A Map of Metaphysics Zeta

Myles Burnyeat

$ 25.00

2001 | Paperback | 176 Pages | ISBN 0-935225-03-X

Metaphysic Zeta has been aptly described as the Mount Everest of ancient philosophy.  Many are deterred by its difficulty.  This map is designed to help all parties find their way.  It highlights two little-noticed features of Aristotle's procedure.  First, non-linearity: successive chapters do not build continuously upon the results of their predecessors, but offer four independent arguments for the conclusion that substantial being is form.  Second, the two-level procedure: each of the four independent sections begins without mention of form and matter, only using logical concepts from the Organon, but then applies Aristotle's form-matter analysis of substantial being to reach a more satisfactory, metaphysical solution to the problem at hand.

This methodology, unique to Zeta, requires explanation. The explanation suggested, in terms of the order of learning, leads to an attempt to vindicate as genuinely Aristotlean the traditional idea that the works of the Organon belong together as a tool for substantive philosophy. A final chapter sketches the place of Zeta in the larger context of the never completed masterpiece we know as Aristotle's Metaphysics. The overall goal of the book is to convince students and scholars that Zeta is better read, and more easily read, when it is taken as part of an ever-widening context. First, as part of a larger treatise consisting of Books Zeta, Eta and Theta; then as part of the ongoing project of Metaphysics; finally, as one of many contributions to a system of philosophy that Aristotle always aimed to build, however much his conception of the whole may have evolved through the years.          

  Introduction