The first line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics continues to stop me in my tracks. “All men by nature desire to know.” What does he mean by desire? What are we desiring to know? What nature, the animal or the rational? If we want to know it rationally, does he mean logically or more reasonably? Can attain this knowledge… or maybe he cannot and will always only be trying to achieve it.
In my understanding, this is all very tied into his notion that man is in time, in a place, in a culture, in an upbringing and in relation to others. Throughout this course we have touched on a variety of these questions I have posed above though not very in depth. For me the desire to know seems in opposition to the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy of the time. It sounds like the desire to know would be more closely tied to Epistemology as first philosophy. Understandably, at the point in history when this was supposedly written, the focus of epistemology was of the meta-physical for both Plato as well as for Aristotle to an end. Anyways, back to the train of thought revolving around this desire in a context and in a time. I believe that the Phronimus in the culture would posses and demonstrate the desire to know in the way of the time and the place. Arguably, the desire to know would be different for many people but is there an ultimate desire to know as shown by the Phronimus? Like Aristotle doesn’t describe the absolute good, I find myself in a very similar situation where I could see that there is a hierarchy of desired knowledge but defining the highest thing desired to be known besides perhaps God would prove to be very difficult.
Meta-Pres Site 