The Origin of the Concept of Metaphysics

Abstract

The concept metaphysics originates from the Greek words τά μετά τά ϕυσιχά, which is the name of a work by Aristotle. There is a traditional explanation of this name which has been universally accepted. The main work of Aristotle which has come to be called metaphysica, or more strictly speaking the essential part of that work, was called by Aristotle himself πρωτη ε ϕιγοσοϕία, ϑεογογιϰή), or merely σοϕία. The title “ metaphysics ” originated later, viz. when Andronicus of Rhodes, a Peripatetic in the first century B.C., published the complete works of Aristotle, and placed this book after physical treatises. Originally it was not a complete work written continuously but was made up of several lectures delivered in different periods, and the author did not give it a definite title. Andronicus, therefore, embarrassed at the lack of a suitable title, called it τά μετά τά ϕυιϰί, which means the books placed after physical treatises; hence came the word metaphysics. Now, as the word μετά may also mean trans, the term metaphysics might have come to mean the science concerned with transcendent reality or intelligible being, and so by chance suited the content of the first philosophy. This seemingly reasonable explanation, though uncritically accepted by most philosophers and historians and admitted as orthodox, appears to be a little far-fetched. For it would have been too much of a coincidence for the concept metaphysics, which originally indicated a mere editorial sequence, to be successfully adapted so as to contain the science of transcendent reality. Kant actually declared his suspicion saying that the expression is too felicitous to be regarded as the result of chance.¹ It is not really an exaggeration to call it a scandal, as Max Wundt is reported to have done, that modern philosophers paid no serious attention to this point. Hans Reiner,² therefore, deserves the highest praise for recently pointing out this misinterpretation and explaining the real origin of the word metaphysics.