Metaphysics as the First and Easiest Science

More from Nicolaus Bonetus. I was alerted to this passage by Wouter Goris' article, "After Scotus: Dispersions of Metaphysics, of the Scope of Intelligibility, and of the Transcendental in the Early 14th Century," in Quaestio 8 (2008), 139-157.

Nicolaus Bonetus, Metaphysica II c. 6 (ed. Venezia 1505, f. 18rb-va [for convenience I quote from Goris, p.2):

Prima etiam est nostra metaphysica omni alia scientia primitate originis in ordine docendi [...]. Et si dicas: Aristoteles et alii philosophi multi ordinaverunt et nobis tradiderunt metaphysicam et eam ultimo docuerunt, respondeo tibi quod in metaphysica Aristotelis non sunt pure metaphysicalia tradita, sed sunt ibi multa theologica de substantiis separatis et de intelligentiis quod sunt multum alta et difficilllima; et ideo ultima est ratione illorum et in ordine inveniendi et in ordine docendi. Sed si non essent ibi nisi pure metaphysicalia, sicut in nostra metaphysica in qua non probabuntur nisi pure metaphysicalia praedicata cum ente in quantum ens convertibilia, ipsa esset prima in ordine inveniendi et in ordine docendi, sicut est nostra quam primo inveni quia eius subiectum primo ante alia subiecta scibilia distincte cognovi. Et ideo primo ante omnes alias scientias istam metaphysicam trado tibi, ut eam primo audias et eam primo studeas, quia inter alias ista est facillima ad addiscendum, cum subiectum eius, quod est ens in quantum ens, prima impressione imprimatur in intellectu.

My translation:

Our metaphysics is prior to every other science in the primacy of origin in the order of teaching. [...] And if you say: Aristotle and many other philosophers set in order and handed metaphysics down to us and taught it last, I respond to you that in the metaphysics of Aristotle not only purely metaphysical matters are handed down but there are there many theological matters about the separate substances and of the intelligences, which are most high and difficult; and therefore by reason of them [metaphysics] is last both in the order of discovery and in the order of teaching. But if there were only purely metaphysical issues treated there, just as in our metaphysics in which only pure metaphysical predicates [which are] convertible with being qua being are proved, it would be first in the order of discovery and in the order of teaching, just as is ours which I discovered first because I distinctly understood its subject before all other knowable subjects. And therefore I pass on that metaphysics to you first before all other sciences, so that you might hear it first and study it first, because among all others that [science] is the easiest to learn since its subject, which is being qua being, is impressed in the intellect by a first impression.

Marilyn Adams on History of Philosophy

From the Dewey lecture, "God and Evil among the Philosophers", in the APA proceedings and Addresses vol. 85 issue 2. Emphases are in the original

Certainly, medieval scholastics were analytic philosophers: they were distinction-drawers and argument-inventers par excellence. But they were not only generalists (ranging over all of the major sub-fields of philosophy) in the way Pike recommended; they were systematic philosophers. To get a grip on what they were saying about omniscience or omnipotence or perfect goodness required a wider understanding of their metaphysics and epistemology, their conceptions of agency and normative grounds, and of how they fitted these together.

Working on my Ockham book, I became convinced that their theological disagreements were rooted in philosophical differences, which were at bottom contentious. Most of their arguments for their own and against their opponent's positions involved premises to which the other would not consent. Although they were as interested as Pike was in analyzing whether Divine foreknowledge is incompatible with free will, they did not see themselves engaged in a meta-discipline, but in theory construction. They were beginning with doctrinal givens and philosophical commitments and working in different ways to integrate these into a philosophically coherent system. Their debates forced refinements in their own theories. Together they furnished detailed maps of theoretical alternatives.

Throughout my studies of medieval philosophical theology, I have remained a metaphysical realist about philosophical claims: there is such a thing as Reality with a capital "R" and well-formed theories either do or do not correspond with it. But refereeing their philosophical disputes, I became a sceptical realist, holding that it is impossible for us to prove in a  way convincing to every rational person, which theory is true and which false. The philosophical task ought to concentrate on theoretical development and understanding.

It also struck me that scholastic method was an antidote for dogmatism. True, there were theological givens that medieval scholastics had to number among the phenomena to be saved. But questioning and disputing required each to get inside the other's theory enough to understand its strengths and weaknesses, the better to appreciate the plusses and minuses of their own. Such exercises foster intellectual flexibility and imagination that is able to do comparative anatomy and cost-benefit analyses on philosophical competitors and to recognize that the same problem can be solved in different ways. When, over the years, colleagues and graduate students have murmured that history of philosophy isn't really philosophy, my contrary reply has become that history of philosophy is a way of doing philosophy and wholesome medicine against the dogmatism that sometimes plagues our field.

In my generation, we by and large changed the way history of philosophy is done by philosophers trained in the analytic tradition. There is a spectrum of practice. Some do philology and edit texts. More spend time on the institutional settings and wider intellectual milieu in which past philosophers worked. There are those who focus more on the interpretive and philosophical problems found in the texts themselves, while others move on from this to build bridges to contemporary thought. All of these are important. Whatever one's specialty, one has to learn from them all. My own work on Ockham benefitted enormously from the generosity of the editorial team at the Franciscan Institute, where critical texts of Ockham's works, discoveries and perspectives, and hospitality were shared. Anachronism and mis-readings are to some extent inevitable. My own advice is to resist attempts to take the weirdness out of great past philosophers. Letting them be as weird as they are is the way to guarantee that we learn something that we didn't know before.


Anglo-American analytic philosophy borrowed its sense of the philosophical canon from Oxbridge: ancient and modern classical, at least Plato and Aristotle, at least Descartes, maybe Leibniz, certainly Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. During the seventies and eighties, Kant was re-entering the mainstream. Medieval philosophy has been central to the canon of philosophy in Roman Catholic schools since 1880 when Pope Leo XIII declared Aquinas the patron of the Catholic schools. Fortunately for me, a tradition of covering medieval philosophy had begun at UCLA when Ernest Moody, the famous pioneer in the study of medieval logic, joined the philosophy faculty in the late fifties and helped launch the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. In leading analytic graduate departments, however, medievalists were and still are rare.

My generation failed to secure a place for medieval philosophy within the canon of analytic philosophy, but not for want of trying. In the late seventies, the quality of medieval sessions at the APA had sunk so low, that we specialists formed the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, which has since mounted its own double sessions (one on the Latin west and the other on Jewish and Arabic philosophy) at divisional meetings. This was good advertising: the Middle Ages was too a period during which real philosophy was done! The Society also built bridges between secular non-catholic and Roman Catholic schools and widened the circle around which work was shared. These were significant fruits. Certainly, I have learned a lot about Aquinas from Catholic Neo-Thomists, who have spent their adult lives steeping themselves in his works. Over the course of my career, more and more works have been edited and translated with the result that most professionals now know: Augustine and Aquinas were not the only philosophers between Aristotle and Descartes! But medieval philosophy is every bit as technical as contemporary metaphysics is. I suspect many think it would be too much trouble to master it. More's the pity, because medieval philosophy is full of distinctive insights and theories in metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophical theology, overall a  fascinating diet of contrasting ideas.

Analytic Philosophy Reconceived: Studying medieval philosophy not only acquainted me with content to analyze; it gradually brought about an imitative shift in my own method. Medieval philosophical theologians were not practicing a meta-discipline; they were involved in theory-construction. By the early to mid-seventies, however, analytic philosophy was recovering its sense of vocation to theorize as well. Hilary Putnam revived talk of natural kinds. Saul Kripke made de re necessities and mind-body dualism respectable. David Lewis' clear and penetrating discussions lent further credibility to the enterprise of metaphysics. Philosophy of mind went inter-disciplinary with the rise of cognitive psychology, and diversified with many and various materialist theories of the mind. Philosophy of language forged ties with linguistics. Enriched conceptual machinery from the present and retrievals from the past made it increasingly natural for me to see the project of philosophy of religion in terms of theory-construction, of articulating theological claims using philosophical conceptuality, of arguing for them--at least in part--on philosophical grounds, of adjusting concepts and theses to achieve theoretical coherence. Such a shift blurs the boundaries between philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. In fact, my own methodological turns were part of a trend that spawned a significant movement: the Society of Christian Philosophers.

Scotus' Razor

From The Extremely Subtle Questions on the Books of Metaphysics of Aristotle, Book VIII, Q.1, n.22:

Aliter dicitur ad quaestionem quod paucitas semper est ponenda quando per ipsam salvantur apparentia . . . Et ideo positio plurium semper debet dicere necessitatem manifestam propter quam ponantur tot; nihil autem apparet in accidentibus propter quod debeant poni composita ex duabus partibus essentialibus, communiter loquendo . . .Ideo communiter negatur talis compositio.

"Otherwise it should be said to the question [which is whether accidents are simple or composite] that we should always posit fewer things when the appearances can be saved thereby . . . therefore in positing more things we should always indicate the manifest necessity on account of which so many things are posited. But there is no apparent reason why accidents should be taken to be composed of two essential parts, commonly speaking . . . therefore such composition is commonly denied."

Scotus is a big fan of what has come to be called Ockham's Razor. Of course we find it in Aquinas too, for instance in Summa theologiae Pars 1 q.2 a.3.1: quod potest compleri per pauciora principia, non fit per plura, what can be accomplished with fewer principles doesn't happen through more. The origins of the Razor go back to Aristotle and his insight that nature does nothing in vain. It was commonly known to the scholastics, but Scotus was particularly fond of invoking it. Why then is it so associated with Ockham rather than Scotus? Is it that Scotus balances it with a judicious use of the Anti-Razor, keeping a full toolkit and insisting that we not deny more entities when they are necessary to explain the appearances, whereas Ockham uses his fewer tools more ostentatiously and vigorously?

This is, of course, the self-serving scotist interpretation. The issue has been on my mind, however, since I've been reading Armand Maurer's fine book The Philosophy of William of Ockham in the Light of His Principles. I'll say something about it here soon.

Self-Identity, Infinite Regress

Identity is unity or union; either because the things which are said to be the same are plural in their being, and yet are called the same insofar as they agree in some one factor; or because they are one in their being, but the intellect treats them as though they are plural in order to think a relation. For a relation can only be thought to obtain between two extremes, as when something is said to be the same as itself; for then the intellect treats what is one in reality as though it were two; otherwise it could not designate a relation of something to itself. Wherefore it is clear that if a relation always requires two extremes, and in relations of this sort there are not two extremes in reality but only in the mind, the relation of identity is not a real relation but only a relation of reason . . . for if the relation of identity were some thing besides that which is called the same, that thing which is a relation, since it is the same as itself, for the same reason would have another relation which would be identical with itself, and on to infinity. But it is impossible to go to infinity in things. But in matters of the intellect nothing prohibits it. For when the intellect reflects on its acts it understands that it understands, and it can understand this as well, and so on to infinity.

--St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics, Lib.V, lectio XI, par.912, my translation

A couple of thoughts about this passage. First, it's a good example of the fact that some of the "problems" that modern philosophy finds the most challenging and fascinating, such as the nature of self-identity, are for the classical and scholastic mind non-starters (the converse is also true, of course). In fact this disconnect between what modern thinkers find interesting or worth spilling gallons of ink on and what I find interesting and worth reading and thinking about is part of what makes reading much modern philosophy so difficult for me (it's rather like my reluctance to read contemporary fiction rather than classical and medieval poetry). Not only are modern philosophers frequently preoccupied with issues that to the classical mind seem rooted in silly misunderstandings, but those - to us - misunderstandings also seem to breed contempt for the kinds of thinking that I and the scholastics do find worthwhile. In any case, Aquinas is not alone here in finding nothing mysterious or profound about identity, since it's a mere relation of reason: what's difficult is understanding the being and the essence of a thing, not how that being is the same as itself. But, as I've claimed on this blog before, it seems to me that a lot of the absurdities of modern philosophers stem ultimately from an inability to tell the difference between real being and beings of reason.

A second, related, thought is that Thomas' point here not only makes use of an infinite regress argument, but is important for understanding infinite regress arguments in general. Anyone who's read much of the modern literature on arguments for the existence of God will know that the denial of the impossibility of an infinite regress is a favorite way for moderns to wiggle out of them. St Thomas' comments suggest that the reason an infinite regress, so obviously absurd to the scholastics, is unproblematic to the moderns, is (again) because moderns are not used to carefully distinguishing between real relations and relations of reason. And this is unsurprising, given that so much modern philosophy (and "science"), being born of Cartesian mathematicism, has been accustomed to axiomatically assuming that mathematical techniques are paradigmatic for philosophical (and "scientific") knowledge. But mathematical objects are indifferently divided between purified (i.e. denuded of what the Thomists always call material conditions) formal abstractions from experience and mere relations of reason, which happily sit on the number line together. Mathematics itself doesn't care about the distinction, but metaphysics must.

I believe this thought is suggested by Thomas here but it jumped out at me because it reminded me of a passage in John Deely's recent Medieval Philosophy Redefined, which I read a couple of months ago (the following is from page 268):

This contrast between relations in the physical order which depend upon actual characteristics of actual individuals (upon "subjective accidents of substances" in Aristotle's terms) and relations in the objective order which are not tied to actual subjective characteristics but may be founded upon whatever other relations happen to exist within a given cognition was the reason why Aristotle, and the Latin logicians after him, rejected arguments which led to an infinite regress. An infinite regress is actually possible only in the mind, because only in the mind can relations be founded upon relations. So any argument that involves an actual infinite regress, to the extent that it involves one, is an argument that has lost touch with the order of physical being as something to be explained through proper causes. For proper causes are found only within the physical interactions of finite substances, and these, as finite, are always determinate within the order of moved movers. . . .

Deely gives a further reference to his book The Human Use of Signs, which I have not read. In any case it's interesting to note that modern thinkers so often take the rejection of infinite regress as an arbitrary ad hoc principle whose only purpose is to force one to accept a First Cause, when the scholastics themselves not only see it as completely necessary and self-evident but also use it constantly in a host of nontheological contexts.

Gilson on History vs. History of Philosophy

An interesting comment from Gilson's preface to Owen's The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, p. vi.

It may seem idle to say that the problem at stake in this book belongs to the history of philosophy, but it is not. To rediscover the thought of Aristotle in its purity is assuredly the work of an historian, using all the resources of modern historical methods, from philology proper to the widest possible critical discussion of the works already devoted to the same subject; but the history of philosophy also requires an historian with the mind of a philosopher, because, in such a case, the very object of history is philosophy, that is, a certain set of philosophical notions to be understood  by us in the very same sense which they once had in the mind of a certain philosopher. This is no easy task, but one is sure to miss the point completely if, while availing himself of all the possible sources of historical information, he forgets that the method of methods in the history of philosophy is philosophical reflexion.