My Other Self: Discovering the moral foundation of Metaphysics in Aristotle

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Zahra Moballegh
Assistant Professor of philosophy, Department of Intercultural studies, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies
10.30470/phm.2021.533901.2030
Abstract
The dominant interpretation about the relation between metaphysics and morality in Aristotle’s thought is the separative interpretation. According to this understanding, Aristotle divides the piratical from the theoretical reason/ wisdom- hence a radical historical disassociation between metaphysics and morality. This division of the theoretical/ practical has brought about some crucial implications in the history of philosophy. During the recent decades, some philosophers have demonstrated the dangerous implications of this separation for the human world and criticized Aristotle for establishing this division. In this article, I argue that the separative interpretation of Aristotle is not based on an accurate understanding of his texts. A close study in his writings in different fields would unravel that the birth of metaphysics is joined to the birth of morality from his viewpoint. The possibility of metaphysics is based on an encounter with the other and being toward the other. Analyzing the different functions of ‘nous’ in the formation of metaphysics, I will discuss that nous underlies the possibility and objectivity of (Aristotelian) metaphysics and the unity of metaphysics with morality and practice. Discovering the unity within the strangeness of the other is the situation in which metaphysics begins. This situation is based on the both ontological and epistemological functions of nous. According to this understanding, the separative interpretation of Aristotle’s metaphysics is to be seriously doubted.

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Subjects

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