etymology of meta

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

Dear Derek,
   thanks for the details you give about the etymology of meta.
Below is the revised paragraph on the etymology of "meta".
If you have more details, I'm interested. For instance, the
small Robert dictionary of the french language says that the
word "metalogicus" was used as early as the XIIth century,
although it entered common german only in the late XIXth century,
and common french only in the XXth century; it looks like
the systematic use of "meta-" as we know it originated in late
XIXth century Germany (or maybe Austria).

<LI>Note that etymologically, meta is just greek for "after".
        The use of the prefix to mean transcendance
        is due to the word "Metaphysics" denoting the contents
        of a book by Aristotle about questions of transcendance.
        Aristotle himself would refer to the subject of that book
        as First Philosophy or Theology;
        the title comes from Andronicus of Rhodes (1st century BC),
        who was the first editor of Aristotle
        and placed the book on the Metaphysics
        after the book on the Physics (Nature) in his compilation
        (so, it was quite literally "after" the Physics).
        Many centuries afterwards, people have coined the similar term
        Metalogic for the science that talks about Logic, and so on;
        since the late nineteenth century, the prefix meta- has been used
        systematically to coin names for sciences
        whose object is the study of a previous science.
        This is how the word shifted from it's Greek meaning
        to the meaning it has in Latin, French and English
        (and presumably other modern European languages).
        It retains its original meaning in modern Greek.
        (Thanks to <A HREF="mailto:drayside@NO.swen.SPAM.uwaterloo.ca"
        >Derek Rayside</A> for details).

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
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