Blackwell Reference Online

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Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody's system of philosophy has corresponded to everybody's sense of reality; to what if left to themselves, common men would call common sense … the Thomist philosophy is nearer than most philosophies to the mind of the man in the street . ( Chesterton, 1933 , pp. 172–3) Every philosophical system has a view about the nature and scope of philosophy itself. For that reason and because of the particular need to distinguish the present essay from others that might appear under this title, I begin with a brief explanation of the expression “a thomist metaphysics.” Metaphysics is concerned with the nature of reality as it may be comprehended in the most general terms. It is a small step from this to the claim that metaphysics investigates not just how things are as a matter of contingent fact, but how they must and how they may be. This concern with what is essential, and hence with what is necessary and what is possible, arises from the aim of describing and understanding the nature of reality as such. The various sciences are focused on and defined by classes of empirical objects and features. Metaphysicians, by contrast, are concerned with the natures of substance, causality, and time per se . In investigating these and other aspects of reality they are also enquiring into something yet more extensive, namely the nature and ... log in or subscribe to read full text