"Ti to on", "what is being" is a source of puzzlement and a central question for the Aristotelian tradition. This question is puzzling not only because its generality makes the questing for an answer perplexing. It is puzzling as a question, because it refers to a problem that presents itself to us every time we are faced with a being which, as it withdraws, leaves something behind. The certainty of being makes its incomprehensibility even more disturbing. How is it possible, amidst the noises of particular beings, to grasp being, to go beyond the veil of being? What is being as such; what is it for something, anything, to be? Can particular beings exist without partaking in some kind of universality of being? Is there a permanent and fundamental condition that belongs to being as such and transcends all particular ways of being, which allows something to be, in virtue of which anything is insofar as it is? Is it possible to unveil behind the cacophony of beings the silent voice of being as such? Is it possible to go beyond beings and live within a horizon that is impossible to determine but, as it slips away, still hovers over everything that is?
The reading group was led by Dr Tolis Malakos, visiting research fellow of the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP), as follows:
Week 1 (21.2.13) Introductory session: what is metaphysics? Plato’s Parmenides 126a-137c.
Week 2 (28.2.13) Plato’s Sophist 237a-268d.
Week 3 (7.3.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Α and α.
Week 4 (14.3.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Β and Γ.
Week 5 (21.3.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Δ and Ε.
Week 6 (11.4.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Ζ and Η.
Week 7 (18.4.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Θ and Ι.
Week 8 (25.4.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Κ and Λ.
Week 9 (2.5.13) Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Μ and Ν.
Dr Malakos is also leading a research project on "Dasein as αληθευειν: An Aristotelian reading of Heidegger’s Being and Time". For further details, please email Tolis at t.malakos@londonmet.ac.uk.