Ontology and Theology : Dimensions of Aristotelian Metaphysics

Aristotle is largely an historical mystery. The books linked to his name were often written by disciples, sometimes long after his death. Many were lost for centuries, and appeared only via translations.

His production was classified in a way which left a whole body of writings as residual. It was designated rather late (1st century AD) as metaphysics, which referred to an other major part : physics. Aristotle mentioned this one as second philosophy, using now and then the term first philosophy, not without ambiguity. The medieval scholastics was not stopped by such details, and equated metaphysics with theology.

This was of course criticized, but the critique didn't stabilize way until the XVIII^th century, with a division between special and general metaphysics, or, using a word only coined in the previous century, between theology and ontology. Retrospectively, one may blame scholastics for confusing two distinct meanings of first: this of anterior, and this of general (or abstract, high-level).

This may seem remote to the usual concerns of the CM Wiki, but I argue that history repeats itself with (S)CM, or that at least, one may use this precedent as the basis for an analogy: traditional CM was not general, but special: just optimized for flesh, coffee, meetings and hierarchical organisations.

-- MarcGirod - 15 Mar 2008