Seminar: Metaphysics – Discovery of Ens inquantum Ens [Winter 2026]

What if the most fundamental question of human understanding is one we no longer know how to ask? What if being—the first grasp of the intellect, the ground of every other concept—has faded into background noise, even while it silently structures everything we think and do?

This seminar calls us back to the principles of thought. Not the beginning of history, nor of the universe, but the principles of intelligibility. Aristotle insisted that “being is said in many ways,” and St. Thomas Aquinas, following Avicenna, taught that ens is the intellect’s first and most universal conception. Yet these claims are often repeated without being understood. What does it mean for “being” to be said in many ways? How does the intellect discover ens? What does it mean to “resolve” concepts into it—and how does this resolution ground metaphysics as a science?

The truths of metaphysics are not optional for a well-ordered society. You need not become a professional metaphysician, but you cannot avoid living in accord with—or against—the order of being. This seminar offers a disciplined path to rediscover that order. It demands humility, patience, and silence; but it rewards those who seek it with clarity, stability, and the intellectual architecture necessary to understand anything else.