•An Introduction to
Metaphysics

By Fr. Srijon. S.J,.

•Holy Spirit National Major Seminary

•Banani, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

•What is Metaphysics?

•Etymologically the word metaphysics originates from two Greek components meta (beyond) and physica (physics).

•Metaphysics is that which is beyond physics.

•What is Metaphysics?

 Everything that is not mathematics and theology.

•It was Aristotle who divided the sciences into three categories such as theoretical, practical and poetical.

•Theoretical was further divided into Mathematical, Physical and Theological.

•Therefore Physical meant that theoretical science which does not deal with length and breath dimension of the things (Math)and the unseen dimension of the things(Theology).

•To contemplate the unseen dimension of the seen reality is the proper nature of metaphysics.

•The unseen dimension however can be the very existence in which and by which everything exists.

•In a mature metaphysical thinking the former leads to the later. And the later should lead the thinker the make the unseen seen in the world of things.

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•What is Metaphysics?

•The Scope and Aim of
Metaphysical Study!

•The Meaning of Being – want to get the sense of things everywhere.

•The origin of metaphysics is from the sense of wonder we get from the world of variety and beauty.

•Metaphysics dwells on  and these wonders and evolves into philosophy.

•The mind of the baby is metaphysical in character – endless questions

•Hence the scope of metaphysics is really vast and practically unlimited.

•Attempts to have an integrated understating of reality.

•The Scope and Aim of
Metaphysical Study!

•But what we encounter is only individual beings. But we encounter many such beings. This leads us into a problem.

•What is Being? Metaphysics is an attempt to answer this question.

•It leads to the Absolute Being. (Hegel)

•Nature of Metaphysics

•The essential characteristics of metaphysical study remains incomplete.

•Human finitude and the inexhaustibility of Being.

•A form trying to understand the formlessness.

•Therefore the right attitude is to be with openness to the further revelation of being.

•Being reveals itself in organic and inorganic, animate or inanimate, human or divine beings.

•Reality reveals through everything.

•Nature of Metaphysics

•In the last analysis reality is God. Say ‘yes’ to reality. Saying yes to reality is saying ‘yes’ to God.

•It needs openness and courage.  Thus evolution of metaphysics is possible.

•Metaphysics as science of being is Ontology

•What is beyond physics is being itself.

•Greek word “on” means “being”. Therefore metaphysics was known as a ontology – science of being “ontos-logos”.

•What do we understand by “Science of Being” – an inquiry into the meaning of being.

•Psychology and sociology has man as the material object of study. Psychology from the perspective of the psychic action. Sociology as a member of a society.

•The material object of ontology is simply being.

•Metaphysics as science of being is Ontology

•When we look at being as a living being – its biology

•When we focus on life in plants – botany

•When we study human beings – we have several humanities!

•When we look at being as a being –metaphysics or ontology.

Ontology and Theology

•Ontology begins with any finite being and moves to infinite beings beyond boundaries.

•Theology studies “Theos” the foundation of all beings. Thus theology becomes onto-theology.

•The theology which ontos proceeds is often known as Theodicy (God-Talk)

•In most cultures ontology and theology are seen together but in Christianity it is seen separate.

•In western philosophy theodicy is called Philosophy of God. In theology it is known as Dogmatic or systematic theology.

•Metaphysics and Mysticism

•Metaphysics stands for unity in diversity

•In mysticism too we experience ultimate unity of everything in God.

•Mystic sees everything in God and God in everything. Metaphysician sees being as everything and everything as being.

•Metaphysics differs in its methodology.

Metaphysics and Logic

•Metaphysics agrees with logic in its universality of interest or scope.

•Differs from it because logic is concerned with truth which is in the mind

•Metaphysics seeks truth in the things present

What is Being?

•The beings – The fact of change: Basic observations.

–Change is a primary datum of consciousness

–Everything given in experience is subject to change

–We have no experience of pure change

•Fundamental meaning of change.

–Being is becoming but the being remains while it becomes.

•General statement of the problem

–What is the relation between being and becoming?

•Permenides’ Solution to the Problem

•Twentieth century philosopher’s dealing with the issue

–Whitehead’s “process” theory of reality

–Bergson’s theory of evolutionism

–John Dewey’s Theory of Temporalism

•Parmenides C.495 BC said that things do not change. Sure the things do change in the apparent experience but  in the being level we define being as “It is that which is.” if it has to change it has to change into nonbeing.

•So Parmenides denied any change. Change is illusion.

•Dynamism of Heraclitus

•Heraclitus c.505 BC had a different answer to give it to Parmenides.

•You can’t step into the same river twice.

•The nature of being is to be ceaselessly changing.

•All is Changing, nothing is permanent except change itself.

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•Plato’s Doctrine of Ideas

•Only Ideas are truly real because only Ideas are immune to change.

•Ideas exist in the supersensible world.

•What exists here on this world are the things that reflection  the ideas in the world of Ideas.

•Changing things are real only in the sense that they somehow “share” or “participate” in the reality of the universal Forms.

•Dilemma resolved: Aristotle’s Distinction of Potency and Act.

•What is Act and Potency?

•Being-in-potency = that which can be and Being-in-act = that which is.

1.Being cannot come from nonbeing

a)This statement is true, if by ‘nonbeing’ we mean ‘nothing’ in an absolute sense- that is as signifying no cause at all- because from nothing, nothing comes (ex nihilo nihil fit).

b)It is false, if by nonbeing we mean ‘relative nonbeing’ or ‘being-in-potency’ because eg. An actual flower can come from a seed.

•Dilemma resolved: Aristotle’s Distinction of Potency and Act.

2.Being cannot come from Being

a.This statement is true in the limited sense that nothing can become what it is.

b.The proposition above however is false if we interpret it to mean that being-in-potency cannot become being-in-act. Thus a child is a potential Father can become a fully true when mature into actual Father.

•Dilemma resolved: Aristotle’s Distinction of Potency and Act.

•Aristotle’s solution contains the following elements:

1)A subject or substratum which undergoes the change.

2)A capacity or potency in a subject for receiving or losing a certain perfection.

3)The new form or act that is received and finally

4)The actualization process called motion or becoming.

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•This latter is neither potency nor act in an unqualified sense, but it is related to both: it is the act of being in potency inasmuch as it is still in potency.

•In testing our solution to the problem of change we noted that the element of sameness is accounted for by the presence of an abiding subject that is in potency for a new act or form; the element of difference by the new act or form that is received.

•From the above discussion

1.Being and change are not irreconcilable;

2.Being and change are not identical

3.Everything subject to change is imperfect or limited in its being;

4.Everything subject to change is a composition of potency and act.

•Questions for Diary writing

•Is it necessary to prove the existence of change? Why?

•By the use of examples illustrate the fact that change involves sameness and difference.

•Did Plato deny that change is real? Did he solve the problem of change?

•Change is the development of the new out of the old – discuss.

•Everything subject to change is imperfect or limited. Why?

•To assert that all is change is to make change itself unintelligible – explain.

•Being: Matter and Form

•Matter is something that comes under experience. The nature of being is material.

•Early  Greek thinkers were indeed “Materialists” –Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, etc. but not dogmatic materialists.

•The dogmatic materialists are Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), LeMettrie (1709-1751) and considerable thinkers in Germany – MECHANISTIC.

•Materialism and evolutionism together make modern materialism.

•Karl Marx (1818-1883)-dialectical materialism.

•Matter is nolonger seen as solid, inert particles rather seen as force, energy (the scientific version of Matter).

•Is anything purely Material?

1.The material things are real, for this is a matter of direct observation and experience.

2.Material things are not purely material but they are in some sense a composition of matter and form.

3.In itself matter is not form but matter is really distinct from form and related to it as potency related to act.

4.THUS, PURE MATERIAL IS UNTHINKABLE.

•Different kinds of change

•Accidental change: the principle of sameness is the very substance itself.  It is the same substance which undergoes the change and persists at the end of the process.

•Here the substance is related to its accidents as potency is related to act.

•Accidental Change is a change in size, height, quality, quantity, mode, space and time.

•Eg: Water – Hot water- Cold water- Ice

•Different kinds of change

•Substantial Change: Primary Mater and Substantial Form.

•There is no easy way to understand the primary Matter because:

–It is not a substance but a principle which is part of a substance (part of every material thing)

–Although primary matter is real, it is only in the sense in which potency is real – as capacity for receiving an act

–The potency of primary matter is not for an accident but for a substantial form,

•Different kinds of change

•Accidental Change: reveals in things a composition between the substance and its accidents and the substance is related to its accidents as potency is related to act.

•Substantial Change: reveals a composition within the substance itself between its primary matter and its substantial form. In this sense the primary matter is the potential recipient and the substantial form is the act.

•From the above discussions

1.Pure Matter (matter as such) does not and cannot exist by itself.

2.Every material thing is a composition of primary matter and substantial form

3.Everything subject to  accidental change is a composition of substance and accidents.

4.Inasmuch as a substance is modified by its accidents it is related to them as potency is related to act.

5.Since primary matter is determined and actuated by substantial form, primary matter is related to substantial form as potency is related to act.

6.The reality of things is in no way reducible to their accidents

7.Things are not ultimately real in virtue of their substantial form.

•Question for Dairy Writing

1)Why is matter said to be in potency form?

2)Primary matter is not  a substance?

3)Give examples and discuss accidental change, substantial change.

4)Only that which exists is real; but primary matter does not exist; therefore it is not real. Refute this statement (distinguish the use of terms).

5)Evaluate the argument:

  Only those changes are real which affect the substance itself. But accidental changes do not affect the substance itself. Therefore accidental change is not real.

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•Being: Esssence and Existence

•There are three kinds of Being – Plants, animals, insects, men etc. We know them by their  feature- shape, colour etc. More deeply things differ essentially.  That which makes them be what they are is called Essence.  That which makes them real is called Existence.  So there are two features of Being: Essence (what they are) and Existence (that they are).

•Existence makes us to be.  It can be infinite or limited.  The limitation comes from the essence.  If existence can be limited by essence, then there can be several existences.  Different essences create different beings – plants, animals etc.  Being is not only existence but something existing in its own way.

•Experience shows that what we are changes.  Change can be positive or negative.  Yet in the midst of changes we keep our identity with a range of possibilities.

•Being: Faculties, habits, Nature

•Seeing requires eyes, willing requires a will.  These are called faculties- the immediate source of our operations.  Habits are lasting dispositions which make operations easier.  They are innate or got by practice.  Nature is the agent’s radical source of action as far as the total way of acting is concerned.  How do these come together to form our complete essence?

•Being: Essence and Existence

•Essence is the principle of being – what about the existence?

•Examine the meaning of essence and the fundamental relation that exists in the things between their essence and their existence.

•Being: Essence and Existence
Our knowledge of Essence

1.We know that “things are” from the way that things act or behave

2.The essence of things is that which makes it what it is. What things are through their behavior. Therefore there is no real essence. Examples, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

3.This lead to the pragmatist, positivists, existentialists, evolutionists and even Marxists to reject the essence. Some even said that man makes essence for himself.

4.So we seek a mid-path to seek the essence and existence of things.

5.The methodology that we use is abstraction. Abstraction is not that we form an idea rather it is arriving at an understanding of things as they are through analysis of the activities and behaviour of the things.  The activities reveal something of the accidents which intern reveal nature of the things. Thus we arrive at the knowledge of the essence and nature of being.

•Reality of Essence

•The reality of essence is known through degrees of abstraction in different levels.

–First degree of abstraction: common sensible matter. Generic terms, universal concepts excluding the individual shape, size, quality, quantity etc.

–Second degree of abstraction: numbers, figures, lines so on pertains to Mathematics. In other words the second degree is thought of without any common sensible matter. E.g.. Triangle – we do not consider wood, iron etc but the shape triangle. Here no reference to individual matter.

–Third degree of abstraction: It is the abstraction of individual as being.  The very concept is devoid of individual, common sensible matter.  This is Metaphysical abstraction. Here beings exist and be thought of without any reference to matter.

•Reality of Essence

1.That the essence of everything in experience is really distinct from its act of being.

2.That the essence of every (finite) thing stands in relation to its existence as  does potency in relation to act;

3.That everything given in experience is ultimately a composition of essence (the kind of being that it is) and existence (the act of being that it has).

•Can Being be Defined?

•What is a definition? Definition is an answer to the question of what a thing is in terms of its “quiddity” or essence.

•When we define an essence, we do abstraction from the various things or subjects to which the essence belongs.

•St. Thomas’ definition: Being is that whose act is to be.

•Being is that to which esse belongs to its act. This is the most succinct answer to the question “What is being?”

•Topics for Dairy Writing

1)How do we know that there are many different kinds of things?

2)What are some of the consequences of denying that we have any real knowledge of essence?

3)Explain the importance of giving a proper explanation of the meaning of abstraction. What do you understand by this?

4)Everything in experience is ultimately composed of its essence and its act of being – discuss.

5)Give reasons to say that being cannot be strictly defined and it can only be described.

•Being: Substance and Accident

•Substance is defined as that which exists in itself.  The root word “Substare” means “to remain beneath”. Therefore  substance is that which lies beneath all changes and provides the basis for changes.

The substance houses the thing (flower). The flower is the smell, smoothness, colour etc which are changing.

•Being: Substance and Accident

•Accident is that which subsists on the substance.  Without the accident the substance cannot express itself.  It needs the accident to show itself.

•Accidents contain several qualities.  They are always found with the substance which they modify in one or other way.

•Being

•Being: Act and Potency

•Is potency and Act Real? Yes, they are real in the sense that potency and act are said to be real in as much as they are the composite part of the individual, independent realities or things.

•Potency and act are not physically extended parts rather they are the ultimate components which do not admit of any further type of composition.

•Note: it is wrong to consider them as things or parts physically extended of things.

•Act and Potency: Transcendental Relationship

•The relationship is not merely logical but real.

•To be real is the basic meaning of the term “transcendental”.

•Though real not limited to any category like time, place, posture and so on, rather found in all the categories.

•Act and potency have a natural affinity to each other. By their very nature they are united. This mode of union is transcendental or essential.

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•Act and potency defined

•Potency has no meaning except with reference to its corresponding act.

•Potency is not knowable in itself, but only with reference to its corresponding act.

•Every potency is ordered to an appropriate act which is its end or goal.

•Finally, we can say that every single act that is given in experience as a matter of fact does have its corresponding potency.

•Relation of potency and act

1.Potency is perfected by act at the ‘Moment” of its actualization and

2.At this same “moment” the act itself is limited and continues to be limited by the potency in which it is received.

•Division of Act

•Pure act – un-manifested potency is called pure act.

•Mixed Act – is one that is limited by potency or a composition of potency and act.

•First Formal Act: It is that act by which a thing is one kind of being rather than another. This is the substantial form of a matter.

•Second Formal Act:  any accidental perfection that a thing has is related to is second formal act.

•Received Act is one that is received in a potency.

•Unreceived Act is not an act.

•Division of Potency

•Active potency: capacity to sense, think, will are powers when they are utilized it is called active potency.

•Passive Potency; is the capacity for receiving an act.

•Being: Terms

•Act  Potency

•Existence  Essence

•Accidents  Substance

•Form  Matter

•Perfection  Capable of Perfection

•Topics for dairy writing

•There is no way of imaging potency and act. Why not? Explain.

•Collect as many definitions of potency and act and choose the best that satisfies you. why?

•“If a composite thing is real, its parts must also be real.” Discuss

•Why is it correct to regard potency and act as ultimate principles of being?

•Give examples of your own, showing how it is possible to gather from these examples some understanding of the nature of potency and act.

•Explain the meaning of Active potency. Why is it called potency not act.

•Being: Individual Being, Persons, Aggregates, Societies

•Individual: They subsist, distinct, wholeness, have a nature

•They have rationality and spirituality (subsist). They are ends in themselves not just a means.  There is nothing better than persons in the whole universe.  They can relate to God, love and be united with.

•Aggregate: Machines, human body

•Community based on contracts.

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•Topics for dairy writing

•Define and describe and differentiate Individual, Persons, aggregates and societies.

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•Being: Causality or Relations between beings

•Examine the following statements:

I switched on the light because I wanted to read.

The light came because I switched on.

We are men, because we have souls.

All bodies are extended because of prime matter.

The picture is nice because he had a good model.

The text is well written because of te writer or because of the pen?

No bread because no flour.

The cycle is bound to fall because of gravitation.

He committed murder because he wanted money or because he wanted revenge.

•Being: Causality

•It is a very important study because we need them in ethics and in sciences.

•Therefore we shall study it in four phase.

–Causality in general

–Variety of  final causes

–Variety of efficient causes

–Metaphysical principles of causality

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•Three Types of Causes

•What is a cause? Source of influence on an other.

A.Proper Cause: A source which of itself as such an influence.

An accidental cause: a source which has an influence not directly but affects on the proper cause.

  (Wood burns well; dry wood burns better

There are Intrinsic causes: material causes- prime matter or secondary matter

Formal Cause: that which specifies on the effects.

There are Extrinsic Causes: Those that remain distinct from the effect. Efficient Cause, Final Cause and the effect.

•Varieties of final Causes

•Objective: the object which is attractive (Librarian wants to have books)

•Subjective: The perfection of the one who pursues the object (I want books for pleasure or utility of reading them)

•Altruistic: the others persons or things for whom the good is pursued (the reading public as the end of the library)

•Ends can be successive and subordinated.

  Successive: I want to study and get a job.

  Subordinated: the second becomes first in intention.

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•Varieties of final causes

•A means is wanted only for the sake of another.

•An intermediary end: needs others for its own sake.

•Ultimate end: the one that is beyond all other things.

•Variety of efficient causes

A.Coordinated and subordinated causes

B.Principal and Instrumental causes

C.Sufficient – Necessary – Free Causes.

•The Analogy of Being

•The term ‘being’ applies in a genuine sense to all things that are, being is not equivocal.

•Being is not one as a Substance.

•Being is not a genus.

•Being is not univocal.

•The analogy of being is neither metaphorical or attributive.

•Being is intrinsic or proper to all things that are.

•Being is not one as an essence.

•It is impossible for any two things to share in the same act of existence.

•Everything that exists exercise its act of being in proportion to its essence or nature.

•Being is analogous by way proper proportionality; (or) The community of being is one of proportional similitude; (or) Things are alike in being because of a likeness of proportion in their parts (essence and existence)

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•What is meant by an “analogous” term?

•Explain: the analogy of being is one of proper proportionality.

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•Topics for dairy writing

•Exemplify the equivocal use of a term

•Explain why being is not equivocal.

•Being is not one as substance – discuss

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•*The prime analogous is the object, which is, first known to deserve the term. E.g. the notion of being for us is first known to be verified in finite brings.

•*The secondary analogues are the object to such the term is later applied. E.g. the notion of it is later applied to God, when we come to know His existence.

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•In the order of Reality.

•The prime analogue is the object which verifies the term to the fullest degree. God is infinite being.

•The secondary analogue is the object twitch verifies the term in a lower degree. Creatures are only finite beings.

•Intrinsic and Extrinsic analogy

•1.intrinsic Analogy: Analogy in which the definition of the term is verified in both the prime and secondary analogues. (Ex. Life in man, and life in God; life, in men, in animals and plants). The difference between the analogues is thus a difference of degree of the same property.

•2. Extrinsic Analogy: Analogy in which the definition of the term is verified in the prime analogy only and the term is said of the secondary analogue, though the later may fall short of the definition, or be related only to the prime analogue. Example: `foot` of man and `foot` of the hill; `head` of the family; `healthy` medicine, not because it is itself healthy, but because it causes health; an `intelligent` text, not because the text understand itself, but because it was written by somebody who understood well the matter.

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•The Notion of Being means: “Some thing existing in its own way”. This is a primary notion implied in our direct judgment, because all direct judgments say, at least implicitly. “This is”. This notion has a certain unity by what it means, i.e. the presence of existence and essence.

•          The notion is imperfectly, one because it allows for a variety of ways of being, on account of the different essence.

•It is thus, analogous. The analogy is intrinsic, when the notion is applied to all the existing beings, because they alone verify the whole definition. (Possible’ do not; see later).

•THE TRANSCENDENTALS

•1.Introduction:

•The name Transcendental is given in Metaphysics to those few properties, which go along with every being. Normally a property goes along with a definite type of being and that makes it be a property, as rationality for man, or extension for bodies, or omniscience for God.

•   But there are also some attributes, which go for all beings. Since they belong to the beings necessarily, they are properties, but since they extend to all beings, they are called transcendental, in the sense that they transcend (go across) all the kinds of beings.

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•TRUTH, as a transcendental  

 Definitions of terms

•    The word truth is very ambiguous, or at least it is used in various extended meanings, which hide sometimes the original meaning, which should be the basic of all other meanings.

•    Truth is “a kind of conformity between minds and reality”. Normally we are by logical truth (conformity of the mind to reality) and moral truth (what I say correspond to what I think or know and should say). Ontological truth is the conformability of the things to the mind, the fact that things are “intelligible”

• Ontological truth has no contrary, since all beings are intelligible, as we shall prove just now, even if not made according to, plan, or deceptive. The truth we are speaking of, as a transcendental is the ontological truth, in the basic sense of “intelligibility”. I.e. Every being offers something to be understood.  

•Goodness as transcendental:

Definition of terms:

•*Good means suitable for a will. This be the meaning in which e shall argue that all beings are good.

•*Derivatively, good con mean suitable for various material needs, for our senses, for our spiritual faculties too.

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•*The useful: good for the sake of an other: a cycle to go out.

•*The worthy or the respectable: ie. Good in itself, ex. Man as an end in himself.

•*The delightful or the enjoyable: good, which brings pleasure, ex, artistic productions.

•*The highest good is  “the lovable for its own sake” because love as surrender to another for his own, one to satisfy a desire, is the act of three will. Such are human or divine.  

•**Evil:    privation of goodness

•*Physical Evil: the absence of a natural condition. Ex. Sickness; it can also be at the spiritual level as ignorance.

•*Moral Evil: primitive of orientation to the right ultimate end in the free action beings.

•BEAUTY, as a Transcendental.

•a.  Definition:    Beauty is the characteristics of  “what pleases when it is known”.

•*Beauty is a form of the good, but it does not refer silly faculties.

•**Classical definition:  “The splendour of order by which reality can delight a cognitive faculty”

•b.  Types of Beauty

•*As we have various cognitive faculties, we can find different types of beauty,

•**Beauty at sense level: there will be as many forms of sensible beauty as we have forms of sense faculty. Visual, audible, tactual, beauty etc. Beauty lies in the beholder’s eyes

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•*They can be found existing in nature or produce by art. So the beauty of a painting is not primarily in objectivity or exactitude; it evil resides in the pleasure the sounds give.

•**Beauty at intellectual level:  Either of common sense knowledge, or of scientific, or metaphysical, or philosophical, degrees of pleasure and thus of beauty, There can be a beautiful idea, a beautiful speech, a beautiful intuition,

•*Some, like Kant, have tried to limit the beautiful to the sense order; but this seems an undue restriction, since we have higher cognitive faculties with their own pleasure.

•*The contrary of beauty is ugliness or privation of beauty.

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