is natural reason extended to a supernatural
plane in the same manner that counting numbers can be represented as complex
numbers with imaginary radicals. The rules of the game haven't changed in the
sense that direct appeals to fideism are required. On the contrary, faith and
reason reinforce each other as opposed to being bipolar in nature. Metaphysics
becomes the logical extension of subordinate sciences in man's quest to search
for the truth. It is a necessary bridge to traverse that road to the truth
and is strong enough to withstand the assault of atheistic flashfloods
since ultimate Truth is capitalized. This Truth is a Somebody, not a
something leading to a degree of happiness unrealizable in this life which is
what Aristotle was left with at the end of the De Anima.
Which brings us back to the beginning of this treatise by offering an addendum
to our metaphysical axiomatic union. "A philosopher is not a philosopher if he
is not a metaphysician." "And a metaphysician is not a metaphysician if he is
not a Christian philosopher."