The Subject of Metaphysics

THE SUBJECT OF METAPHYSICS IT IS not immediately evident why anyone is interested in the subject of metaphysics. The physical world is so much with us, it contains so much to attract our attention and to excite our wonder and curiosity, that we could be well occupied with it for a lifetime; Particularly in this atomic age which is just beginning, it might seem that the center of attention is and should be focused on physical reality and on physical science. But even in this age of theoretical and applied physics, men are still human. We naturally desire to understand not only the intimate details of the parts of things, but also the general and ultimate reasons of the whole. An inquiry which is concerned with the whole of reality and its ultimate reasons or causes is called metaphysics-whether we like it or not. THE PROBLEM Let us suppose that we do not like it. Is it not entirely too pretentious? Where could such an inquiry begin? If it is to be conducted in an orderly way, there must be a reasonable approach to the whole through its parts. Certainly we cannot attain, a genuine understanding of everything all at once and nothing first. What part can we begin to consider with the reasonable hope of attaining through it a certain and systematic grasp of the whole? This is a question of no little importance, and one very difficult to answer. Unless there is a starting point for metaphysics , there simply is no genuine metaphysics. This, of course, is what many persons have said and are saying: there is no room for metaphysics. In physics we are already studying the only reality presented to us. We have begun as best we can with the parts which are accessible to us. Surely we have no 503 504 WILLIAM H. KANE reason to expect that the work will be done and the whole explained in our lifetime. On the other hand, some persons still insist tp.at there is need for metaphysics, and they believe that such an inquiry is both reasonable and reasonably fruitful. Unfortunately they do not agree on the starting point of metaphysics, nor on how this is to be established. Among recent authors a complete spectrum of opinions has been proposed. Even those who agree in saying that common being is the subject of metaphysics often disagree in their explanations of the term. Some hold it· is common to everything which is or can be, whether real or not real; others hold that it is common to all the real, whether Creator or creature; others that it is common to all created things, whether corporeal or spiritual; others that it is common to all· sensory things, whether substances or acCidents; others that it is common only to the individual self and one's own characteristics. Where there are so many different answers to a qµestion, it is likely that there is some confusion about ·the sense "of the question itself; Just what do we mean. when we ask about the subject of metaphysics? What do we mean by the subject of a science? And what is science? THE LOGICAL APPROACH Science, we are sure, is genuine knowhig.1 Whether we have it or not, we know what we mean: knowledge of the reason, or cause of something, as the proper cause of that thing and no other, and that it cannot be otherwise. Each one of us thinks he knows some things in this way, and this is what we mean by science in the sense of genuine knowing. Such knowledge is not attained without certain antec~dents or ,pre-requisites. We must already know that certain things are, and what they are, before we can proceed to kno.w something else in a scientific way.2 Whether we consider science as 1 Arist., Poat. An., Bk. I, Ch. 2, 7Ib, 9. •Op. cit., 71a 11. THE SUBJECT OF METAPHYSICS 505 a single act of reason attaining an object in a scientific way, or as a systematic habit of such knowing, we must have previous knowledge of certain principles, whether general or special, and also a...