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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Preface
The story is familiar, even if it is not true. Some 250 years after the death of Aristotle, Andronicus of Rhodes produced the first complete edition of Aristotle’s works. One volume, dealing with nature, was called Physics. Immediately after that Andronicus placed a volume of works which became known as ‘ta meta ta physica’: the ones after the ones about physics. And so the corresponding discipline acquired its name.
Whether or not the story is true, the name is peculiarly apt. For ‘meta’ can also be translated either as ‘above’ or as ‘beyond’, and metaphysics is often reckoned to lie at a level of generality above and beyond physics. Come to that, it is often reckoned to be a subject that should be studied ‘after’ physics.
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