The distinction between metaphysica generalis and metaphysica specialis: Origins, metamorphosis and critique

The distinction between metaphysica generalis and metaphysica specialis is known in the history of philosophy primarily due to Immanuel Kant’s in his Critique of Pure Reason. In this study, I aim to highlight the fact that this distinction has a venerable tradition predating Kant, spanning the key moments of the Western metaphysical tradition all the way back to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The Stagirite’s teaching, refined through Neoplatonic and Arabic interpretations, would give rise to this distinction only within the 13th-century Franciscan school. For our research, Immanuel Kant is a Janus bifrons, as he looks both toward the roots of this tradition—passing through Schulmetaphysik / scholastic metaphysics (Wolff and Baumgarten), Suárez, Duns Scotus, and Avicenna, as well as toward its posterity, with the distinction between metaphysica generalis and metaphysica specialis reappearing in different terms in the texts of Hegel and even those of Husserl. The importance of this distinction stems above all from the fact that, ultimately, it led to the birth of a concept fundamental to the Western tradition: that of ontology.