Good Morning!!

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend.

We’ve been jumping around among some core ideas the past few weeks. I thought a good theme for this week would be metaphysics. We’re usually staying grounded in Stoic thought, occasionally outreaching into existentialism. While a lot of what we talk about really prompts us to “accept reality,” metaphysics is what asks “but what is reality, exactly?”

Today, for our main course, we’re going to honor Aristotle, who started this whole line of thought. Burning that off, we’ll see how metaphysics can fall back onto our everyday lives. Wrapping it up, we’re going to pull a few lines from Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

Have a seat, Thought Breakfast is served!

Most people move through life assuming existence is obvious. You are quite literally in a constant state of existing, so why think more about it? We ask how to live before asking what kind of thing is doing the living. Aristotle’s metaphysics is what blows the lid off the cookie jar. The philosophy begins when we stop treating “being” as merely background noise.

Aristotle’s metaphysics conceptually precedes ethics. Rather than abandoning the idea, he just starts way further back. He begins with being itself. To exist as something is not accidental. It means having a nature.

Going deeper, everything existing has a form (what it is), a nature (how it tends to act), and a proper activity (what it does when it flourishes). For instance, a knife exists to cut. The eye exists to see. A human being, then, exists not merely to survive, but to reason, choose, and aim.

We already live according to many metaphysical assumptions. And we tend to treat ourselves as machines or projects. Aristotle says that those misalignments happen when we live against our nature.

So if humans have a nature, then not every way of life fits us equally well. Moreover, not every success can truly count as flourishing. So this actually precedes Aristotle’s ethics, setting the stage of things before classifying them as bad or good.

Today, try to pause at three moments:

At each moment, ask:

Write down any patterns you notice.

“All human beings by nature desire to know. A sign of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness, they are loved for themselves.” - Aristotle, The Metaphysics, Book I

Here, Aristotle establishes knowledge as natural, not optional.

I like the separation of metaphysics and existentialism because at some point, they are fundamentally different. Aristotle frames metaphysics as fulfillment, not abstraction.

As in all other cases, being precedes doing.

Munch on that for today. If you try to look at yourself as a being with nature and limits, you can identify what that nature is and those limits are. That should bring a gradual sense of clarity, which will boost everything else. Have a great Monday, and come back tomorrow for a brand new, steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast