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THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XXIX OCTOBER, 1965 No.4 LOGIC AND THE METHOD OF METAPHYSICS PART I THE RATIONAL METHOD OF METAPHYSICS 1. Introduction EVENTS OF THIS century have raised an imposing array of searching questions which, not submissive to the ready answer, mercilessly demand a thorough review of the basic presuppositions of human existence. This pressing fact, together with the new and continuing inquiry which has induced man to refocus his attention on many of the same questions that have dogged his historical footsteps for centuries, have led him to a forthright recognition, though often a reluctant one, of the deep human need for and the full justification of a science of being. Without being man cannot live, for only in the climate of being is life meaningful. Yet the old antinomies persist, and today, as in the past, philosophers sharply disagree regarding the nature as well as 841 34~ JAMES B. REICHMANN the method of metaphysics. For all, metaphysics is, if ultimates are admitted, an inquiry into ultimates; but the ultimate is different things for different philosophers, and there are different philosophies because of different ultimates with correspondingly different ways of realizing them. The single minded aim of the present inquiry will be an attempt at a further clarification of the method of metaphysics . That some clarification is welcome is witnesesd to by the opposing directions of development sometimes noted even within the Thomist school and by an almost systematic ambiguity often surrounding the metaphysical enterprise itself. That our inquiry might satisfactorily be contained within determined limits, we shall presume a common ground of agreement regarding the nature of metaphysics, assuming that it is the science of being as such, and shall concentrate our principal effort toward pin-pointing and elucidating the notion of its method. Working out the methodology of any science contains more than its share of problems, as the philosophical literature particularly of the past decade reveals. Yet, when we approach the question of the methodology of the metaphysician, we appear to have released the lid from a pandora's box of antinomies and seemingly insoluble paradoxes. For, as the most fundamental and universal of sciences, metaphysics must have a method which matches it stride for stride both in its fundamentality and its universality, and this means that neither this science nor its method can rest on presuppositions for which it itself is not accountable. The method of a science is nothing more than a ' way of proceeding' intellectually. As we know, etymologically it derives from the two Greek words, meta (with, along), and hodos (way), which together mean 'along a certain way or path.' Consequently, method is the name given to the manner in which a scientist pursues a more perfect and more complete knowledge of the subject of his inquiry. Referring this to metaphysics we can then say that in general the method of the metaphysician is the special manner in which he pursues LOGIC AND THE METHOD OF METAPHYSICS 343 his more perfect and complete understanding of being. The question which we propose to consider in this study is the method of metaphysics in particular. Hence we wish to know how it is that the science of metaphysics unfolds and evolves; what procedures the metaphysician employs in seeking out a fuller knowledge of his proper subject, being. That the orientation of this study might appear from the outset, we shall here indicate in summary form its fundamental tenet and conclusion. We seek to establish, and, to some extent, clarify how it is so, that the method of metaphysics is as unique as the science itself, and that it is for that reason most properly termed a ' rational method.' Owing to the pejorative overtones which the phrase ' rational method ' currently conveys, such a claim is likely to cause some dismay, for to assert that the metaphysician employs a mtional method seems clearly to amount to saying that, despite all the clarifications of the past century in neo-Thomist circles relating to the nature of metaphysics, one is dangerously...

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