Metaphysics is the philosophical study whose object is to determine the real nature of things-to determine the meaning, structure, and principles of whatever is insofar as it is. Although this study is popularly conceived as referring to anything excessively subtle and highly theoretical and although it has been subjected to many criticisms, it is presented by metaphysicians as the most fundamental and most comprehensive of inquiries, inasmuch as it is concerned with reality as a whole.

It is the heart of philosophy rooted in the ancient Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle, whose insights made their way in to Catholic Church through men like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

The background to Aristotle's divisions is to be found in the thought of Plato, with whom Aristotle had many disagreements but whose basic ideas provided a framework within which much of his own thinking was conducted. Plato, following the early Greek philosopher Parmenides, who is known as the father of metaphysics, had sought to distinguish opinion, or belief, from kn

This is the heart of the metaphysics of St. Thomas in one simple lesson, but its simplicity comes from the depth, and we need to penetrate into that depth by meditating on the realtionship between essence and existence if we are to grasp what it truly means. With regards to existence, it is better to say that existence is the "isness" rather than "thatness" of beings.

owledge and to assign distinct objects to each. Opinion, for Plato, was a form of apprehension that was shifting and unclear, similar to seeing things in a dream or only through their shadows; its objects were correspondingly unstable. Knowledge, by contrast, was wholly lucid; it carried its own guarantee against error, and the objects with which it was concerned were eternally what they were, and so were exempt from change and the deceptive power to appear to be what they were not. Plato called the objects of opinion phenomena, or appearances; he referred to the objects of knowledge as noumena (objects of the intelligence) or quite simply as realities. Much of the burden of his

Based on the teachings of Dr. Vasco, I was given an insi

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