1 Metaphysics and Theory: A Close Reading of Aristotle* Rina Marie Camus 甘海寧國立政治大學哲學系 士生 Abstract Among scholars of classic philosophy in the West, it is not uncommon to deny the existence of non-Western metaphysics. This seems due largely to culture-specific ideas or standards about what metaphysics is or how it should be done. In addition, there is a general unfamiliarity with methods and approaches of divergent philosophical traditions. Such a scenario occasions the need to ask once again what metaphysics is. This paper seeks to re-discover an original conceptualization of this science in the West: that which Aristotle tackles in the introductory chapters of his Metaphysics. In the introductory sections of said treatise, Aristotle takes metaphysics to be the kind of knowledge that the wise have. As wisdom, it is the highest exercise of theory. Keywords Metaphysics ∙ Wisdom∙ Principle ∙ Theory ∙ Aristotelian philosophy ____________ *Paper presented in graduate students’ seminar 第五屆南北五校哲學士生論壇 (Taipei, 2012). An improved version was later published in Hwa-Kang Journal of Philosophy (華岡哲學學報), vol. 5, June 2013, pp. 1-22.