Aristotle never used the term metaphysics. For Plato, Aristotle's master, the realm of abstract ideas was more "real" than that of physical. i.e., material or concrete, objects, because ideas can be more permanent (the Being of Parmenides), whereas material objects are constantly changing (the Becoming of Heraclitus). Where Plato made his realm of ideas the "real world," Aristotle made the material world the source of ideas as mere abstractions from common properties found in many concrete objects. Even Neoplatonists like Porphyry also worried about the existential status of the Platonic ideas. Does Being exist? What does it mean to say "Being Is"?

In recent centuries then, metaphysical has become "beyond the material." Metaphysics has become the study of immaterial things, like the mind, which is said to "supervene" on the material brain. Metaphysics is a kind of idealism, in stark contrast to "eliminative" materialism. And metaphysics has failed in proportion to the phenomenal success of naturalism, the idea that the laws of nature alone can completely explain the contents of the universe.

The books of Aristotle that Andronicus considered "beyond nature" included Aristotle's "First Philosophy" — ontology (the science of being), cosmology (the fundamental processes and original causes of physical things), and theology (is a god required as "first cause?").

Aristotle's Physics describes the four "causes" or "explanations" (aitia) of change and movement of objects already existing in the universe (the ideal formal and final causes, vs. the efficient and material causes). Aristotle's metaphysics can then be seen as explanations for existence itself. What exists? What is it to be? What processes can bring things into (or out of) existence? Is there a cause or explanation for the universe as a whole?

In critical philosophical discourse, metaphysics has perhaps been tarnished by its Latinate translation as "supernatural," with its strong theological implications. But from the beginning, Aristotle's books on "First Philosophy" considered God among the possible causes of the fundamental things in the universe. Tracing the regress of causes back in time as an infinite chain, Aristotle postulated a first cause or "uncaused cause." Where every motion needs a prior mover to explain it, he postulated an "unmoved first mover." These postulates became a major element of theology down to modern times.

Modern metaphysics is described as the study of the fundamental structure of reality, and as such foundational not only to philosophy but for logic, mathematics, and all the sciences. Some see a need for a foundation to metaphysics itself, called metametaphysics, but this invites an infinite regress of "meta all the way down (or up)."

Aristotle's First Philosophy included theology, since first causes, new beginnings or genesis, might depend on the existence of God. And there remain strong connections between many modern metaphysicians and theologians.