Abstract

"The thesis of the present book is that we all possess, a priori, an awareness, or even understanding, of being that guides our daily practice as well as any subsequent philosophical interpretations". The awareness is preontological, and this "pre-ontological awareness [of being] is what does the philosophizing" in each historical epoch. It has yielded a series of interpretations of being as substance, reality, the Trinity, the principles of symbolic logic, dialectical reason, consciousness--to name the most important--which we recognize as the various major grounding concepts of metaphysics. But the interpretations are merely "illustrations of being." None is fundamental and others are possible.