Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

M etaphysics A term introduced by the American philosopher A. O. Lovejoy, according to which all beings in the world are not equal with regard to their metaphysical or ontological status. They are hierarchically ordered, with absolute being or God at the top and things of the slightest existence at the bottom. There are an infinite number of things with different existential grades between them. Absolute being is pure actuality , whilst at the bottom of the hierarchy are pure potentialities. This idea of a great chain of being can be traced to Plato 's division of the world into the Forms , which are full beings, and sensible things, which are imitations of the Forms and are both being and not being. Aristotle 's teleology recognized a perfect being, and he also arranges all animals by a single natural scale according to the degree of perfection of their souls. The idea of the great chain of being was fully developed in Neoplatonism and in the Middle Ages. Dante's Divine Comedy presents a literary illustration of this hierarchy. The notion is connected with the principle of plenitude , which claims that every possibility is actualized. “The result was the conception of the plan and structure of the world … the conception of the universe as a ‘Great Chain of Being’, composed of an immense, or … of an infinite number of links ranging in hierarchical order from ... log in or subscribe to read full text