Metafizika

Aristotle's Metaphysics, as a collection of writings dedicated to "first philosophy", was for a long time the main subject of examination of that philosophical discipline. For Aristotle, the "first philosophy" (πρώτη φιλοσοφία) is first the love of "wisdom" (σοφία), as the love of clear insight for the sake of insight itself (ϑεωρία). It is therefore not an instruction for concrete human action, but the wisdom of acquiring grounded and reasoned knowledge for its own sake. Wise is the one who knows the thing itself and its causes and who, starting from this knowledge, can ultimately rise to the knowledge of the first (uncaused) cause of everything that exists, to the immovable mover of everything that moves. In this sense, metaphysics, as the first philosophy, is on a par with physics and mathematics, but it differs from them in that it does not stop at the knowledge of the causes and laws that rule the world, but precisely by striving for the knowledge of the first, uncaused cause, it exceeds all that is given within the sensibly cognizable world. Because of this, only it is free in its own sense, because its cognition is not conditioned by any direct purpose. Here metaphysics realizes its freedom by realizing the ultimate purpose of everything that exists, that which is divine, which is the task of theology, which in Aristotle must not be understood in the modern meaning of the word.