BOOK I

CONTENTS

Book I

Lesson 1.          The Dignity and Object of This Science

Lesson 2.  Wisdom Considers Universal First Causes and First Principles

Lesson 3.          The Nature and Goal of Metaphysics

Lesson 4.          Opinions about the Material Cause

Lesson 5.          Opinions about the Efficient Cause

Lesson 6. Love and Hate as Efficient Causes of Good and Evil

Lesson 7.          The Views of the Atomists and the Pythagoreans

Lesson 8.          The Pythagorean Doctrine about Contraries

Lesson 9.  The Opinions of the Eleatics and Pythagoreans about the Causes of Things

Lesson 10.       The Platonic Theory of Ideas

Lesson 11.       A Summary of the Early Opinions about the Causes

Lesson 12. Criticism of the Views about the Number of Material Principles

Lesson 13.       Criticism of the Pythagoreans' Opinions

Lesson 14.       Arguments against the Platonic Ideas

Lesson 15.  The Destruction of the Platonists' Arguments for Ideas

Lesson 16.       Arguments against the View That Ideas Are Numbers

Lesson 17.  Arguments against the View That the Ideas Are Principles of Being and Knowledge