Metaphysics concepts and applications

Metaphysics

The human mind has shown vigilance over the ages in pushing thought beyond the visible world into other realms of possible being. Yet whether one is convinced by metaphysical argument often has less to do with logic and more to do with what beliefs one is willing to put faith in. Metaphysics relies on abstraction from the motion and change of the physical world. It floats intangibly on intellectual clouds, drawing out dualistic pictures of the separation of body and soul. Both Plato and Aristotle offered good arguments for an invisible, changeless, and eternal world of this sort. This essay will emphasize, however, the moral and theological bias in both Plato's theory of forms in the Phaedo and Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover in Metaphysics. Certain arguments in Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols will be used to help make the point. The contention is that because such metaphysical notions about an invisible world are largely a matter of moral and theological perspective, the project of metaphysics is dubitable.

Plato details his theory of forms in the Phaedo. In connection with the soul after death, Plato's Socrates wonders about the stake a philosopher places in the body and its associated sensations (Phaedo 64d1-9). Socrates tells Simmias that the philosopher directs his attention away from the body and toward the soul: "the philosopher frees his soul from association with the body" (65a1). In terms of knowledge, this turns on whether or not sense perception is accurate. His argument is that the soul must not rely on somatic sensations for its knowledge since the body is fallible and erroneous (65b). Sense perceptions are only distractions:

Don't you think that the person who is likely to succeed in this attempt most perfectly is the one who approaches each object, as far as possible, with the unaided intellect, without taking account of any sense of sight in his thinking, or dragging any other sense into his reckoning -- the man who pursues the truth by applying his pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated object, cutting himself off as much as possible from his eyes and ears and virtually all the rest of his body, as an impediment which by its presence prevents the soul from attaining to truth and clear thinking?" (65e7-66a6).

In this quotation, one sees the prioritization of mind over body. A clear dualism emerges. The body is an untrustworthy vessel for the acquisition of knowledge. It must be separated from the pure soul. True knowledge cannot be "contaminated" by the nonsense of sensations. "We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself" (66d5-7). He wants the "things by themselves." Such knowledge, for Plato, is attainable only in the reality of forms.

He goes on to assert that "the souls of the dead must exist in some place from which they are reborn" (72a5-6). Gradually this leads him to the notion that knowledge is recollection (73e). We recognize a picture of a horse as a horse since we have known at some prior time a horse. Knowledge comes from the soul's prior understanding acquired before birth and immediately lost at birth (75e). As a result, there must be some invisible reality that holds this prior knowledge in forms.

This whole argument in Phaedo for an invisible reality answers the question of what happens after death. Furthermore, it is embedded in notions of morality and there is an obvious prejudice in favor of mental reflection. The mind contemplates this world of forms. It is a changeless, invisible, indissoluble, and invariable reality where absolute beauty, truth, and goodness reside (78d). By contrast, the physical world of sense perceptions contains merely all that is changing, visible, dissoluble, and variable. A distinction of value is established. Wisdom means passing through body "into the realm of the pure and everlasting and immortal and changeless, and being of a kindred nature, when it is once independent and free from interference, consorts with it always and strays no longer, but remains, in that realm of the absolute, constant and invariable, through contact with beings of a similar nature" (79d). In other words, it is unhistorical and abstract. In fact, his theory of causation begins with the assumption that an eternal and absolute world exists (100b). Thus, for example, beautiful things are caused by their participation in the world of forms where absolute beauty lives. They partake of absolute beauty (100c3-5). Thus, all good in this world emanates from the invisible and imperishable world.

Finally, Plato returns to the moral argument. At death, immortal souls return to the immortal world (106d-107a). Because of the threat of punishment upon death, he writes, "If the soul is immortal, it demands our care not only for that part of time which we call life, but for all time" (107c). If death were just release or disintegration, there would be no reason not to be wicked, profligate, and violent. But since souls are immortal, wisdom and goodness are incumbent upon life. The evil soul wanders posthumously without guidance, whereas the pure soul "enjoys divine company and guidance and each inhabits the place which is proper to it" (108c). A theological view of death dominates this thinking, which comforts and banishes anxiety.

In book 12 of Metaphysics, Aristotle argues for the "unmoved mover." His style is more logical than theological. However, it is important that after all, he finds in his unmoved mover a source of goodness which moves close to a moral-religious concern. It allies him metaphysically with aspects of Platonic thought.

Aristotle (1952) isolates three kinds of substances: sensible/perishable (things we can perceive like plants), sensible/eternal (things like planets), and nonsensible/eternal (such as the unmoved mover) (Metaphysics 1069a31-36). Everything comes to being out of potential being (1069b19). But the original being is pure actuality and cause: "That by which it [matter] is changed is its first mover" (1070a1-3). He says that "whatever produces movement or rest is a principle and a primary being" (1070b24). It cannot be material since material changes, and "if all primary beings are perishable, everything is perishable" (1071b8). It must be incorporeal: "And these primary beings must be without material" (1071b22). There must be an "eternal self-repeating sameness" that generates and destroys (1071b11). His main point is that nothing can come from nonbeing or "chaotic night." There must be something first that moves everything, and tracing this back, "there is, therefore, also an unmoved mover, being eternal, primary, and in act" (1071b25). This unmoved mover is without limit and necessary (1072b7).

Like Plato, Aristotle subordinates the physical to the incorporeal and invisible. Significantly, he goes on to "prove" how there can be final goodness in the unchangeable realm. But why is Aristotle compelled to say that the unmoved mover's action is enjoyable to us and good? The reason seems to be that, in this way, contemplation, consciousness, and thought may be prioritized (1072b18), as in Plato. The unmoved mover (i.e., God) possesses knowledge and acts intelligently, which in Aristotle's view are known as the highest states of being (1072b28). As in Plato, we discover a moral and theological justification at the end of an argument.

Several notions from Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols are relevant for a critique of this metaphysics. The first is that metaphysics lacks a historical sense. It is grounded in fleshless concepts seen under the aspect of eternity. It dislikes evolution, change, growth, death, and becoming while esteeming the eternal and immutable reality where nothing is tainted. Rather than value history that is founded in sense perceptions, metaphysics sees in the historical world only falsehood. It believes that the self-caused is the highest form, denigrating body and growth. In Nietzsche's view, the highest values for these philosophers are the emptiest concepts (1998, p. 13). He writes, "All the supreme values are first-rate, all the highest concepts -- being, the absolute, the good, the true, the perfect -- none of them can have become, so they must be causa sui" (p. 18). The flaw is that being is superior to becoming and that a first cause must exist.

Another argument against an eternal reality is that this other world is erected on a contradiction of the real world. In other words, metaphysics sees all that is bad in this world and keeps it here, but projects all that is good into another world. Then it turns around and says the good in this world is a reflection of the higher invisible world. Yet these goods are qualities of non-being. He says, "The characteristics with which man has endowed the 'true Being' of things are the characteristics of non-Being, of nonentity" (p. 17). Again, it ignores becoming.