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1/9 Introduction to Metaphysics 1/9 Introduction to Metaphysics The first question we need to address on this course concerns the nature of the subject area we are going to be investigating. The term metaphysics originally arose from the title of a book by Aristotle that was given to it subsequent to Aristotle’s life. The basic original sense of metaphysics was the work written after the physics with the apparent sense that this work should only be studied once the physics had been grasped. Now, for the Greeks, the term physics was equivalent to “nature” so that investigations of a physical kind were investigations into nature with it following that metaphysics would be inquiry into certain types of things we could investigate on the basis of our previous enquiry into nature. So for medieval philosophy the focus of metaphysics concerned sets of topics that Aristotle had originally investigated, principally an enquiry into the nature of being as such. Now the focus of this course is not going to be guided by these definitions and the reason why this is so concerns the kind of overturning of the inquiry just discussed in modern philosophy. By contrast to the definitions we have taken from Aristotle we can set some from Descartes. In a “Letter” to the translator of his late work The Principles of Philosophy that was printed in the work as its preface Descartes describes philosophy as follows: Philosophy as a whole is like a tree; of which the roots are Metaphysics, the trunk is Physics, and the branches emerging from this trunk are all the other branches of knowledge. 1 © Gary Banham & Manchester Metropolitan University, 2009 Metaphysics, Level II, Lecture 1: Introduction, Department of Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. 2/9 The first thing that is evident here is that Descartes has altered the order of priority between physics and metaphysics so that he does not now consider metaphysics as an enquiry that one can undertake only after you have mastered physics. Quite the contrary he now understands their relation to be one in which metaphysics provides the foundation of physics and that the combination of metaphysics and physics provides the ground of all other knowledge. On this basis Descartes adopts the conception that metaphysics is to be identified as first philosophy (a phrase explicitly used on the next page of the “Letter” where he refers to “first Philosophy or Metaphysics”). This conception that metaphysics is the first philosophy that grounds all others depends on the view that there are certain types of principle that are the basis of all other types. If we think of physics as concerned at least with things that are physical and hence as having something to do with the nature of bodies then it would follow that what is metaphysical tells you something about both the essential nature of that which is physical and the manner in which that which is physical can come to be known. Since knowledge is itself something that resides in non-physical acts of cognition then the basic or essential metaphysical principles will be both those that describe the true nature of body and the manner of knowing this true nature. This is why Descartes describes philosophy as “knowledge of the truth through its first causes”2 since we are aware that metaphysics is the first or primary element of philosophy. © Gary Banham & Manchester Metropolitan University, 2009 Metaphysics, Level II, Lecture 1: Introduction, Department of Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. 3/9 So far I have described some of the elements of the conception of metaphysics in Descartes and contrasted this with the medieval and Aristotelian conception of metaphysics. To the points advanced so far we need to add an historical one that helps to provide part of the rationale for the displacement of the old sense of metaphysics as described in the work of Descartes. The central historical point is that Descartes is presenting his accounts of philosophy and metaphysics in a setting that is part of a radical challenge to the Aristotelian conception, this is the setting provided by the arrival of that thing that we refer to as science. In 1543 Nicholas Copernicus published his Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres which presented the argument for viewing the earth not as the centre of the universe but merely as one planet that orbits the sun. In the course of presenting this argument Copernicus describes the heavens as infinite in magnitude and also argues that there are tiny indivisible bodies called atoms. These positions subsequently undergo various changes, modifications and developments in Kepler and Galileo but once Descartes begins writing and publishing works in the 1630’s and 1640’s they provide a view of physics that is at fundamentally at odds with positions presented by Aristotle. It is the setting of the new forms of knowledge that we describe as “sciences” that requires a revolution in the understanding of philosophy and a new articulation of what is involved in the inquiry termed metaphysics. This is the essential prerequisite for viewing modern metaphysics as a discipline that is decisively different from ancient and medieval views. The © Gary Banham & Manchester Metropolitan University, 2009 Metaphysics, Level II, Lecture 1: Introduction, Department of Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. 4/9 first thing that becomes apparent from the inquiries of Copernicus and his successors is that the nature of what is physical needs to be revisited. It is clearly insufficient to rely on our naïve sense perception to understand the nature of bodies: we need to inquire into the nature of our cognition of bodies therefore in order to grasp what is sound in this cognition and what is not. This is the key claim that Descartes makes when he challenges the conception of knowledge that was held by previous philosophers. Descartes gives as a key example of the need for a new enquiry into the nature of knowledge the understanding of bodies, mentioning for example the cognition of the weight we view as part of all bodies, writing: I know of no Philosopher who did not suppose that there was weight in terrestrial bodies. But although experience shows us clearly that the bodies which we call heavy descend toward the centre of the earth, we do not on that account know the nature of what we call weight; that is to say, the cause or Principle which makes them thus descend, and we must learn it from elsewhere. The same can be said of the void and of atoms, and of heat and cold, of dryness, of humidity, of salt, of sulphur, of mercury, and of all similar things which some have taken as their Principles. Now all the conclusions which one deduces from a Principle which is not itself evident cannot be evident either, even though they may be deduced from it in an evident manner: from which it follows that all the reasonings which Philosophers based upon such Principles were unable to give them certain knowledge of anything, or, consequently, to take them one step forward in the pursuit of Wisdom. (xx-xxi) To put this point more concisely: philosophers have hitherto not understood the nature of body as the principles on which they have based their understanding have not been ultimate ones. So, due to this failure to grasp ultimate principles of bodies, we have not had an adequate physics to date. The point that Descartes will derive from this is that it will be necessary in order for physics to have foundations for there to be a first © Gary Banham & Manchester Metropolitan University, 2009 Metaphysics, Level II, Lecture 1: Introduction, Department of Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. 5/9 enquiry, the enquiry he understands as metaphysics, that would ground our cognition of physics. Now, a last point from the “Letter” that serves as the preface to the Principles of Philosophy is worth referring to. This is that the distinction between physics and metaphysics is in a sense the difference between the principles of material things and the principles of knowledge but we need to add a further point to get the full sense of this difference on Descartes’ conception. This is that metaphysics does not just concern the principles of knowledge but also, according to Descartes, “the explanation of the principal attributes of God, of the immateriality of our souls, and of all the clear and simple notions which are in us” (xxiv). In this list the reference to the discussion of God and the soul indicates some areas of inquiry that are clearly beyond the scope of physics as they require an understanding of something that is immaterial. However the key element of the enquiry in metaphysics in Descartes’ conception is not the emphasis on God and the soul, it is, rather, the explanation of all the clear and simple notions which are in us. It is generally agreed by commentators on Cartesian philosophy that it relies on a view of clear and distinct ideas but whilst this is recognised the relation between clarity and distinctness is often missed. Not only is this the case but, even more fundamentally, the inquiry into simple ideas in Descartes is only emphasized by those who have read Descartes with real care. In order to enter into the nature of modern metaphysics we will have to begin with an investigation of what Descartes means when he speaks, as © Gary Banham & Manchester Metropolitan University, 2009 Metaphysics, Level II, Lecture 1: Introduction, Department of Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. 6/9 he often does, of “simple ideas” and, indeed, “simple natures”.
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