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

In this lecture from my Fall 2011 Ethics class at Marist College, we continue our discussion of Aristotle's Metaphysics book 1, starting with his history of previous metaphysics, then looking at a lot of examples of the four causes, including my banjo

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Aristotle
• Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Causes
• Efficient
• Material
• Final
• Formal
• History
• Banjo
• Marist
• Sadler

[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

[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

[theyasin33]

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