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Metaphysics — Aristotle

Written work · Essential works

Metaphysics

Τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά

Busto de Aristóteles (Museo Nacional Romano, Palazzo Altemps)
byAristotle

The work in which Aristotle seeks “first science”: the study of being qua being, of the highest causes and principles and of divine substance. It opens with the famous sentence “all men by nature desire to know” and with a history of earlier philosophy read as a progressive discovery of the four causes. Book B sets out the puzzles; Γ defends the principle of non-contradiction; Δ is a philosophical lexicon; Z, H and Θ, the core, examine substance, form, matter, actuality and potentiality; Λ culminates in the first unmoved mover, “thinking of thinking”; M and N criticise the Platonic theory of Forms and numbers. No work has influenced Western, Islamic and Jewish metaphysics more.

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Read the full textEditions and translations · 6

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Authorship note

A school treatise of the Aristotelian corpus, regarded as authentic. Like the other surviving treatises, it consists of Aristotle's own teaching materials rather than books meant for the public; the arrangement and titles largely derive from Andronicus of Rhodes's edition (first century BCE). Fourteen books (A, α, B, Γ, Δ, E, Z, H, Θ, I, K, Λ, M, N) gathered after the author's death from different courses; the title, “the books after the physics”, is editorial. The authenticity of book K and the place of α are debated. Bekker 980a–1093b.

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation — Aristotle

    The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation

    Princeton University Press, 1984

    Translation: Varios (traducción de Oxford revisada, ed. Jonathan Barnes)

    ISBN 0691016518

    Edición en dos volúmenes (Bollingen Series LXXI.2); ISBN del registro de Open Library de la obra completa.

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  • Metaphysics, Books 10–14. Oeconomica. Magna Moralia — Aristotle

    Metaphysics, Books 10–14. Oeconomica. Magna Moralia

    Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library, 287), 1935

    Translation: Hugh Tredennick y G. Cyril Armstrong

    ISBN 9780674993174

    Reimpresión registrada en 1982.

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  • Metaphysics, Books 1–9 — Aristotle

    Metaphysics, Books 1–9

    Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library, 271), 1933

    Translation: Hugh Tredennick

    ISBN 9780674992993

    Reimpresión registrada en 1979.

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Griego antiguo

  • Aristotelis Opera, vol. II (ed. Immanuel Bekker)

    G. Reimer / Academia Regia Borussica, 1831

    Edición crítica de referencia; su paginación (Bekker) es el sistema universal de cita.

Español

  • Metafísica de Aristóteles (edición trilingüe griego-latín-español)

    Gredos, 1982

    Translation: Valentín García Yebra

    ISBN 9788424921767

    Primera edición: 1970.

  • Metafísica — Aristotle

    Metafísica

    Gredos (Biblioteca Clásica Gredos, 200), 2003

    Translation: Tomás Calvo Martínez

    ISBN 9788424916664

    Primera edición: 1994.

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Other works by Aristotle

Sources

  • Bekker, Immanuel (ed.). Aristotelis Opera, edidit Academia Regia Borussica. 5 vols. Berlín: G. Reimer, 1831–1870 (vols. I–II, texto griego, 1831).

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