Critically consider Aristotles method of searching in metaphysics, the method based on aporiai.

Why does Aristotle think the method based on aporia is the method for searching in metaphysics? Metaphysics most removed from sensation, common method of gaining knowledge not adequate. We cannot refer to sensation to solve metaphysical problems. Therefore how do we search if we cannot be guided by our sensations? How do we know what to look for, how do we know when we have found it? Aporia both sets the search and the parameters of the search. We have reached knowledge when the aporia has been solved we know where to look and we know when we have found. What types of knowledge? Explanatory knowledge versus non-explanatory knowledge. Knowledge by experience is non-explanatory knowledge. Empirical knowledge is nonexplanatory. But answers to why questions are explanatory knowledge. Why is x as such, not what is x. Trees have leaves is non-explanatory, but why do trees have leaves is explanatory question. Why not the method of experience, the method based on sensation? Method of experience built off sensation direct non-explanatory knowledge of sensations. We start from what is most apparent and move away. Direct sensation, sensation and memory, knowledge based on judgments. How do we commonly gain knowledge? Through experience. How can we gain knowledge devoid of experience metaphysical knowledge? Dont know where to look or when we have found. Role of Aporia. Perplexity and puzzles. Aporia suggest a knot in our thought. A knot in thought suggests a problem within the things themselves the things puzzle us, not that we are puzzled about the things and the things are simple and straightforward. Perplexity suggest the problem Puzzle lays the problem our with reasonable arguments for both sides. Not every dilemmatic problem is an aporia, must be good reason for accepting both horns. Dilemmatic structure then lays out territory in which we are to investigate. Does aporiai avoid presuppositions We are approaching the problem with questions, not theories. What is being, can we look at being overall, or only in separate sciences? We are not requiring answers in initial investigation but only laying out both sides of an problem. Do all problems fall into two sides? Either /or is there and either/or/or else? Aporia III Are there only sense perceptible things, or are there also non-sense perceptible things? What about the question are there sense perceptible things at all?

Is to question sense perceptible things to question everything that is. Is there anything. Is this a position which we can start from? But on the other hand, philosophers do question whether there are sense-perceptible things at all it seems that this is a valid question. What presupposition has Plato made that Aristotles idea of aporia avoid? Aristotle avoids presuppositions, supposedly. Plato wants to answer the question of how we can have knowledge. If we cannot look for what we do not have, then we must have this knowledge already. Therefore, we have Platos theory of recollection. We know where to look because things are stable and one thing leads us to the other. Plato is tied to the theory that all knowledge must come in the form of judgments, and therefore sense-perception is not a kind of knowledge, since it contains no type of judgment. But in Aristotle, we know where to look because we have basic, sense-perception and empirical knowledge of the things. Therefore, preliminary, empirical knowledge can set up on the right path to explanatory knowledge. We do not only have explanatory knowledge, and so must have it within us latently already. In regards of Aporia, we know where to look not because of preliminary empirical knowledge, but because of perplexity. We see that an issue is unclear and that valid reasons lead us to hold both sides. The issue cannot be resolved by our examination of senseperception. So we cannot further this knowledge, as we do with scientific knowledge, with an examination of empirical knowledge in order to gain explanatory knowledge. How then can we gain explanatory knowledge? What is the primary, preliminary knowledge of which we are to gain this further explanatory knowledge? We must look at the dilemma and exposit the presuppositions and contents of either horn. When we examine such contents, we will see either that we cannot hold one or the other, or that the two can in fact be reconciled. It is therefore through the aporia that we are to be given the preliminary information with which we can search for further explanatory knowledge. Without empirical knowledge, and without the perplexity given by aporia, we have nothing to build off. But the aporia gives us the foundation for our search for knowledge, as the aporia points to fundamental puzzles in the nature of what we are asking about. So the aporia points to the problem, which is not in the first place derived from sense perception. This can therefore be outlined not from our previous non-explanatory knowledge, but from the knot in our thought which points to a conflict in the nature of the thing itself. So we have through the aporia and not through empirical knowledge identified the problem. How now, are we going to begin searching. Not with empirical evidence, for this is metaphysics. The aporia resolves the issue into two contrary directions, two arguments which appear both equally plausible, or at least plausible. By examining these arguments, we can have the direction of search in metaphysics. By resolving the dilemma, we can have the end of the search in metaphysics.

Therefore, Aristotle thinks that aporia are essential in the search in metaphysics. Is we didnt have aporia perplexity we would not notice there was a problem. And further, if the perplexity did not lead us to a puzzle we would not know how to identify the problem, and we would not know where to search. Without aporia, metaphysics would not be possible? Therefore we cannot do metaphysics without aporia, because we cannot examine when we have no content to examine, and without sense-perception, which is not the content of metaphysical examination and without puzzles, we would have no-where to search and so no metaphysics. We could not do metaphysics without aporia, it is through the vehicle of aporia that we can come to metaphysics. Otherwise there would be no subject matter for metaphysics to ask about it cannot be about empirical knowledge, what else will give us the subject matter. How does Plato understanding the possibility of searching in metaphysics? Aporia lead us to perplexity, to issues about which lead to fundamental dilemmas. However, these lead those who hold such theories to the view that they do know what they thought they knew, which is the position of Socrates to gadfly. But does Plato what to assert metaphysical doctrines also? Not Socrates in the early dialogues. Does the aporia point to problems in the nature of what we are talking about, or about puzzles in our thinking only? Is the thing itself not a problem, and only we have a problem about how we conceptualise the problem? Is this a problem for Aristotle? Finally, what is the difference between Platos and Aristotles views of aporia? And of metaphysics. Aristotle does what to arrive at metaphysical theories answers to the fundamental questions. He is not content just to notice that there are fundamental difficulties with concepts which we think we know. We doesnt just want to show us these difficulties like Soc in the early dialogues. He also wants to resolve these difficulties, and he thinks he does this through the aporia. He is not content to rest in perplexity, but moves from perplexity to identifying the puzzle, to further examining the puzzle and resolving it or not. Through the primary role of perplexity, leading to the secondary role of the puzzle, we can make progress in metaphysics. The puzzle rests on the perplexity, and the resolution of the puzzle gives us the subject matter and answer to our metaphysical questions. Plato leaves many such questions fundamentally unresolved, leaving us with the knowledge that we know nothing.