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Metaphysics

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Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). Aristotle is regarded as the "father" of metaphysics.

Metaphysics (from Greek: μετά (meta) = "after", φύσικα (phúsika) = "those on nature", derived from the arrangement of Aristotle's works in antiquity[1]) is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the nature of the world. It is the study of being or reality.[2] It addresses questions such as: What is the nature of reality? Is there a God? What is man's place in the universe?

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 by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

More recently, the term "metaphysics" has also been used to refer to "subjects which 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.

History of metaphysics

The name "metaphysics" is thought to have originated from the works of Aristotle. Aristotle referred to the subject as "first philosophy". Andronicus of Rhodes, the editor of Aristotle's works, placed the books on first philosophy right after another work, Physics, and called these books τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά βιβλια, ta meta ta physika biblia, "the books that come after the [books about] physics." This was misread by Latin scholiasts, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical." The word comes to the English language by way of the Medieval Latin metaphysica, the neuter plural of Medieval Greek metaphysika.[3] Dictionary.com declares its English origins to be between 1560 and 1580,[4] while the Online Etymology Dictionary finds its origins to be as early as 1387.[3]

The Metaphysics was split 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: the definition of entities and classes of entities, such as physical or mental entities; the nature of the properties of entities; and the nature of change.
  • Universal science is the study of first principles, which Aristotle believed underlie all other inquiries. An example of such a principle is the law of noncontradiction:

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 qua being" can be translated as "being insofar as being goes." 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 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 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.

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 and universals

The world seems to contain many individual things, both physical, like apples, and abstract such as the British constitution, Greek 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).

Change and 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 and 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? René Descartes believed not—he thought 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.[5] There are, however, many other metaphysical questions to ask about space and time.

Also recent cosmological concepts raise metaphysical questions related to spacetime. At least three theories should be mentioned. The so called " strong version " of the Anthropic Principle(SAP) imposes the problem if the topological properties of spacetime of the Universe was specially tuned in the way that conscious people could occur in it. This assumption compels to trial of answer who ( what entity or process ) tuned the right properties. It is an ontological problem.

The so called Big Bang theory raises the question, Did spacetime exist before the singularity? It involves the metaphysical problems of the absolute time and space and creation of the matter ex nihilo. One of the formulations suggests the presence of eternal quantum foam existing above time and space. From this eternal primary stuff the singularity creating the new Universe could occur randomly. Ervin Laszlo mentions similar notion of so called "quantum vacuum". Andrei Linde and Alan Guth argue [1] that the concept of quantum foam(quantum vacuum) and the model of the inflationary cosmology strongly suggest the presence of a multiverse.

Lee Smolin who developed the theory of cosmological natural selection suggests that universes ( fecund universes) evolve in favor of the production of black holes.Ervin Laszlo maintains that "quantum vacuum" is the fundamental information - carrying field that informs not just the current universe, but all universes past and present, which he names collectively as the "Metaverse". He argues that such an informational field can explain why our universe is so improbably fine-tuned as to form galaxies and conscious lifeforms; and why evolution is an informed, not random, process.

Louis Crane maintains [2] that universes could be fine-tuned for life by intelligent beings themselves manufacturing new universes. Alan Guth also has speculated [3] that a civilization at the top of the Kardashev scale might create fine-tuned universes in a continuation of the evolutionary drive to exist. In the light of A.Guth's and L.Crane's speculations the distant progeny of people will play the role of Plato's Demiurge. The concepts of quantum foam (quantum vacuum) and multivers ( especially Laszlo's Metaverse ) are related to the notion of pantheistic Substance proposed by Baruch Spinoza

Religion and spirituality

Theology is the study of God (or the gods) and of questions about the divine.

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 truths seem necessary, such as analytic truths, 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 Materialism

Apart from Universals, some philosophers endorse views according to which there are abstract particulars. Mathematical objects and objects in fictions are often given as examples of abstract objects. The view that there really are no abstract objects is called materialism.

One of the most necessary abstract objects is a definition of terms. If "the same quality should both belong and not belong to the same thing," there must be conflicting definitions. This renders definition abstract, and further discussion is irrelevant until the contradiction between definitions is resolved.

Criticism

Metaphysics has been attacked, at different times in history, as being futile and overly vague. 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).[citation needed] 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". British universities became less concerned with the area for much of the 20th century. However, metaphysics 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 (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.

Metaphysical subdisciplines

Metaphysical topics and problems

Metaphysicians

See also

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References

  1. ^ That is, the articles concerning what Aristotle called the "first philosophy", and what we now call metaphysics, were several articles that appeared after his articles on nature, which was called physics. Therefore since the articles on the "first philosophy" came after the physics articles, the subject was called "metaphysics".
  2. ^ Geisler, Norman L. "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" page 446. Baker Books, 1999
  3. ^ a b Douglas Harper. "Online Etymology Dictionary". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ The Principles of Philosophy, Part II: of Material Things, see X to XVI.
  • Butchvarov, Panayot (1979). "Being Qua Being: A Theory of Identity, Existence and Predication." Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press.
  • 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. (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.

External links

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