Zubiri’s thought can be qualified as an attempt to reconsider the assumptions and contents of the history of metaphysics from a new perspective. In almost all his writings, Zubiri targets the tradition of Western metaphysics and its fundamental concepts from heterogeneous perspectives and with different methods. Among his mature writings there is one that is exemplary in this regard: Los problemas fundamentales de la metafisíca occidental (1969-1970). This paper examines the peculiar definition of metaphysics that Zubiri formulates in this work, (...) paying particular attention to the transcensus of the first science, to the notion of the transcendental and, finally, to the distinction, elaborated by Zubiri, between the object of metaphysics and the things that constitute the object of ordinary knowledge. (shrink)