PHILO 142: METAPHYSICS

(For the Use of Undergraduate Students Only NDMU)

INTODUCTION:

The history of philosophy tells us about the rise and fall of metaphysics. To date,
metaphysics is facing a new challenge. Plurality rather than unity, change rather than
sameness mark the consciousness of our postmodern time. Becoming rather than
permanence is paramount. There is a marked emphasis on appearances or the
phenomenon rather than the reality beneath. This has led to a failure to penetrate the
depths of that, which is.

The positivistic view of language, which operates on the principle of verifiability, has
dominated the scientific disciplines. 1 That is why metaphysical consideration on the
investigation of reality has become captive of the positivistic view of language.
Metaphysics, perceived as meta-narrative, turns out to be useless and even oppressive.

To some, metaphysics has become an opium, because it diverts the human intelligence
from the relevant human problems. It has become "useless to pursue, and ultimately dead
as a cultural presence." 2 Such was the pronouncements that come out of Paris by the
French deconstruction. 3

Without denying the value of the changes and the plurality of the phenomena that have
preoccupied scientific research, there is still the need to continually penetrate and dig into
the profundity and immense richness of the “there is” (il y a). There is still validity in our
attempt to answer the question of ultimacy in human existence. We still have to deal with
the ultimate underlying principles. And this is, in the main, the task of metaphysics.

As we proceed with the course, we will not be answering all the questions being raised
against metaphysics. But we will certainly consider them as our point of departure in our
treatment of this course, Metaphysics.

I In General: What is Metaphysics All About? 4

1. Some Distinguishing Marks of a Metaphysical Investigation.

1
Logical positivism has influenced the empirical scientific disciplines. The Vienna Circle became the
leading group whose work was mainly based on the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of Ludwig
Wittgenstein. However, recently, there is already new understanding to scientific research, which is slowly
departing from logical positivistic view of science. (This is elaborated in detail in philosophy of science
course.)
2
William Desmond & Joseph Grance, ed., Being and Dialectic, State University of New York Press,
Albany, 2000, p. vii.
3
Ibid. p. vii
4
W. Norris Clarke, s.j. ed. Nemesio Que, s.j., Central Problems of Metaphysics, Philosophy Department,
Ateneo de Manila University, 1995, pp.1-5.

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While other scientific disciplines conduct their investigation from a particular point of
view, the intellectual questioning of metaphysics embraces the totality of that which is,
trying to achieve an intelligible unity of the diversity of experiences. Metaphysical
investigation is purely guided by critical reason grounded on all the evidence available
resulting into a systematic way. The evidences are not culled from the authority of
someone, from tradition or revelation. (However, we do not deny some possible influence
by them). All has to be subjected to reason. The metaphysician strives to achieve some
intellectually integrated vision of reality as a whole, rationally relating all aspects and
parts of the reality into a totality.

Originally, the name "metaphysics" was used to classify the works of Aristiotle by a later
editor, Andronicus of Rhodes, who categorized Aristotle's works on "first philosophy" as
coming "after the books on physics" (meta ta physica). Here, the name carries a double
meaning: a) they were written later, b) transcending the scope of philosophy of nature or
physics to inquire into the ultimate causes of all things. 5

2. Why we do metaphysical investigation?

Metaphysical investigation focuses on the question of ultimacy or of being as such, not

only on the particular aspect of it. It does not only look at the reality from one particular
perspective. Although the metaphysician takes the particular evidence in our experiences,
he/she aims at discovering the underlying intelligible structure, the essentials, the
universals, in short, the ultimate laws of intelligibility of being as being. He/she aims at
an architectonic structure that provides an intelligible unity to the diverse elements of
reality. Metaphysics is the above inquiry insofar as it can be expressed in articulated
human discourse, which accepts the responsibility to lay forth its evidence and defend its
conclusions in conceptual-linguistic frameworks of explanation and argumentation.

3. Is human metaphysics absolute or complete?

Metaphysical discourse is always tied up to a finite conceptual-linguistic frame of

thought and word, which are limited and therefore not the only way to express reality.
Although its orientation is towards the absolute and universal, its expression is always
linguistically and culturally bound. There is no metaphysics that is true for all times and
for all cultures. Each culture has its own metaphysical expression or articulation. No
single metaphysics is absolute and complete. Its incompleteness and relativity mark
human metaphysics. However, its incompleteness should not discourage us to dig deeply
into the explication of reality. The call to the fullness of being human urges us to dig
deeper into the abyss of reality. But is this possible considering the finiteness of our
thoughts and language? This leads us to the next question.

4. Is Metaphysics possible?

The possibility of metaphysics is challenged today. Some contemporary philosophers

hold that the search for the absolute, for the underlying truth is an exercise in futility.
5
See A.H. Chroust, "The Origin of Metaphysics," Review of Metaphysics, 14 (1960-61): 601-18.

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Therefore, it is an irrelevant investigation. For them, every scientific discipline must
study some particular class of things that is observable and measurable, e.g. physics,
psychology, biology, etc. But it is impossible to study all things at once, because being is
no distinguishing trait, and therefore, empty conceptually and tells us nothing in
particular. We cannot observe and measure being.

Our response to this objection is this: it is true that metaphysics does not have a
distinctive subject matter that could be studied based on its being observable and
measurable. But we cannot also deny that metaphysics has a distinctive point of view of
reality. It considers only what is most general and all embracing laws and structures of
things, precisely as real, as existing. Now, the reason that it is general and all embracing
does not make metaphysics unimportant. The intelligible unity in terms of its totality
provides a foundational explication of other points of view of the reality. Of course,
general laws and structures cannot be observed empirically, but it is a fundamental
condition that makes possible our experiences of all things, their actual existence. Our
knowledge of these (underlying laws and structures) can only be achieved by reflective
insight and analysis.

Another objection of some contemporary philosophers is that metaphysics is impossible

because the human being is finite and only a small part within the whole of reality.
Hence, answers to the question of ultimacy, totality, absoluteness is beyond the reach of
the finite human mind. Any claim of answers to the questions "why the universe exist at
all?" or "What is the meaning of existence?" is meaningless.

Our response to this objection is this: while it is true that the human mind is finite, a part
of the whole of reality, yet by its pure desire to know all that there is to know about all
that there is, by its infinite, inexhaustible potentiality or capacity to know, its limitless
horizon of investigation, the human intellect therefore is mysteriously co-equal with the
whole universe. It is a part that is also a whole embracing all wholes, at least in thrust and
intention, though vaguely and imperfect way.

II. The Dialectical Alliance of Being and The Spirit (Mind) as the Root and
Ground Of Metaphysical Discourse.

The question of being is the question of Metaphysics. It is a philosophical discourse that

deals with the questions of the immense richness of being, that there is, what is it, what
does it mean to be. We may say that metaphysical discourse articulates the milieu of
mindfulness of being.

To be as human is to be constituted in and by this milieu of mindfulness. It means that we

are what we are by virtue of our abiding in the milieu of being in a more or less mindful
way. That is why the question of being is not only a question of philosophers, it
transcends the difference of the few and the many. It hits our humanity in virtue of its
being, as mindful of itself and what is other to itself.

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Metaphysics is a study of being in as much as it is. To accomplish this, we assume that
the human spirit possesses the pure desire to know as it confronts the presence of being,
which becomes the object of its investigation. The unfolding of the mystery of being
presupposes a dialectics in the originary relationship between being and the spirit (mind).
The dialectics of their relationship accounts the affirmation of being under the condition
of its infinite possibility.

a) Some Clarification of Terms:

1. Being.

Etymologically, being is the present participle of the verb "to be". It means that which
is. The "that" evokes certain definiteness, individuality. Which means that being is
always something that is determined or individualized. The "is" indicates the "act of
being". Which means that any determined being is actualized or has an act of being.

2. "To be".

It is the infinitive of the copula "is". It indicates a possible action. Thus, it is not
"something", but a possibility of activity. The Greeks made a distinction between
"essere" (to be) and "ens" (being). In like manner, the Latin made a separation
between essere from ens. For the English, there is no confusion between the two. But
for the Germans, Italian and French, the distinction and opposition is less clear.
"Essere"(to be) is also translated as "being".

What is remarkable here is the shift from the infinitive to the substantive. The
participle "being" signifies "that which is". Here, the expression receives the same
weight from "is". This means from the verb to active present. That is why that which
is not is not that. "To be" is truly such, if it is present and active. Thus, to be is to be
this or that. Here, the infinitive has the pre-eminence because it indicates the
interiority and the profundity of being.

3. Existence.

To stress the sense of the verb "to be" with respect to being, the verb "to exist" is
created which conveys the effectively real. To exist or existence evokes the reality of
fact. It evokes "presence" of something.

Etymologically, existence is from the Latin verb "stare" which means "to stand". "Ex"
indicates the movement of "getting out". Thus, to exist has the denotation of "to be
stable in going out. And here, it means a stable presence before or in front of the
mindful spirit.

Now, based on the above analysis, we can already see the picture of the metaphysical
problem of the distinction between the sensible and the mental, the concrete and
thought.

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 4. Spirit. 6

The spirit is definitely distinct from the concrete and real presence. As the spirit tends
towards being, it is capable of penetrating that which is present. It is the principle of
openness oriented towards a value, towards the good. It is the principle of thought and
the reflective activity of the human being. Through, the spirit the human being is able
to reflect on its own activity and accounts being with the presence of other beings.

Therefore, in the dialectical alliance, being exists and the spirit encounters it in itself
allowing oneself to question or interrogate from which comes being. Metaphysics is
the investigation of that which is first, not only that or this particular being but the
totality of its situation. It is being unfolded from the depths of its own existence.

The theme "spirit" is rather new in metaphysical discourse. It is recent in the

philosophical language. There is no doubt of its origin from the Bible.

There is a considered distinction between soul and spirit. The soul is an element of
the structure of a complex living organism. This element is in opposition to the body.
Soul is active element while the body is the passive element. It is the principle of the
intellect and the will.

Based on its Greek origin, the "spirit" means the breath of life, the warm air exhaled
by living beings. Without the breath there is no life. From the Hebrew origin, "spirit"
is constitutive of Wisdom that is primordial. It preceded the creation of the world.
The Pauline doctrine makes the distinction between the pneumatic man from the
psychical man. This emphasizes the distinction between the soul and spirit in their
original sense.

In relation to the soul, the spirit indicates an interiority, a new profoundness. This
profundity gives life and finds itself in the living being. It accounts the transcending
capacity of the person. The spirit renders the human being the capacity to master
oneself. The spirit is the principle of openness. The spiritual man sees, therefore, the
values, while the psychical man fulfills himself in the realization of the self. The
value is not mundane. It reveals itself when the spirit suspends its movement towards
the things. This is accomplished by concentrating its attention on the movement of

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This is the spiritual form of life in the individual human being. Becoming in the order of human
personhood arises out of a dynamic source that is not easy to name with accuracy. It has been called the
“psyche,” or “subjectivity,” or “personality,” and sometimes “the human spirit.” There is a development of
understanding the spirit: Latin = spiritus, German postmetaphysical tradition= Geist (Hegel). Both indicate
an internal dynamic and both secure a certain unity. “Spiritus” is equivelent to “Forma” as a specifying
principle. It gives to the entity a unity of a certain kind. Geist, on the other haned, tens to perform as a
totality principle, it berings unity to an even wider context, to a system, horizon or world, e.i. a complex
internally related arrangement, a systematic configuration (Gestalt). Aristotle gives a definitive meaning to
form (eidos) as specifying the unity of the substance, Kant uses the term Vernunft, an architectonic system
that crowns his philosophical undertaking. ( cf. Kenneth L. Schmitz, “The First Principle of Personal
Becoming”, The Review of Metaphysics, vol. XLVII, no. 4, issue no. 188, June 1994, pp.757-759.)

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 getting out from the self, which constitutes it. It perceives, then, that its movement
leads towards an end. It tries this or that good because, fundamentally, it is orientated
towards the value, towards the good, because it anticipates this good and hopes of
reaching the value. The exercise of the soul, the active principle, is also animated, as
to a second level, by means of the spirit that gives its movement and its enthusiasm.

The openness of the spirit is fundamental. The spirit is the principle of thought
and of the reflective activity of man. The spirit knows itself as spirit when it opens
itself in response to the attraction of value. The spirit becomes conscious of its own
activity when it receives the attraction that pushes it to act. The spirit has the capacity
to reflect, to return on this activity, recognizing the attraction which inspires it, and
situating itself to the principle of affinity it gives of being. Thus, man acts, and puts
himself as “I” the principle of this action, where he becomes other from himself. The
spirit is the being, which accounts itself the presence of other beings.

A similitude can be recognized between the movement of the arrival of being in

spiritual presence and the movement of the spirit towards that which is. Making itself
being, being arrives to the presence where it becomes luminous for itself. Being is the
fulfillment of the interior movement which in it expresses itself. Similarly, the spirit
arrives to itself in its activity when it responds to the attraction of value. Thus, being
is a proposal of “to be”. And the spirit responds to this offer. Being exists, and the
spirit encounters it in itself allowing oneself to question on that from which comes
being, and that it reconciles deeply the one with the other. On the other hand, it is
through this that the intelligence of the profundity of being does not give itself that to
the spirit subjected the proper spiritual conditions of openness to the value. And it is
for this that metaphysics is the investigation of that which is first, not only in that
being, but in our situation with respect to it.

In short, the spirit tends towards being or reality, as being or reality presents itself
before the spirit. This alliance of the spirit and being is necessary to arrive at
metaphysics. It is through the spirit that we come to an understanding of being and
also the spirit itself as being.

b) - The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking. 7

1 - Astonishment As the Beginning of Metaphysical Thinking.

The beginning of mindfulness and utterance of reality is the experience of the

original astonishment before the immensity of its givenness. Being is given to us; we
are given to be, and to be as mindful. Being is not something we produce. The excess
of otherness, its alterity as given, arouses our astonishment that it is at all.

7
This section is an exerpt from the Article written by William Desmond, “Being, Determination,
and Dialectic: On the Sources of Metaphysical Thinking,” in The Review of Metaphysics, June 1995. I
made some editions on the original text for easy understanding of the theme.

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 At this level of the subject’s encounter with being, none of this is determinately
known as such. It is in the level beyond any thought or linguistic utterance of the
reality. The reality is lived, and enjoyed. There is something childlike and virgin
about this, but not childish. Philosophers believe that if this childlike and virgin
openness is lost completely, then metaphysics has truly reached its dead end.
Therefore, metaphysicians should really keep alive this elemental astonishment.

There is a tendency to suppress this experience of astonishment of the immensity

of the givenness of being. This is so, because we have this long established tendency
to think that to be is, to be intelligible, and that to be intelligible is to be determinate.
The original astonishment is not determinate in that way at all.

We believe that we must make definite every indefiniteness, make determinate all
indeterminacy. It is only in such way that we can properly know being. But this
movement from the indefinite to definite is not a case of “done deal” thing, a once
and for all transaction of being. It is rather a continuing process of leaving behind the
original astonishment, but without completely ceasing to be continually astonished.
Therefore, astonishment maybe a beginning, but it is one, which is left behind as
knowing, fulfills its own destiny of completely determinate cognition.

Astonishment is deemed appropriate than the original “wonder” of the early

Greeks to describe this primal stage of the subjects encounter with reality, the
“alliance of being and the spirit”. “Wonder” in contemporary usage, easily slides to
sentimentalism. We do not think our way into astonishment; we are overcome by
astonishment. The givenness is offered for our beholding. We are patient to its giving
in so far as we do not produce it, or bring it towards ourselves only for it just to be
cognitively possessed by us.

2 - Perplexity, the Movement towards Determinate Cognition.

Perplexity is a movement of mindfulness that arises subsequently to the first

astonishment. It is the mind troubled about the meaning of the original astonishment.
Although there is still something indeterminate about perplexity, but there is already a
concerted movement to overcome the indeterminate, a movement towards
determinate cognition. Perplexity is felt as a lack of definite cognition, driving out,
transcending beyond itself to overcome that lack: the desire for intelligible
representation in our mind of such astonishing experience. If astonishment is patience
to otherness, perplexity is not patient to the otherness of being. There is a sense of
being troubled and perplex for the lack of understanding such experience.

3 - Curiosity, the Beginning of Definite Cognition.

Perplexity becomes curiosity when the indefiniteness of perplexity is focused

more specifically on particular beings and processes. Perplexity may have an
indefiniteness about it, in that one might be perplexed and not know quite what one is
perplexed about. Curiosity, however, is more clearly definite; one is curious about

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 this, that, or the other. It is with curiosity that definite questions arise about particular
beings and processes, definite questions that seek determinate answers. Like
perplexity, the movement of curiosity is also out of an initial sense of lack: I lack the
definite knowing of this, that, or the other. However, I take definite steps to acquire
proper determinate knowing. The goal is just such determinate cognition as it brings
to an end the thrust of curiosity. Thus, it overcomes the initial lack of knowledge that
drives the seeking.

III DEFINITION AND METHOD OF METAPHYSICS.

The exposition of our course in metaphysics does not follow the way of the
Scholastics’ treatment. Scholasticism starts usually with defining the object of
metaphysics in a nominal manner. The discourse considers first of all being as being, as
also the transcendentals. Then it tries to maintain these fundamental propositions giving
justice in the good sense, that beings are not simple, but complex and multiple. It tries,
therefore, to structure being elaborating the classical ontological categories (act and
potency, substance, accidents, etc.). The discourse concludes itself finally with the
question of causality, in which the thought seeks to establish an ontological connection,
and not more solely categorical and logical, between multiple and contingent being, and
being as being, considered absolutely.

Such procedure suggests a descending dialectic. This dialectic proceeds from

form to form, deducing one from the other by means of the analysis of their mutual
implications. For example, “One is”, from this the form “one” can be separated from
form “to be”, by analyzing their propriety as the legitimacy of their separation. This
legitimacy shows that if “one” is and if “to be” is not simply one, “to be” is not. Such
dialectic, which moves from simple and necessary propositions, proceeds through a sort
of fixations of the rational elements implied in the simple. Until the unity becomes
problematic to the multiple, it renders problematic the ontological consistency. The
method of descending dialectics, purely rational, strives therefore to bring back the
diverse concrete under the unity of the principle.

Now, the difficulty of such method is derived from the characteristic, but not
evidently from the principle. The scholastics often say that the notion of being as it is is
absolute, necessary and in some way evident in itself. In fact, it can not proceed itself to
being (essere) without supposing it. The access to being (essere) is interior to being
(essere). But it does not follow from that which is not a progression of the access of the
idea of being in as much as it is. We do not have a sensible intuition of this idea, because
it does not indicate something that is only sensible, in the popular sense of the word. The
sensible is in being (essere), not in being in as much as it is. We do not have the
intellective intuition of this idea, in the sense in which we intuit the clear and distinct
concepts. The idea of being, in fact, is not susceptible to being (essere) put in front of the
spirit. It implies in fact the spirit that receives it, because the spirit is also it, a being. The
access to being (essere) is strictly interior to being (essere). It cannot be put in front of the
spirit, if not through pure inconsistent imagination.

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 Finally, putting back metaphysics in a place which renders it possible, it is finally
worth saying in restoring it its spiritual verity, making it the science strictly formal, in
which the principles and the content would be no other than the principles themselves of
thought, understood as logical, formal thought, and the content the identity of the spirit
itself. What is worth saying is the coherence of the spirit with its principles in which it
shows the essence of its formal activity. Such process already ignores the movement of
the spirit responding to the attraction of value, of being. It demands that the logical form
of the spirit from here exhausts all the dynamism. But such pretext cannot be sustained, at
least renouncing to recognize the spirit its essential openness and the foundation to which
it is not. The deduction of logical principles, departing from the principle of non-
contradiction, does not allow metaphysics to secure itself a fecund way.

The principle of metaphysics is not “objective”, isolated in front of the spirit and
available to a simple formal analysis. Here, the spirit does not accede without supposing
it and it does not place it without explaining interiorly its movement. The metaphysical
problems do not emerge from the sole consideration of their abstract forms, nor from the
notion of being as being, but from the spiritual movement which put being in as much as
it is. The philosophical method, therefore, must be reflective and transcendental. This
method consists in explaining that which is fold up, in manifesting that which is hidden,
in expressing that which is not perceived, in seeking explicitly that which is implicit by
expressing it.

Such method, therefore, is regressive. It seeks the conditions of the possibility of

the movement of the spirit and of the event of being. These conditions are exercised
particularly in judgment. The condition of possibility indicates why and how being in as
much as it is, the manifestation as presence, is possible. So our virtual points of view on
an object are integrated, and recognized as such in judgment, in a unity to which it sees
the affirmation, in a totality present which point of view does not reach than an abstracted
part. The totality of being is the condition of possibility so that we can judge our partial
points of view. It perceives itself that the implicit progressively liberated is not implicit. It
is necessary, related to the spiritual act which renders it possible. If it is not necessary, the
act would not be possible, could not be producing itself. The explained necessity is
therefore also an apriori. The spirit reaches this apriori as it reflects on its proper activity.
And it is for this reason that the method can be descriptive not analytic nor logical.

The method is so determined, that we can put it in a manner more precise context
in which it develops itself. The more recent metaphysics, especially the consequent
Thomistic renewal, have pressed as the point of departure of metaphysics the judgment,
as it states that which is. Moreover, understanding well that judgment is not an
intellective activity alone. Through its exercise, it puts many things in operation, for more
practical than theoretical necessity, not as principle, but as an integrating element.
Judgment cannot produce itself outside of language, nor in the society of which the
language functions. Judgment is always done in context. However, the practical
conditions of judgment are not reflected in our investigation. For being practical
conditions of judgment, in fact, needs that the judgment can receive them to its interior.
And it is that which happens, if it perceives itself in it more than an intellectual activity,

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and if it leaves itself guiding by a desire of being which does not measure and of which it
fuels itself. This desire is not only intellectual, in the discursive sense, susceptible of
becoming object of science. It is in a certain measure greatly voluntary. It gives space and
movement to the intellective search which fulfills itself in judgment.

This method is a shift from a formal model to a more integral and comprehensive
model. Metaphysics, here, is going to treat reality in its totality, i.e. in the context of the
dialectics of being and the spirit.

IV THE FIRST PHILOSOPHY OR METAPHYSICS.

Metaphysics is considered as the foundation of philosophical teaching. Minor and

Major Logic precedes it in the sense that the first of thinking, it is convenient to know if
it is possible to think practically and to such conditions ( logic, language, etc.). The
greater treatment of Philosophy ( Cosmology, Anthropology, and Theodicy) follow
metaphysics, because this gives them the basis of simple unity of the first principle. This
way of situating metaphysics in the ensemble of treatments evoke the dialectical method
which we have already encountered. However, the distinction among the treatments is not
only formal. It begins from abstraction of one of the poles of the fundamental
metaphysical unity. Cosmology isolates the moment of being by evoking therefrom the
internal articulation. Anthropology happens more particularly of the spirit. Only
metaphysics treats of the totality. It precedes other treatments for the fact that these, that
seize a part of the totality, do not have a meaningful truth which in function of the
totality. There, it follows, through the fact that the totality is constituted by the dialectics
of its parts - the idea of being in as much as it is, in fact, is not evident in itself
immediately. However, the idea of being in as much as it is is not the result of this
dialectic which it renders possible and that it institutes forcing cosmology and
anthropology to get out from their abstractions. It is for this reason that metaphysics
precedes these treatments. Their development can culminate in a singular metaphysical
deepening.

The relation of metaphysics with natural theology is less easy to determine. The
word ‘meta” means beyond and “after”. Metaphysics means therefore first of all that
which is beyond the physical or of every science. Physics, in fact, seems to occupy itself
of sensible and mobile beings. Mathematics is more elevated, if it judges itself more
elevated that which is immobile as the numbers, although in a certain manner the number
is not wholly separated from whatever “matter” (There is no pure mathematics). As to
metaphysics, it would treat on the immobile being and separated from any matter. Now
such being, in the Platonic tradition repressed by Aristotelianism, is divine. Thus,
metaphysics is a theology, a discourse on God.

Considered in this manner, being in as much as it is is God. Now, being in as

much as it is is also the first principle of any science. On the first science to which the
object is such being, all other sciences based themselves. No science can conclude of that
which is not affirmed with firm premises. Only metaphysics affirms these premises, since
it is by definition the science of the totality, of the first principle. The sciences therefore

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imply metaphysics for being sciences. This implication is such that metaphysical
enunciation must precede scientific enunciation. If being in as much as it is is God,
theology is the first science. God is the first cause and the ground of all that which is.

It is certain that such propositions are strictly pagan. Moreover, metaphysics has
no immediate evidence of it first principles. Because it has no evidence, it comes “after”
physics. The principles, the first claim, are according to fact. The reflective analysis
brings clearly, from the experience manifested more to the recognition of the conditions
of possibility of this experience. The intellectual investigation takes always as point of
departure sensible beings; departing from that which is less known in itself, from that
which is more indeterminate, it becomes that which is more knowable in itself.

This a posteriori character of metaphysics is not only pedagogical. It is also in a

sense necessary. The principle, in fact, is not objective, it turn out to be exercised. The
simplicity of the presence of being before the spirit, which tends towards it is never
realized as a “thing”; it is exercised according to the discursiveness of the understanding,
the multiplicity inherent to our existence. As a consequence, the implicit reflectively
separated is the same implicit in the act of reflection - here it is not reflection without
argumentation, and time because this could progress.

The term “metaphysica” is very appropriate therefore to the science of being in as

much as it is. The relation with philosophical theology hereafter receives a new light.
Theodicy is not a discourse on specie of beings among others, however this is pagan
thinking. It is not concern of a superior being, discovered by means of progressive
elimination of that which does not gather. Philosophical theology explains the inside of
metaphysics. This articulates the relation of the being which is, with the spirit which
tends. Being considered ultimately by metaphysics is the “esse commune” which does not
subsist, according to the Thomistic tradition more affirmed. This “esse commune” has the
proper consistency and validity in that which make it to be, but it does not have in itself
stability; it does not subsist. The spiritual movement cannot stop itself in the affinity to
this form hereafter of all the forms. It tends, more broadly, uniting that which gives itself
in this “esse commune”. The course in metaphysics concludes itself with the recognition
of a promise fulfillment by means of the “esse commune, of which this however is not the
origin, because it is not subsisting. Philosophical theology comes therefore to take the
place of metaphysics, led to its ultimate possibility.

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