:''For Aristotle's work, see
Metaphysics (Aristotle) .''
'Metaphysics' is the branch of
philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science, traditionally including
cosmology and
ontology. It is also concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of
being and the
world.
[1] Its name derives from the
Greek words ''μετά (metá)'' (meaning "after") and ''φυσικά (physiká)'' (meaning "after talking about physics"), "physics" referring to those works on matter by
Aristotle in antiquity.
[2] In English, though, "meta" means "beyond; over; transcending". Therefore, metaphysics is the study of that which transcends physics. Many philosophers such as
Immanuel Kant would later argue that certain questions concerning metaphysics (notably those surrounding the existence of
God,
soul and
freedom) are inherent to human nature and have always intrigued mankind. Some examples are:
★ What is the nature of
reality?
★ Why does the
world exist, and what is its origin or source of creation?
★ Does the world exist outside the mind?
★ If things exist, what is their objective nature?
A central branch of metaphysics is
ontology, the investigation into what
types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including
existence,
objecthood,
property,
space,
time,
causality, and
possibility.
More recently, the term "metaphysics" has also been used more loosely to refer to "subjects that are beyond the physical world". A "metaphysical bookstore", for instance, is not one that sells books on ontology, but rather one that sells books on
spirits,
faith healing,
crystal power,
occultism, and other such topics.
Before the development of
modern science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as "
natural philosophy"; the term "science" itself meant "knowledge". The
Scientific Revolution, however, made natural philosophy an
empirical and
experimental activity unlike the rest of philosophy, and by the end of the
eighteenth century it had begun to be called "science" in order to distinguish it from philosophy. Metaphysics therefore became the philosophical enquiry into subjects beyond the physical world. Natural philosophy and science may still be considered topics of metaphysics, if the definition of "metaphysics" includes empirical explanations.
History of metaphysics
One of the founders of metaphysics is
Parmenides of Elea. He held that the multiplicity of existing things, their changing forms and motion, are but an appearance of a single eternal reality (“Being”), thus giving rise to the Parmenidean principle that “all is one.” From this concept of Being, he went on to say that all claims of change or of non-Being are illogical. Because he introduced the method of basing claims about appearances on a logical concept of Being, he is considered one of the founders of metaphysics.
[3]
Referred to as the subject of "first philosophy", the term "metaphysics" is utilized in the works of
Aristotle. The editor of his works,
Andronicus of Rhodes, placed the books on first philosophy right after another work, ''Physics'', and called these books (''ta meta ta physika biblia'') or, "the books that come after the [books on] physics." This was misread by Latin , who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical." In the English language, the word comes by way of the
Medieval Latin ''metaphysica'', the neuter plural of
Medieval Greek ''metaphysika''.
[4] While its Greek and Latin origins are clear, various dictionaries trace its first appearance in English to the mid-sixteenth century, although in some cases as early as 1387.
Aristotle's ''
Metaphysics'' was divided into three parts, in addition to some smaller sections related to a philosophical lexicon and some reprinted extracts from the ''
Physics'', which are now regarded as the proper branches of traditional Western metaphysics:
; ''
Ontology'' : The study of
Being and
existence; includes the definition and classification of
entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of change.
; ''
Theology'' : The study of
God; involves many topics, including among others the nature of religion and the world, existence of the
divine, questions about Creation, and the numerous
religious or
spiritual issues that concern humankind in general.
; ''
Universal science'' : The study of
first principles, which Aristotle believed to be the foundation of all other inquiries. An example of such a principle is the
law of noncontradiction and the status it holds in non-
paraconsistent logics.
Universal science or first philosophy treats of "being qua being" — that is, what is basic to all science before one adds the particular details of any one science. Essentially "being '' being" may be translated as "being insofar as being goes", or as, "being in terms of being". This includes topics such as causality, substance, species and elements, as well as the notions of relation, interaction, and finitude.
Metaphysics as a
discipline was a central part of academic inquiry and scholarly education even before the age of
Aristotle. Long considered "the Queen of Sciences", its issues were considered no less important than the other main formal subjects of
physical science,
medicine,
mathematics,
poetics and
music. Since the
beginning of modern philosophy during the seventeenth century, problems that were not originally considered within the bounds of metaphysical have been added to its purview, while other problems considered metaphysical for centuries are now typically relegated to their own separate regions in philosophy, such as
philosophy of religion,
philosophy of mind,
philosophy of perception,
philosophy of language, and
philosophy of science.
In some cases, subjects of metaphysical scholarship have been found to be entirely physical and natural, thus making them part of
physics proper (cf.
Albert Einstein's
Theory of Relativity).
Central questions of metaphysics
Most positions that can be taken with regards to any of the following questions are endorsed by one or another notable philosopher. It is often difficult to frame the questions in a non-controversial manner.
Mind and matter
The nature of
matter was a problem in its own right in early philosophy. Aristotle himself introduced the idea of matter in general to the Western world, adapting the term ''
hyle'' which originally meant "lumber". Early debates centered on identifying a single underlying principle. Water was claimed by
Thales, Air by
Anaximenes, ''
Apeiron'' (the Boundless) by Anaximander, Fire by
Heraclitus.
Democritus conceived an
atomic theory many centuries before it was accepted by modern science.
Philosophers now look to
empirical science for insights into the nature of
matter.
The nature of the
mind and its relation to the body has been seen as more of a problem as science has progressed in its
mechanistic understanding of the brain and body. Proposed solutions often have ramifications about the nature of
reality as a whole.
René Descartes proposed
substance dualism, a theory in which mind and body are essentially quite different, with the mind having some of the attributes traditionally assigned to the
soul, in the seventeenth century. This creates a conceptual puzzle about how the two interact (which has received some strange answers, such as
occasionalism). Evidence of a close relationship between brain and mind, such as the
Phineas Gage case, have made this form of dualism increasingly unpopular.
Another proposal discussing the mind-body problem is
idealism, in which the material is sweepingly eliminated in favor of the mental. Idealists, such as
George Berkeley, claim that material objects do not exist unless perceived and only as perceptions. The "German idealists" such as
Fichte,
Hegel and
Schopenhauer took
Kant as their starting-point, although it is debatable how much of an idealist Kant himself was. Idealism is also a common theme in Eastern philosophy. Related ideas are
panpsychism and
panexperientialism which say everything ''has'' a mind rather than everything exists ''in'' a mind.
Alfred North Whitehead was a twentieth-century exponent of this approach.
Idealism is a
monistic theory, in which there is a single universal substance or principles.
Neutral monism, associated in different forms with
Baruch Spinoza and
Bertrand Russell is a theory which seeks to be less extreme than idealism, and to avoid the problems of
substance dualism. It claims that existence consists of a single substance, which in itself is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or attributes – thus it implies a
dual-aspect theory.
For the last one hundred years, the dominant metaphysics has without a doubt been
materialistic monism. Science has demonstrated many ways in which mind and brain interact, but the exact nature of the relationship is still open to debate. Type
identity theory, token
identity theory,
functionalism,
reductive physicalism,
nonreductive physicalism,
eliminative materialism,
anomolous monism,
property dualism,
epiphenomenalism and
emergence are just some of the candidates for a scientifically-informed account of the mind. (It should be noted that while many of these positions are dualisms, none of them are ''substance'' dualism.)
Prominent recent philosophers of mind include
David Armstrong,
Ned Block,
David Chalmers,
Patricia and
Paul Churchland,
Donald Davidson,
Daniel Dennett,
Jerry Fodor,
David Lewis,
Thomas Nagel,
Hilary Putnam,
John Searle,
John Smart and
Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Objects and their properties
The world seems to contain many individual things, both physical, like apples, and abstract such as love, democracy, and the number 3. Such objects are called
particulars. Now, consider two apples. There seem to be many ways in which those two apples are similar, they may be approximately the same size, or shape, or color. They are both fruit, etc. One might also say that the two apples seem to have some thing or things in common.
Universals or
Properties are said to be those things.
Metaphysicians working on questions about universals or particulars are interested in the nature of
objects and their
properties, and the relationship between the two. For instance, one might hold that properties are abstract objects, existing outside of
space and
time, to which particular objects bear special relations. Others maintain that what particulars are is a
bundle or collection of properties (specifically, a bundle of properties they have).
Identity and change
Main articles: Identity and change
The Greeks took some extreme positions on the nature of change:
Parmenides denied that change occurs at all, while
Heracleitus thought change was ubiquitous: "[Y]ou cannot step into the same river twice".
Identity, sometimes called
Numerical Identity, is the relation that a "thing" bears to itself, and which no "thing" bears to anything other than itself (cf.
sameness). According to
Leibniz, if some object '''x''' is identical to some object '''y''', then any property that '''x''' has, '''y''' will have as well. However, it seems, too, that objects can change over time. If one were to look at a tree one day, and the tree later lost a leaf, it would seem that one could still be looking at that same tree. Two rival theories to account for
the relationship between change and identity are
Perdurantism, which treats the tree as a series of tree-stages, and
Endurantism which maintains that the tree -- the same tree -- is present at every stage in its history.
Space and time
In the Middle Ages, Saint Augustine of Hyppo asked the fundamental question about the nature of time. A traditional
realist position in ontology is that time and space have existence apart from the human mind.
Idealists, including
Kant claim that space and time are mental constructs used to organise perceptions, or are otherwise unreal.
Suppose that one is sitting at a table, with an apple in front of him or her; the apple exists in
space and in
time, but what does this statement indicate? Could it be said, for example, that space is like an invisible three-dimensional grid in which the apple is positioned? Suppose the apple, and all physical objects in the universe, were removed from existence entirely. Would space as an "invisible grid" still exist?
René Descartes and
Leibniz believed it would not, arguing that without physical objects, "space" would be meaningless because space is the framework upon which we understand how physical objects are related to each other.
Newton, on the other hand, argued for an
absolute "container" space. The pendulum swung back to
relational space with
Einstein and
Ernst Mach.
While the absolute/relative debate, and the realism debate are equally applicable to time and space, time presents some special problems of its own. The ''flow'' of time has been denied in ancient times by
Parmenides and more recently by
J. M. E. McTaggart in his paper ''
The Unreality of Time''.
The ''direction'' of time, also known as "
time's arrow", is also a puzzle, although physics is now driving the debate rather than philosophy. It appears that fundamental laws are time-reversible and the arrow of time must be an "
emergent" phenomenon, perhaps explained by a statistical understanding of
thermodynamic entropy.
Common-sense tells us that objects ''persist'' across time, that there is some sense in which you are the same person you were yesterday, in which the oak is the same as the acorn, in which you perhaps even can step into the same river twice. Philosophers have developed two rival theories for how this happens, called "
endurantism" and "
perdurantism". Broadly speaking, endurantists hold that a whole object exists at each moment of its history, and the same object exists at each moment. Perdurantists believe that objects are four-dimensional entities made up of a series of
temporal parts like the frames of a
movie.
Religion and spirituality
Theology is the study of God and the Nature of the Divine. Is there a God (
monotheism), many Gods (
polytheism) or no Gods (
atheism)? Does the Divine intervene directly in the world (
theism), or is its sole function to be the first cause of the universe (
deism)? Are God and the World different (
panentheism,
dualism) or are they identical (
pantheism)? These are the primary metaphysical questions concerning theologians.
Within the standard Western philosophical tradition, theology reached its peak under the
medieval school of thought known as
scholasticism, which focused primarily on the metaphysical aspects of
Christianity. While the work of the scholastics has been largely eclipsed in the wake of modern philosophy, key figures such as
Thomas Aquinas still play an important role in the
philosophy of religion.
Necessity and possibility
Metaphysicians investigate questions about the ways the world could have been.
David Lewis, in "On the Plurality of Worlds," endorsed a view called Concrete
Modal realism, according to which facts about how things could have been are made true by other
concrete worlds, just like ours, in which things are different. Other philosophers, such as
Gottfried Leibniz, have dealt with the idea of possible worlds as well. The idea of necessity is that any necessary fact is true across all
possible worlds; that is, we could not imagine it to be otherwise. A possible fact is one that is true in some possible world, even if not in the actual world. For example, it is possible that cats could have had two tails, or that any particular apple could have not existed. By contrast, certain propositions seem necessarily true, such as
analytic propositions, e.g. "All bachelors are unmarried." The particular example of analytic truth being necessary is not universally held among philosophers. A less controversial view might be that self-identity is necessary, as it seems fundamentally incoherent to claim that for any '''x''', it is not identical to itself; this is known as the ''principle of contradiction''. Aristotle describes the ''principle of contradiction'', "It is impossible that the same quality should both belong and not belong to the same thing . . . This is the most certain of all principles . . . Wherefore they who demonstrate refer to this as an ultimate opinion. For it is by nature the source of all the other axioms."
Abstract objects and mathematics
Some philosophers endorse views according to which there are
abstract objects such as numbers, or
Universals. (
Universals are properties that can be instantiated by multiple objects, such as ''redness'' or ''squareness''.) Abstract objects are generally regarded as being outside of
space and
time, and/or as being
causally inert.
Mathematical objects and fictional entities and worlds are often given as examples of abstract objects. The view that there really are no abstract objects is called
nominalism.
Realism about such objects is exemplified by
Platonism. Other positions include
moderate realism, as espoused by
Aristotle, and
conceptualism.
The
philosophy of mathematics overlaps with metaphysics because some positions are
realistic in the sense that they hold that mathematical objects really exist, whether transcendentally, physically, or mentally.
Platonic realism holds that mathematical entities are a transcendent realm of non-physical objects. The simplest form of
mathematical empiricism claims that mathematical objects are just ordinary physical objects, i.e. that squares and the like physically exist.
Plato rejected this view, among other reasons, because geometrical figures in mathematics have a perfection that no physical instantiation can capture. Modern mathematicians have developed many strange and complex mathematical structures with no counterparts in observable reality, further undermining this view. The third main form of realism holds that mathematical entities exist in the mind. However, given a
materialistic conception of the mind, it does not have the capacity to literally contain the many infinities of objects in mathematics.
Intuitionism, inspired by
Kant, sticks with the idea that "there are no non-experienced mathematical truths". This involves rejecting as intuitionistically unacceptable anything that cannot be held in the mind or explicitly
constructed. Intuitionists reject the
law of the excluded middle and are suspicious of infinity, particularly of
transfinite numbers.
Other positions such as
formalism and
fictionalism that do not attribute any existence to mathematical entities are
anti-realist.
Determinism and free will
Determinism is the
philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition, decision and action, is
causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. It holds that no
random,
spontaneous, mysterious, or
miraculous events occur. The principal consequence of the deterministic claim is that it poses a challenge to the existence of
free will.
The problem of
free will is the problem of whether rational agents exercise control over their own actions and decisions. Addressing this problem requires understanding the relation between freedom and causation, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. Some philosophers, known as
Incompatibilists, view determinism and free will as
mutually exclusive. If they believe in determinism, they will therefore believe free will to be an illusion, a position known as ''Hard Determinism''. Proponents range from
Baruch Spinoza to
Ted Honderich.
Others, labeled
Compatibilists (or "Soft Determinists"), believe that the two ideas can be coherently reconciled. Adherents of this view include
Thomas Hobbes and many modern philosophers.
Incompatibilists who accept
free will but reject determinism are called
Libertarians, a term not to be confused with the political sense.
Robert Kane is one of the few modern defenders of this theory.
It is a popular misconception that determinism necessarily entails that humanity or individual humans have no influence on the future and its events, a position known as
Fatalism). Determinists, however, believe that the level to which human beings have influence over their future is itself dependent on present and past.
Cosmology and cosmogony
'Cosmology' is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the
world as the totality of all
phenomena in
space and
time. Historically, it has had quite a broad scope, and in many cases was founded in religion. The ancient Greeks did not draw a distinction between this use and their model for the cosmos. However, in modern use it addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of science. It is distinguished from religious cosmology in that it approaches these questions using philosophical methods (e.g.
dialectics).
Cosmogony deals specifically with the origin of the universe.
Modern metaphysical cosmology and cosmogony try to address questions such as:
★ What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause? Is its existence necessary? (see
monism,
pantheism,
emanationism and
creationism)
★ What are the ultimate material components of the Universe? (see
mechanism,
dynamism,
hylomorphism,
atomism)
★ What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe? Does the cosmos have a purpose? (see
teleology)
Criticism
Metaphysics has been attacked, at different times in history, as being futile and overly vague.
David Hume went so far as to write:
Immanuel Kant prescribed a limited role to the subject and argued against knowledge progressing beyond the world of our representations, except to knowledge that the ''
noumena'' exist:
A.J. Ayer is famous for leading a "revolt against metaphysics," where he claimed that its propositions were meaningless in his book "Language, Truth and Logic". Ayer was a defender of
verifiability theory of meaning. British universities became less concerned with the area for much of the mid 20th century. However, metaphysics has seen a reemergence in recent times amongst philosophy departments. Mostly due to the failure of verificationism.
A more nuanced view is that metaphysical statements are not ''meaningless'' statements, but rather that they are generally not ''fallible'', ''testable'' or ''provable'' statements (see
Karl Popper). That is to say, there is no valid set of empirical observations nor a valid set of logical arguments, which could ''definitively'' prove metaphysical statements to be true or false. Hence, a metaphysical statement usually implies an ''idea'' about the world or about the universe, which may seem reasonable but is ultimately not empirically verifiable. That idea could be changed in a ''non-arbitrary'' way, based on experience or argument, yet there exists no evidence or argument so compelling that it could rationally ''force'' a change in that idea, in the sense of definitely proving it false.
Disciplines, topics and problems
Notable metaphysicians
See also
Further Reading
★
The London Philosophy Study Guide offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject:
Logic & Metaphysics
Notes and references
1. Geisler, Norman L. "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" page 446. Baker Books, 1999.
2. More specifically, the writings concerning what Aristotle called the "first philosophy" – and what is now called "metaphysics" – appeared after his articles on matter (on "physics"). Hence ''meta-'' ("after") ''physics'' ("matter").
3. Encyclopedia Britannica Online
4. Online Etymology Dictionary Douglas Harper
5. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary
Bibliography
★
Butchvarov, Panayot (1979). ''Being Qua Being: A Theory of Identity, Existence and Predication''. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press.
★ Harris, E. E. (1965). ''The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science''. London: George Allen and Unwin.
★ Harris, E. E. (2000). ''The Restitution of Metaphysics''. New York: Humanity Books.
★
Kant, I (1781). ''
Critique of Pure Reason''.
★ Gale, Richard M. (2002). ''The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics''. Oxford: Blackwell.
★ Lowe, E. J. (2002). ''A Survey of Metaphysics''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
★ Loux, M. J. (2006). ''Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction'' (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
★ Kim, J. and
Ernest Sosa Ed. (1999). ''Metaphysics: An Anthology''. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies.
★ Kim, J. and
Ernest Sosa, Ed. (2000). ''A Companion to Metaphysics''. Malden Massachusetts, Blackwell, Publishers.
External links
★
Aristotle's Metaphysics trans. by W. D. Ross
★
Aristotle's Metaphysics trans. by Hugh Tredennick (HTML at Perseus)
★
Aristotle's Metaphysics at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
★
Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Mirrored at eBooks@Adelaide
★
E-text (The
Norman Kemp Smith translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason)
★
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry under OBJECT, by Henry Laycock
★
Koumartzis, N., "Philosophy of Metaphysics", metafysiko.org
★
Metaphysics: Multiple Meanings A page that succinctly differentiates between various uses of the term "metaphysics."
★
Ways of Seeing - A common sense exploration of modern metaphysics.
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