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Who originated the term metaphysics?
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For a long time Aristotle scholars held that the term “metaphysics” (from the Greek meaning literally “after the physics”) originated from a mere “shelving accident” by Andronicus of Rhodes. It was commonly believed that Andronicus first gave the title “the books which follow the physics” in his re-ordered edition of the
opera omnia of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), where he placed the Stagirite’s fourteen books of first philosophy after those concerned with physics, simply because he was unable to properly name and classify them. However, in the middle half of the twentieth century this position came under fire with the publication of scholarly studies by Paul Moraux, Hans Reiner, and Anton-Herman Chroust. The last of these scholars, A. H. Chroust of the University of Notre Dame, maintains that the designation attributed by scholars to Andronicus of Rhodes “which owes its origin to a library cataloguing reference and, hence, to a mere accident born out of embarassment and practical necessity…this fanciful story…borders on the incredible.”
Chroust mentions that both Nicholas of Damascus (flourished 2nd half of the first century B.C.) and the illustrious historian Plutarch (c. 45-c. 120 A.D.) utilized the term “metaphysics” to describe Aristotle’s fourteen books of first philosophy. Then, Chroust lists Alexander of Aphrodisias’
Commentary to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, written around 200 A.D., where we find Alexander explaining that the Stagirite himself described his books on first philosophy as “metaphysics,” for as regards our noetical process this subject matter comes after the physics (it belongs to a higher level of abstraction).
Another source that Chroust gives us is the
Commentary of Asclepius (6th century A.D.), which is, to a great extent, reliant on Alexander. In his commentary, Asclepius says that Aristotle himself called his work “metaphysics,” for it systematically follows the books of the
Physics. Chroust goes on to maintain, along with Asclepius, that the term “metaphysics,” “to be sure, may have had its origin in the sequence of the Aristotelian works, but this sequence is by no means an external or accidental ‘order of shelving’ – an incident in the techniques used by librarians. It is rather a deliberate and necessary sequence that is decisively determined by the ‘order’ – the ‘prior’ or ‘posterior’ – of our noetic process. And this noetic process reverses the natural process or order. This fact, according to Asclepius, determines the didactic sequence which definitely calls for a
Physics-Metaphysics sequence. Aristotle himself, Asclepius concludes, has planned this vital sequence. Hence the ‘order of shelving’ merely follows the ‘topical order.’ Chroust believes that the term “first philosophy” that the Stagirite utilized to describe metaphysics expresses that which is first in the order of nature, while the term “metaphysics” proceeding in a reverse order, expresses that which is last “according to us,” that is, according to our cognitive processes.
Chroust then proceeds to give us a fourth source: Themistius (4th century A.D.), in his
Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, also states that “as far as we are concerned, the
Metaphysics comes after the
Physics, but according to nature the order or sequence is reversed. That which is prior is prior in a dual sense. First in relation to us, and, secondly, in relation to nature. In relation to us that is prior which is better known to us and which we understand more readily…In relation to nature that is prior which according to its substance is the more simple (or uniform)…and, hence, the order is reversed here. Because in discursive reasoning we proceed from the composite to the simple or uniform which, according to nature, is the prior.”
Chroust also mentions a fifth source: an anonymous scholion to the
Metaphysics which reads that “the title
metaphysics is derived not from the nature of the subject but rather from the order in which it should be read (or studied), because it [the
Metaphysics] contains the first principles of physics.”
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