This is an introductory textbook of metaphysics, whose aim is to help a beginning student. . . . According to St. Thomas, the human intellect must begin with sensible things, and hence all principles must somehow be found in sense experience. The discovery of principles is an induction, as I hope to prove in this text. But there is no danger of empiricism or sensism, if we remember that point on which Aristotle and St. Thomas were ready to stake their whole philosoophy, namely, that sensible things are potentially intelligible. With regard to the manner of presentation, this book is not 'St. Thomas made simple.' St. Thomas's thought is not simple, and attempted simplifications usually end by simplifying the positions and letting the reasoning go. The method of this book attempts to provide for the necessary introductory character of the course by selecting only a few of the problems of metaphysics for study and by giving as concrete a presentation of the evidence as possible. --from the Preface
No realistic philosophy can be considered complete unless it includes a philosophy of nature. The philosophy of human nature is an area where most of the problems of the philosophy of nature occur, some of them in a crucial form. Moreover, the philosophy of human nature is an absolute prerequisite for a philosophically grounded ethics. Clearly, then, a knowledge of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas requires a study of the philosophy of human nature.
The human intellect must begin with sensible things, and hence all principles must somehow be found in sense experience. The discovery of principles in an induction. But there is no danger of empiricism or sensism, if we remember that point on which Aristotle and Aquinas were ready to stake their whole philosophy, namely, that sensible things are potentially intelligible. This means that sensible things can be understood as being.
The subject of this book is “metaphysics.” Aristotle called it “first philosophy”; by this term he and St. Thomas Aquinas mean the full philosophical treatment of being and its Cause, of Being and God. Metaphysics begins with the beings of experience. Its preliminary concern is with the beings of direct experience, not with concepts, not with emotions or guesses (no matter how noble), not with some logical pre-conditions of experience (often dignified with the impressive term “a priori conditions”). In the beings of experience, and there only, we find what being is, and by an inductive analysis we come to know its intrinsic and extrinsic principles as well as its common attributes. But metaphysics, in its full sense, is more than an “immanent metaphysics,” as some recent philosophers would wish it to be; the principles the metaphysician finds in the beings of experience lead him beyond experience.
The subject of this book is “metaphysics.” Aristotle called it “first philosophy”; by this term he and St. Thomas Aquinas mean the full philosophical treatment of being and its Cause, of Being and God. Metaphysics begins with the beings of experience. Its preliminary concern is with the beings of direct experience, not with concepts, not with emotions or guesses (no matter how noble), not with some logical pre-conditions of experience (often dignified with the impressive term “a priori conditions”). In the beings of experience, and there only, we find what being is, and by an inductive analysis we come to know its intrinsic and extrinsic principles as well as its common attributes. But metaphysics, in its full sense, is more than an “immanent metaphysics,” as some recent philosophers would wish it to be; the principles the metaphysician finds in the beings of experience lead him beyond experience.
No realistic philosophy can be considered complete unless it includes a philosophy of nature. The philosophy of human nature is an area where most of the problems of the philosophy of nature occur, some of them in a crucial form. Moreover, the philosophy of human nature is an absolute prerequisite for a philosophically grounded ethics. Clearly, then, a knowledge of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas requires a study of the philosophy of human nature.
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