Assessment

Essay 40%, final exam 60%

Module Aims

Classical Metaphysics starts with human experience of Being. It moves on to the basic principles of being, in particular the Principle of Non-Contradiction. It then discusses the analogical quality of our experience of Being, looking at the articulation of beings in terms of substances and accidents. Aristotle’s discussion of potency, and its role in understanding change and multiplicity is also treated and, centrally, being as act. Finally there is a discussion of the properties of being, known as the transcendentals, and the communication of being in causality

Learning Outcomes

• — Offer a description of the underlying principles of metaphysics and their interconnection.
• — Compare Aquinas’s understanding of the act of being to Aristotle’s focus on substance.
• — Recognise various approaches to the question of substance and compare the classical theory to the notions espoused or rejected by Spinoza and the British Empiricists.
• — Highlight the impact of the religious background of classical thinkers on their philosophical questioning.
• — Illustrate the central role of potency and act in the metaphysical syntheses achieved by Aristotle and Aquinas.
• — Explain the role of the transcendental qualities of goodness, truth, unity and beauty in helping us to understand Being.