Abstract

Met. $\Lambda$ summarily completes Aristotle's primary philosophical endeavour, to understand the actuality, nature and characteristics of those eternal immaterial substances upon which all there is depends. By a line by line discussion with his major ancient, medieval, and modern commentators, it is shown that Aristotle's metaphysics begins with an account of changing being solving Parmenides' dilemma, and erecting a metaphysics of causation on the basis of perceptible things, using the principles of potentiality and actuality. ;Aristotle develops the view of a transmission of actuality and worth to dependent beings from the unmoved god by way of the rotation of the fixed stars and the sun. His account of the motive influence of the divine first cause does not imply that the sphere of the fixed starts requires a soul, since its rotation is its natural material response to the unmoved mover. This demonstrated by reference to the De Motu and De Gen. An. ;The multiple immaterial substances inferred to move the planets, following contemporary astronomy, are shown to form a sequence of distinct self-contemplating intellects in a descending order of worth. Aristotle's cosmic teleology is shown to involve three aspects: the immaterial god paradigmatically confirms the goodness of actuality, while the cosmological distribution of a derivative participatory actuality to moving and perishable things depends on this goodness, and orders nature as an interrelated whole in mutual dependence on the first cause