A different narrative of Aristotleina Metaphysics according to its Constitutional Emotions

This article shifts from doubt about the meaning of a commonly neglected phrase in Aristotle’s Metaphysics about the relation between metaphysics and myth into a fundamental question about the relation between metaphysics and emotions. The contemporary philosophical trend of reviving emotions, with all of its advantages in different felids of philosophy, has been almost silent in the field of metaphysics. The historical cliché of reason/emotion (also, reason/body) separation, among other things, has overshadowed the possibility of revising/ re-reading metaphysical texts through the lenses of constitutional emotions. This article develops a different narrative about the nature of metaphysics in Aristotel’s thought through re-reading some of his works. According to this narrative, certain emotions, including wonder (thauma), praise, pleasure, and desire, alongside the “nous”, play a constitutional role in the construction of the Aristotelian structure of metaphysics. I will discuss that the concept of “nous/ reason” cannot suffice for giving a comprehensive explanation for the tools and methods of metaphysics. According to the constitutional role of emotions, reductive interpretations of Metaphysics should be radically challenged in that they have ignored the emotional foundations of metaphysics during the history of philosophy. Moreover, I will suggest that the new narrative of metaphysics can provide some material to revise the traditional understanding of the soul’s parts, the soul’s unity, and relation between soul and body in Aristotle’s thought.