{30} (cont’d.)

IV. Problematic characteristic of metaphysical fundamentality

We might think that the case is that metaphysics, the one created by the Greek more or less, has been received by the Western world in the sense we have just explained. That metaphysics is inscribed in some problems that are different than those the Greek world was dealing with, as we have seen in the example of Aristotle about the bat. Therefore, metaphysics, just like any other way of knowing, has some problems, some greater than others and the problems of Western metaphysics would mean the list of these problems.

{31} However, this is not to what I refer with the title. Because we should not forget that behind the term “problem” there stands what we have just said, that it is the case of a “problem“, a “fundamental” one. Therefore, we do not actually refer to problems in the plural, existing behind metaphysics, but to the fundamental problem for metaphysics, not only as science, but also as to the metaphysical in things.

Here is where we find a profound antinomy between ancient thought —including in this case not only the Greek, but also the Medieval— and the Modern world. It is said, on the one hand, there lies the attempt of the Greek, with all its re-elaboration and transformation at the hands of Christian and Medieval thought, and that is metaphysics. On the other hand, Modern philosophy is born with a different program, it is born from the perspective of the “I think”, of thinking. It is fundamentally a theory of thought, of its intrinsic limits and of its intrinsic condition; metaphysics is something that remains outside, that belongs to another way of seeing things. With this it would seem there is a radical and fundamental break in the very unfolding of Western philosophical thought, and naturally, this situation can be remedied in many ways. But unfortunately this is only a case of remedies. The remedy consists in taking the point of departure of the “I think”, and trying to find out how we can manage to extract the necessity, the possibility and the structure of that which constitutes metaphysics. The term “fundamental” would then signify the critical fundamentality of metaphysics. But as obvious as this may seem —here the term “obvious” appears— this is quite problematic, because it would consist in a relatively simple operation, to reach metaphysics, but that one, the one we had before. It would simply and purely be the case of restoring {32} metaphysics upon bases called critical. In this sense, the fundamental problem would consist in a critical rehabilitation of metaphysics, of that metaphysics that —according to what is said— was annulled at the birth of Modern philosophy. But this is never the primary and fundamental.

Because the metaphysical of things, in the first place, is not something, which is simply there and facing it there is no other alternative, but to admit it again, refuse it or simply develop it within its internal limits. Metaphysics and the metaphysical is not something that is just there, it has to be made. And that is the difficulty, metaphysics has to be made.

Not only has to be made, but the difficulty of making it has two versions. First, we have to know what it is that has to be made? In other words, what is the problematic context of metaphysics, which is usually assumed has been made already and facing which there is nothing to be done except a critical reception, as “critical” as one may wish to make it, but pure “reception”? That is why I was saying that this was nothing but a remedy and as all remedies quite deficient. In the second place, it is necessary to be installed within metaphysics itself. That is why metaphysics continues to be an intrinsic difficulty, because fundamentality does not precisely consist in the content or the road that leads to metaphysics, but in the very characteristic of the transcendental order. That is the serious difficulty. And that is precisely the fundamentality of metaphysics, not because it may be fundamented on something strange to it, but because the diaphaneity of the transcendental is what determines intelligence. Therefore, the very structure of that transcendental diaphaneity is what constitutes the supreme problematic moment of philosophy, of metaphysics. The difficulty, the problem of metaphysics, is nothing but the intellectual expression of the very violence proper to the vision of the {33} diaphanous. The fundamental problem is the very structure of diaphaneity, i.e., the very structure of transcendentality, not with respect to us, but in itself.

Unfortunately, even the received metaphysics has never stopped to consider this, just the opposite. It rested on “entity” as the transcendental with its five properties as something finished. The classical confrontation with this problem has led to the acceptance or refusal of that assumption, instead of asking in what does transcendentality itself consist, which is a subject full of thorny problems. If one runs through all the types of metaphysics or at least some of them — as we are going to do here— it will be observed that there are several problems that have never been incorporated into metaphysics. However, these problems constitute the fundamental core of any metaphysics, inasmuch for what there is of metaphysics in things, as for its intellective determination by man. This is not a question of subtleties.

Anticipating ideas, let us take an example, the first one that comes to mind and will be discussed later. When the Greek talk about entity (tò óv), the one “that is”, they certainly have some precise ideas about it. For example, if we read Parmenides, he tells us that there is no other way to approach things except through the way of “it is”, it is or it is not. We cannot admit that sometimes it may be one way and at other times another, because if it is, it is, and if it is not, it is not. That is why Parmenides tells us, tò eón keîtai, what is just there, what is there in front of man. However, the interpretation of this text has elicited some very interesting interpretations, all of them quite peculiar. In our day we contemplate the third or fourth reinterpretation of the history of Greek philosophy from the perspective of the systematic philosopher that uses it. For Hegel, this is a kind of dialectic development of the idea; for others, {34} for example Heidegger, it is an investigation about “to be” (Sp. ser) as different from “entity” (Sp. ente), something completely alien to the Greek world. Parmenides shows the proof of this in his Poem where he mentions that “to be” is a sphere and the title itself of the Poem says, Perì phýseos, “On nature”. Although the title may not belong to Parmenides, but to the editors, it clearly indicates the sense the Greek gave to the Poem, Parmenides tries to give us an idea of nature even though it is to deny that there is true generation and destruction. Be that as it may, Parmenides regards tó eón, the entity, precisely from the horizon of motion. Things are born, develop and die after great vicissitudes; things, the stars, the cities, men, animals, etc., are in generation and corruption. Parmenides does not say there is no motion —as far as I can tell, Parmenides never said this—, but that this motion is never a real and effective motion of generation and corruption. Democritus will resolve the problem saying that things are conglomerates of atoms, but each atom precisely enjoys the characteristics of the sphere of Parmenides, it is perfectly indestructible.

The Greek world has always seen the idea of “to be” (Sp. ser), the idea of diaphaneity, from the horizon of motion. And this is even clearer in Aristotle.

Aristotle is not satisfied with just saying that “entity” (Sp. ente) is something keímenon, that is there, but that it is hypo-keímenon, that it is subjacent. Not only lies there, but also lies beneath; it is precisely the substance as permanent substratum. Aristotle knows —in this sense he is quite against Parmenides— that there is true generation and corruption, but of what? There is true generation and corruption of every individual man; but each individual man is the synthesis of a prime matter {35} and a fundamental form of the human species. Actually, although each individual may die, neither its prime matter nor the human species as such dies; it continues to be transmitted from individual to individual. There is a permanence that, in this sense, is completely excepted from motion.

The Greek world has essentially seen the idea of ens, the idea of óv, from the horizon of motion. If we place ourselves in the medieval world, we find something completely different. The first thing a medieval man considers is why are there things rather than nothing? It is curious that this question —not long ago Heidegger was still saying he could not believe people were not interested in it— is inscribed within the horizon of nothingness, which is the horizon of Creation. The idea of nothingness never crossed the mind of a Greek. For the Greek mind, God, the Theós, has not made the world, not even in Aristotle; the world is just naturally there. On the other hand, for a Mediaeval the world begins by reaching the point of having reality. Therefore, the whole problem of being is inscribed within the problem of nothing and its nothingness.

This has continued its pertinacity until our time. We have just mentioned Heidegger, who, when finishing his conference entitled Was ist Metaphysik? (What is Metaphysics?), says “Ex nihilo fit omne ens qua ens”, from nothing every entity is constituted —not by creation, but in the end from nothing— insofar as entity. We should also remember the title of the book by Sartre, L’Etre et le Néant (Being and Nothingness). The horizon of nothingness remains there as a horizon from which is going to be interpreted that which apparently is as obvious and diaphanous as being.

This indicates that at least the transcendental order in itself involves an important problem. That this transcendental order {36} —regardless how transcendental it may be— has, precisely in its structure and in its transcendental core, a very serious problem I might call “horizontic” (Sp. “horizóntico”)¹, involves a horizon. It also has many other problems we shall have to investigate. There is something that is not absolutely immediate and may lead us, not to an attitude of mere reception or rejection of metaphysics, but precisely to the opposite; to the attitude of blowing up the inner core of metaphysics.

The study of these problems could be done several ways. Here we are going to attempt it one way, by approaching the constituted metaphysics and observe them in their historical development. Not with the idea of presenting a summary of these metaphysics, because this is devoid of any interest, and it is enough to take the books and read there what the philosophers have said. That is not what our point is here, because our interest is to show there are problems subjacent to every metaphysics. In order to make this known, it is not enough to summarize these metaphysics, but it will be necessary to disentangle their internal structures and bring to the fore precisely the diaphanous, that which is clear, that which constitutes the inner core of the transcendental order insofar as transcendental, in other words, “what” the metaphysical is.


* * * * *


To do this, in the next chapter we shall begin with what we have already suggested in this one, with a study of the Greek and Aristotle. From that we shall proceed to consider, not all metaphysics, but the five I consider especially important.

Medieval metaphysics, which we will monographically center on St. Thomas.
{37} Metaphysics in Descartes.
Metaphysics in Leibniz.
Metaphysics in Kant.
Metaphysics in Hegel.

I am aware that this contradicts the idea we have of Modern philosophy, which is considered as a kind of rejection of the metaphysical order for the benefit of the I. We shall see if that can be maintained. At any rate, whatever truth may be in that statement, it belongs as an internal problem to the very transcendental order, and is not something external useful for criticizing the fundament of metaphysics one way or the other. The History of philosophy will be taken as that which reveals the internal structure, the inner core of transcendentality as such.

These are precisely the fundamental problems of Western metaphysics, with which we are going to be concerned.

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¹ [Tr. note: Zubiri neologism]