Elementary Philosophy - On General and Special Metaphysics, Volume II - Zephyrinus Gonzalez

Elementary Philosophy, Volume II, presents González's treatment of metaphysics divided into its two classical branches, continuing the systematic philosophical course begun in the first volume and advancing the student toward the deepest questions of reality and being.

The volume opens with general metaphysics, examining being as such, its transcendental properties, and its principles of act and potency, substance and accident, and the four causes. González follows Aquinas in grounding metaphysical analysis in the real distinction between essence and existence as the foundation of all created being.

It then proceeds to special metaphysics, applying these principles to the three great objects of higher philosophical inquiry — the material world, the human person, and God as first cause and supreme being. Each is examined in light of the metaphysical principles established in the preceding section.

Throughout the volume González maintains the systematic didactic clarity characteristic of the work as a whole, presenting the Thomistic metaphysical tradition as the most adequate philosophical account of reality available to natural reason.