What is metaphysics actually about? It is not at all obvious.

Its enabler, Aristotle, never used the term but referred to it as the “sought-after science” (ζητουμένη ἐπιστήμη). As a distinct science in search of itself, it would continue its quest throughout an eventful history — and still does today. Aristotle could have never suspected it.

Let’s retrace its very origin to grasp a fertile idea of metaphysics.

We have first to address the question of its very name, and certain vicissitudes it has undergone — not through mere historical inquiry, but as an effort to present a reality that is in itself historical.

It is well known that when Andronicus of Rhodes organized Aristotle’s works, he placed a set of books whose designation was problematic ‘after the books on physics’. This expression, Tà metà tà physikà (Tὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά), was not a title but the absence of one, and yet it became the two-thousand-year-old name for designating philosophy’s most profound discipline.

How did this vague designation evolved into a term that now evokes the very essence of philosophical inquiry?

For the term “metaphysics” to eventually exist, it was first necessary for the four words Tà metà tà physikà to merge into one, omitting the articles and fusing the preposition with the noun. This unification did not occur in Greek but in Latin — and secondarily in Arabic, as seen in Averroes.

Yet, is the term metaphysica truly Latin? Not at all: it is merely a transcription, nominally altered and untranslated, of the Greek expression. It appears sporadically in the Middle Ages, becoming more frequent as the Corpus Aristotelicum was incorporated into Muslim and Christian scholasticism in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Here’s where the interest lies: the remarkable endurance of the term metaphysica does not originate from the Greek name of the science, nor from a meaningful word or a translation, but from an arbitrary term with an accidental origin that barely conveys meaning. Metaphysicus began as an adjective, with metaphysica initially referring to ‘the metaphysical books’ in its neuter plural form before evolving, as many other terms did, into a feminine noun.

Meaning nothing in Latin (and nothing particularly significant in Greek), metaphysical does not function primarily as a signification but as a strange and somewhat arcane symbol.

It has a rhetorical function and, furthermore, a poetic dimension: because the word metaphysics immediately absorbs a vague sense it never had — nor could have had— in Greek, its lasting resonance comes from the fact that it is not perceived as a prosaic postphysics but as a reverberating, evocative, and mysterious transphysics. This is found, quite literally, in Saint Thomas Aquinas and, through him, in the entire medieval and modern tradition.

Once imbued with this vague sense, the term metaphysics takes on a unique life of a dual virtue: it promises without committing. This intrinsic vagueness has ensured its endurance and is a quality worth preserving — one it notably shares with the term philosophy.

Taking that into account, the history of metaphysics cannot be reduced to the history of what has been called by that name.

The term designates realities and inquiries that have not always borne the label of “metaphysics”, making it necessary to return to its origins— not merely in name, but in substance. This requires tracing the waters upstream of the word itself, into a deeper, more problematic prehistory. The first question, then, is about its genesis.

The only secure criterion is to begin with the first thing ever called metaphysics: Aristotle’s work. But how did Aristotle himself refer to the science that would later receive this name? He used four principal terms:

• Wisdom (sophía) is the supreme form of knowledge, the highest aspiration of the sophós (the wise man). Aristotle defines this wisdom as the very science we now call metaphysics, as explored in the opening chapters of Book I.

• First philosophy (prótē philosophía) highlights the hierarchical and foundational nature of metaphysics. It is not only the most fundamental of disciplines but also the most dignified (timiōtátē), as it deals with reality in its purest form, without being subordinated to any other field of knowledge.

• Sought-after science (zetouméne epistéme) presents metaphysics as an open question, a problem yet unresolved. It is not a fully possessed knowledge but a pursuit, an endeavor whose essence lies in its function rather than its completion.

• Theory of truth (tés alētheías theoría) does not refer to a theory about truth but to alētheia—unveiling, the disclosure of what it is.

The last notion ties metaphysics to physis (Φύσις), nature itself as reality’s inherent dynamism. This “theory of truth” is the effort to reach both the origin from which things emerge, and what they ultimately are. In this sense, metaphysics is not a doctrine but a methodos, a path toward unveiling reality.

Aristotle contrasts early theologians (theologésantes), who interpreted reality through mythos, with those who later philosophized “about truth” (philosophésantes), seeking not external revelation but an understanding of what things truly are — their arkhé, their fundamental essence.

“Out of ignorance”, Aristotle says, “men sought wisdom”. The radical need to know what to rely on— beyond any particular matter— demands a reference to a hidden backdrop of apparent things. Initially, humans could only wait for this latent essence to reveal itself, relying on oracles and divination. But as history unfolded, this passive reliance gave way to a new approach:

reality was no longer something disclosed through external revelation, but something to be actively questioned.

The Seven Sages, and more distinctly the Milesians around Thales, developed the belief that things shared an essential nature, that they arose from one another, and that their consistency could be examined.

From that moment, the radical need for certainty transformed: instead of appealing to external signs, humans turned directly to reality, forcing it to respond. Inquiry became an active endeavor— verificare, verum facere: to verify, to make truth. Truth was no longer what was divinely revealed to the humans, but what they uncovered.

This is the origin of metaphysics, the scientific shift on the old radical need of knowing what to ultimately rely on.

• Marías, Julián. Idea of Metaphysics (Idea de la Metafísica, 1954)

• Zubiri, Xavier. Structure of Metaphysics (Estructura de la metafísica, 1969)

• Aristotle. Metaphysics (written in the 4th century BCE)