Abstract

This monograph (TCC) analyzes the concept of prote philosophia in Aristotle's Metaphysics in order to infer what the real subject of study of the science that Aristotle intends to ground in this work. To do so, we will try to explain some Aristotelian conceptions of metaphysics as first philosophy analyzing the first causes and the first principles. Aristotle, in book IV, proposes a science that considers the study of being qua being and the properties that belong to it as such, i.e., not particularly, but universally. Nevertheless, since "being" is not an univocal concept, it is necessary to describe the concept of substance (ousia), in books VII–IX and XII, as an inseparable part of being or, in other words, the substance being one being and also the cause of the existence of other beings. Afterwards, we describe the transition from the study of being to the study of substance with the purpose of safeguarding the possibility of a metaphysical science. Undoubtedly, the tasks concerning the investigation of first philosophy as a science are crucial for the study of being qua being insofar as their results explain the structure of reality itself.