Intro. to Philosophy: Aristotle's Metaphysics, book 1 [continued]

[TheRegie78]

Thank you very much, that is enlightening. I will learn from you, the way you explain abstracts things to students. Thank you again.....

[TheRegie78]

Dear Professor, as you mentioned in your reply, you said that you learnt from St. Anselm method of teaching, I wish you could give us some method of it. I learnt also about Saint Anselm and his concept of theology is that faith seeking understand. He gave example that since it is a mystery, we need to seek it through our learning and studying. I hope I am write. Or he gave example about the of God existence as great conceivable being.

[gbisadler]

@TheRegie78 Well, one important aspect of Anselm's approach - nothing like a "method" if by that is meant a sort of step-by-step process - is to do precisely what I mentioned above - to come up with many examples needed to illustrate a concept, to help people "wrap their head around it", as we often say. If you read the Life of Saint Anselm (by his student and friend, Eadmer), you'll find that Anselm was both very good at and saw the need to adapt examples to his different audiences

[TheRegie78]

I can't stop myself for not commenting. I was studying philosophy but this is the first time I encounter and listen to lots of examples that enlighten me to the thoughts ancient philosophy...

I become interested and I hope to watch and learn from your videos. They are really helpful...

[gbisadler]

@TheRegie78 I'm glad the examples helped you with the concepts -- that's definitely their purpose, a teaching technique I learned in part from St. Anselm's own teaching practice

[theyasin33]

What do you mean by first principles ?

[gbisadler]

@theyasin33 Good question. What Aristotle -- and most ancient/medieval philosophers -- mean by first principles are our basic, general starting points for argument or inquiry. Starting points, though, not in that we always do start from them -- but rather if we knew something very thoroughly, we would start from them, e.g. in explaining some matter to ourselves or to others.

We have to discover first principles, in fact -- and Aristotle's Meta bk 1 is a history of attempts to do so

[theyasin33]

@gbisadler Thank you very much, I understand now : )

[Carleton34]

This helped a lot! I have my Reason and Revelation exam tomorrow and I have read both the metaphysics and then the physics but they somehow blended together in my memory!

[gbisadler]

@Carleton34 Glad this very introductory level video was helpful for you. It's easy enough for passages from all over Aristotle's corpus to get blended together -- I have that happen sometimes with the Politics, the two Ethics, and the Rhetoric