Alex asked:

Aristotle says, "Although all other sciences are more necessary than metaphysics, none is more
excellent."

My question is. what considerations lead him to praise metaphysics in this way?

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According to Aristotle all levels of knowledge are measured as to the degree of wisdom they include:
either they inform us only that something is so and so or they give us the reasonand the causewhy it
is so. This leads to a hierarchical concept of knowledge, starting with our sensual experience as a
necessary condition of knowledge. Aristotle gives us an example: "If, then, a man has the theory
without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this,
he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured." Aristotle also regarded some social
basics needs and therefore arts as necessary: "for it was when almost all the necessities of life and
the things that make for comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began" This
sounds quite similar to Maslow's modern "Hierarchy of Needs", doesn't it?

Aristotle continues: "For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the
others know the 'why' and the cause. Hence we think also that the master workers in each craft are
more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they
know the causes of the things that are done".

And then "but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another's, so we
pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake."

Aristotle summarizes these main features of those who are considered to be the wisest: 1. The wise
person knows everything (universal knowledge). 2. The wise person knows difficult things (known
only by intellect). 3. The wise person is accurate (basic knowledgeout of fewer principles). 4. The
wise person is a better teacher than others (transferable knowledge). 5. The wise person studies for
the sake of knowing (intrinsic interest). 6. The wise person gives and does not take orders (superior
knowledge).

There could be only one science that manifests all these 6 features and it must deal with the first
causes and principles: metaphysics. It is a theoretical and divine science in a double sense: it is
about divine things and the gods are expected to possess it more than anyone else. Humans can
only strive at it and if they do they start to philosophize and this is only possible with above necessary
conditions. That's why "All other sciences are more necessary than this one, but none is better."

Simone Klein