形而上學在現在西方有兩個共同的理解：一個是「本體科學」（“science of being”)，另一 個是「最抽象推測的科學」。亞里斯多德對形而上學的認知比較寬廣，認為形而上學是智者擁 有的知識。對他而言智慧是理論。本文欲根據亞里斯多德《形而上學》概論的阿爾法（A)、小 阿爾法（a)、貝塔（B)前面三書，闡釋「形而上學」的理論意涵。
Metaphysics in the West today is in a period of crisis. For one thing, increasing encounters with non-Western philosophies behoove us to ask what is essential about the discipline and whether the approaches that have been taken in the West over the centuries are the only valid ways for exploring metaphysical themes. For another, we are witnessing also a puzzling disagreement among metaphysics manuals about topics and methods to employ. Unsurprisingly, the question raised by analytic camps resounds now more than ever: Could a science that claims to be as loft and broad as metaphysics ever attain to any real knowledge? Such a scenario occasions the need to examine once again what metaphysics is. This paper seeks to re-discover an original conceptualization of this science in the West: that which Aristotle presents in the introductory chapters of the manual which posterity calls Metaphysics. In said treatise, Aristotle takes metaphysics to be the kind of knowledge possessed by the wise. As wisdom, it is the highest exercise of theory.
