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== References ==
== References ==


*Haisch, Bernard. [http://www.thegodtheory.com The God Theory: Universes, Zero-Point Fields and What's Behind It All]. Red Wheel/Weiser Books, 2006.
* Lowe, E. J. (2002). ''A survey of metaphysics''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Lowe, E. J. (2002). ''A survey of metaphysics''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Loux, M. J. (2002). ''Metaphysics: A contemporary introduction'' (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
* Loux, M. J. (2002). ''Metaphysics: A contemporary introduction'' (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

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Plato and Aristotle, by Raphael (Sistine Chapel, Rome). Aristotle is regarded as the "father" of metaphysics.

Metaphysics (Greek words μετα [meta] = after/beyond and Φυσις [phusis] = nature) is a branch of philosophy concerned with giving a general and fundamental account of the way the world is. Metaphysics is thus like the sciences in that it tries to describe the world, but it differs from these disciplines in its scope and fundamentality. Whereas the biologist is concerned with the nature of organisms and the physicist with the nature of bodies, the metaphysician is concerned with the nature of all reality. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what categories of things are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions that figure fundamentally in our understanding of the world; these notions include existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

History of metaphysics

One theory of the origin of the word 'metaphysics' (in Greek, μεταφυσικά) is based on the organization of some of Aristotle's books in the Library of Alexandria. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle produced a number of works which together were called the Physics. In the Library of Alexandria, the works of Aristotle were organized in such a way that another set of Aristotle's works were placed right after the Physics. These books seemed to concern a basic, fundamental area of philosophical inquiry, which Aristotle himself called "first philosophy". So early Aristotelian scholars called those books τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά βιβλια, "ta meta ta physika biblia", which means "the books that come after the (books about) physics".

The term "Metaphysics" covers the subjects addressed in those books by Aristotle which have come to be called, collectively, the Metaphysics.

The Metaphysics was divided into three parts, now regarded as the traditional branches of Western metaphysics, called (1) ontology, (2) theology and (3) universal science. There were also some smaller, perhaps tangential matters: a philosophical lexicon, an attempt to define philosophy in general and several extracts from the Physics repeated verbatim.

  • Ontology is the study of existence; it has been traditionally defined as 'the science of being qua being'.
  • Theology means, here, the study of God (or the gods) and of questions about the divine.
  • Universal science is supposed to be the study of so-called first principles, which underlie all other inquiries; an example of such a principle is the law of non-contradiction: A = A, A not = B, Not both A and B. In other words, the elementary laws of logic as Aristotle knew them.

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. This includes topics like causality, substance, species and elements. It also includes topics like relationship, interaction, finitude and a theoretically boundless infinity.

Metaphysics as a discipline was a central part of academic inquiry and scholarly education even before the age in which Aristotle coined the word. 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 Age of Reason, problems that were not originally considered metaphysical have been added to metaphysics. Other problems that were considered metaphysical problems for centuries are now typically relegated to their own separate subheadings 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 research have been found to be entirely physical and natural, thus making them part of physics.

In more recent times, an alternate usage of ther term "metaphysics" has arisen. People often use the term to refer esotericism and occultism. These other uses are, for the most part, entirely unrelated to the academic philosophical discipline.

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.

Particulars & Universals

The world seems to be filled, partially or wholly, by physical objects. Consider an apple. We can touch an apple and interact with it. It occupies space and time and appears to have a variety of properties. Such concrete 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, which particular objects bear special relations too. Others maintain that what particulars are is a bundle or collection of properties (specifically, a bundle of properties they have).

Change & Identity

Identity, sometimes called Numerical Identity, is the relation that everything bears to itself, and which nothing bears to anything other than itself. According to Leibniz, if some object x is identical to some object y, then any property that x has, y will have also. However, it seems to us that objects can change over time. If you were to look at a tree one day, and the tree later lost a leaf, it would seem that you could still go look at that same tree. Metaphysicians work to explain what it means for the same object to have different properties at different times, as well as the question of how objects persist through time. (See Also: identity and change)

Space & Time

This apple exists in space (it sits on a table in a room) and in time (it was not on the table a week ago and it will not be on the table a week from now). But what does this talk of space and time mean? Can we say, for example, that space is like an invisible three-dimensional grid in which the apple is located? Suppose the apple, and every other physical object in the universe, were to be entirely removed from existence: then would space, that "invisible grid," still exist? Some people say not—they say that without physical objects, space would not exist, because space is the framework in which we understand how physical objects are related to each other. There are many other metaphysical questions to ask about space and time.

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.

Personal Identity

Metaphysicians have long been interested in questions of personal identity. For instance, imagine that we are able to invent teletransporters akin to those from Star Trek, that work by annhialating all of your molecules, and assembling a duplicate structure at a new location. Some philosophers worry that the entity that comes out on the other side of the process cannot be identical to the person who they resemble, because they have no parts in common. Another problem would be that, conceivably, a malfunction could result in two individuals (or more) who equally well resemble the original person coming out the other end. This creates problems determining which person, if any, after the fact, is identical to the individual before they enter the machine.

Abstract Objects

Apart from Universals, some philosophers endorse views according to which there are abstract particulars. Mathematical objects and objects in fictions are two types of abstract objects that have been endorsed.

Other Metaphysical Questions

There are some other very different sorts of problems in metaphysics. The apple is one sort of thing; now if Sally is in the room, and we say Sally has a mind, we are surely going to say that Sally's mind is a different sort of thing from the apple (if it is a sort of thing at all). I might say that my mind is immaterial, but the apple is a material object (although there is much disagreement amongst philosophers about the metaphysical status of minds). Moreover, it sounds a little strange to say that Sally's mind is located in any particular place; maybe we could say it is somewhere in the room; but the apple is obviously located in a particular place, namely on the middle of the table. It seems clear that minds are fundamentally different from physical bodies. But if so, how can something mental, like a decision to eat, cause a physical event to occur, like biting down on the apple? How are the mind and body causally interconnected if they are two totally different sorts of things? This is called the mind-body problem, which is now typically relegated to a philosophical subdiscipline called philosophy of mind. The mind-body problem is sometimes still considered part of metaphysics; however, perhaps the most profound problem belonging to this branch is the question of consciousness. No discipline has yet been able to explain fully what consciousness is or how it works.

Criticism

Metaphysics has been attacked, at different times in history, as being futile and overly vague. Lord Byron often mocked the subject in his works. David Hume and Immanuel Kant both prescribed a limited role to the subject and argued against knowledge progressing beyond the world of our representations (except, in the case of Kant, 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. Martin Heidegger often criticised metaphysics, yet his early work dealt with questions that many would consider to be metaphysical. British universities became less concerned with the area for much of the 20th century but it has seen a reemergence in recent times amongst philosophy departments.

A more nuanced view is that metaphysical statements are not meaningless statements, but rather that they are generally not fallible, testable or provable statements. 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 a belief about the world or about the universe which may seem reasonable but is ultimately not empirically verifiable. That belief 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 belief, in the sense of definitely proving it false. Yet this does not mean that science can be altogether freed from metaphysical assumptions or beliefs, since scientific thought is based on axiomatic systems, which by definition operate with unprovable assumptions. One reason for that is that, typically, there are always more theories, than valid data that could corroborate or falsify those theories (Cf. also Stefan Amsterdamski's reflections on this topic). But whereas the metaphysicist is likely to say, "this is how it is", the physicist is likely to say, "this is how it is, though I could be proven wrong".

Davidson and Rorty have argued that it is possible to produce more than one scientific theory of explaining empirical facts, both/all of which are completely coherent with all the facts, and there to be no means of arbitration between them. This makes Ayer's critique of metaphysics seem equally applicable to science and made metaphysics seem not quite as unusual a form of investigation as was fashionable to think in analytic philosophy.

Metaphysical subdisciplines

Metaphysical topics and problems

Metaphysical jargon

People

See also

References

  • Haisch, Bernard. The God Theory: Universes, Zero-Point Fields and What's Behind It All. Red Wheel/Weiser Books, 2006.
  • Lowe, E. J. (2002). A survey of metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Loux, M. J. (2002). Metaphysics: A contemporary introduction (2nd 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.
  • Fillmore, Charles (1931, 17th printing July 2000). Metaphysical Bible Dictionary. Unity Village, Missouri: Unity House. ISBN 0-871-59067-0

External links

Metaphysics Discussions


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