The term ‘ontology’ goes back to R. Goeckel (Goclenius) around 1600 who, in his ‘Lexicon philosophicum’, introduces _epistaemae ontologikae_ as term for one of the three Aristotelean _epistaemai theooretikai_. Ontology thus names Aristotle’s prima philosophia as the inquiry into _to on haei on_ which phrase can be variously rendered in English as “beings insofar as they are beings” or ” “beings as such” or “beings qua beings” or “beings as beings” or “beings in their being”. Unfortunately, today we have become too dumb to understand the import of such a well-thought-out formulation which is, in any case, the most open definition of ontology. When Aristotle comes to enter this investigation in Book Zeta of his Metaphysics, he first notes that “being is said in many ways”, again, an important warning which we today are too dumb to understand. He then proceeds to list some, but by no means all, of these various meanings, as “what it is and this-here, and also how and how much and each of the other such categories” (Z 1028a12). In a further step he then picks out What as a prime meaning, and this What is then further investigated as an investigation of _ousia_, which itself has many meanings.

Medieval metaphysics in particular (Thomas Aquinas) focused on the whatness or quidditas as the subject of ontology, but this is already a significant narrowing of the horizon of the original Aristotelean definition which leaves open many ways of thinking to proceed INCLUDING the possibility of not giving Whatness the priority, let alone the exclusive signification, among the various possible meanings of being.

In the famous book of definitions Delta, the first meanings of _to on_ are given as the distinction between _kata symbebaekos_ and _kath’ hauto_, i.e. being that just comes along and being for itself. The second group of meanings of _to on_ is the categories, what, how, in relation to, how much, where, when, etc. The third sense of _to on_ is the distinction between true and false, and the fourth fold into which Aristotle unfolds the meaning of _to on_ covers the distinction between _dynamis_ and _entelecheia_, i.e. between potency and completed presence, a major, major aspect of Aristotle’s ontological inquiry (in Book Theta). To dare to narrow-mindedly define ontology as “the study of what there is” therefore indicates a narrowing of the horizon and a stage of degeneration of philosophical mind horrible to contemplate.

Rather, Aristotle’s open definition of ontology as the inquiry into beings in their being still holds within itself latent historical possibilities as yet unfathomed. One of these possibilites is to ask for a unified meaning of being itself, a tack which Heidegger takes with his momentous “step back”. Another possibility is to question the unfolding of being into the distinction between what and who, a possibility not taken up by Aristotle himself, but a latent possibility nevertheless for mind that is sufficiently open to attempt to fathom this abyss.

¶ 10:13 AM