Metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics
encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3] 1. What is ultimately there? 2. What is it like? A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysicist[4] or a metaphysician.[5] The metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Another central branch of metaphysics is cosmology, the study of the origin (if it had one), fundamental structure, nature, and dynamics of the universe. Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.[6] Some philosophers of science, such as the neo-positivists, say that natural science rejects the study of metaphysics, while other philosophers of science strongly disagree.
Contents
1 Etymology 2 Origins and nature of metaphysics 3 Central questions o 3.1 Being, existence and reality o 3.2 Empirical and conceptual objects 3.2.1 Objects and their properties o 3.3 Cosmology and cosmogony o 3.4 Determinism and free will o 3.5 Identity and change o 3.6 Mind and matter o 3.7 Necessity and possibility o 3.8 Religion and spirituality o 3.9 Space and time 4 Styles and methods of metaphysics 5 History and schools of metaphysics o 5.1 Pre-Socratic metaphysics in Greece o 5.2 Socrates and Plato o 5.3 Aristotle o 5.4 Scholasticism and the Middle Ages o 5.5 Rationalism and Continental Rationalism o 5.6 British empiricism o 5.7 Kant
5.8 Early analytical philosophy and positivism 5.9 Continental philosophy 5.10 Later analytical philosophy 6 Rejections of metaphysics 7 Metaphysics in science 8 See also 9 Further reading 10 Notes and references 11 Bibliography 12 External links
o o o
Etymology
The word "metaphysics" derives from the Greek words (met) ("beyond", "upon" or "after") and (physik) ("physics").[7] It was first used as the title for several of Aristotle's works, because they were usually anthologized after the works on physics in complete editions. The prefix meta- ("beyond") indicates that these works come "after" the chapters on physics. However, Aristotle himself did not call the subject of these books "Metaphysics": he referred to it as "first philosophy." The editor of Aristotle's works, Andronicus of Rhodes, is thought to have placed the books on first philosophy right after another work, Physics, and called them (ta meta ta physika biblia) or "the books that come after the [books on] physics". This was misread by Latin scholiasts, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical". However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find intrinsic reasons for its appropriateness. For instance, it was understood to mean "the science of the world beyond nature" (physis in Greek), that is, the science of the immaterial. Again, it was understood to refer to the chronological or pedagogical order among our philosophical studies, so that the "metaphysical sciences" would mean "those that we study after having mastered the sciences that deal with the physical world" (St. Thomas Aquinas, "In Lib, Boeth. de Trin.", V, 1). There is a widespread use of the term in current popular literature which replicates this error, i.e. that metaphysical means spiritual non-physical: thus, "metaphysical healing" means healing by means of remedies that are not physical.[8]
the seventeenth century, problems that were not originally considered within the bounds of metaphysics have been added to its purview, while other problems considered metaphysical for centuries are now typically subjects of their own separate regions in philosophy, such as philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science.
Central questions
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011) 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 noncontroversial manner.
and space but only at their instantiation and their discovery is a function of science. Others maintain that particulars are a bundle or collection of properties (specifically, a bundle of properties they have). Biological literature contains abundant references to taxa (singular "taxon"), groups like the mammals or the poppies. Some authors claim (or at least presuppose) that taxa are real entities, that to say that an animal is included in Mammalia (the scientific name for the mammal group) is to say that it bears a certain relation to Mammalia, an abstract object.[10] Advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature, a more nominalistic view, oppose this reading; in their opinion, calling an animal a mammal is a shorthand way of saying that it is descended from the last common ancestor of, say, humans and platypuses.[11]
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)
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 such as John Martin Fischer. Incompatibilists who accept free will but reject determinism are called Libertarians, a term not to be confused with the political sense. Robert Kane and Alvin Plantinga are modern defenders of this theory.
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 which holds that there is a single universal substance or principle. Neutral monism, associated in different forms with Baruch Spinoza and Bertrand Russell, seeks to be less extreme than idealism, and to avoid the problems of substance dualism. It claims that existence consists of a single substance that 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. Type identity theory, token identity theory, functionalism, reductive physicalism, nonreductive physicalism, eliminative materialism, anomalous 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, Fred Dretske, Douglas Hofstadter, Jerry Fodor, David Lewis, Thomas Nagel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, John Smart, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Fred Alan Wolf.
Theology is the study of a god or gods and the nature of the divine. Whether there is a god (monotheism), many gods (polytheism) or no gods (atheism), or whether it is unknown or unknowable whether any gods exist (agnosticism; apophatic theology), and whether a divine entity directly intervenes in the world (theism), or its sole function is to be the first cause of the universe (deism); these and whether a god or gods and the world are different (as in panentheism and dualism), or are identical (as in pantheism), are some of the primary metaphysical questions concerning philosophy of religion. 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. The work of the scholastics is still an integral part of modern philosophy,[12] with key figures such as Thomas Aquinas still playing an important role in the philosophy of religion.[13]
Rational versus empirical. Rationalism is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive" (Bourke 263). Rationalist metaphysicians aim to deduce the nature of reality by armchair, a priori reasoning. Empiricism holds that the senses are the primary source of knowledge about the world. Analytical versus systemic. The "system building" style of metaphysics attempts to answer all the important questions in a comprehensive and coherent way, providing a theory of everything or complete picture of the world. The contrasting approach is to deal with problems piecemeal. Dogmatic versus critical. Under the scholastic approach of the Middle Ages, a number of themes and ideas were not open to be challenged. Kant and others thought this "dogmatism" should be replaced by a critical approach. Individual versus collective. Scholasticism and Analytical philosophy are examples of collaborative approaches to philosophy. Many other philosophers expounded individual visions. Parsimonious versus Adequate. Should a metaphysical system posit as little as possible, or as much as needed? Descriptive versus revisionary. Peter Strawson makes the distinction between descriptive metaphysics, which sets out to investigate our deepest assumptions, and revisionary metaphysics, which sets out to improve or rectify them.[14]
Socrates is known for his dialectic or questioning approach to philosophy rather than a positive metaphysical doctrine. His pupil, Plato is famous for his theory of forms (which he confusingly places in the mouth of Socrates in the dialogues he wrote to expound it). Platonic realism (also considered a form of idealism[16]) is considered to be a solution to the problem of universals; i.e., what particular objects have in common is that they share a specific Form which is universal to all others of their respective kind. The theory has a number of other aspects:
Epistemological: knowledge of the Forms is more certain than mere sensory data. Ethical: The Form of the Good sets an objective standard for morality. Time and Change: The world of the Forms is eternal and unchanging. Time and change belong only to the lower sensory world. "Time is a moving image of Eternity". Abstract objects and mathematics: Numbers, geometrical figures, etc., exist mindindependently in the World of Forms.
Platonism developed into Neoplatonism, a philosophy with a monotheistic and mystical flavour that survived well into the early Christian era.
Aristotle
Plato's pupil Aristotle wrote widely on almost every subject, including metaphysics. His solution to the problem of universals contrasts with Plato's. Whereas Platonic Forms exist in a separate realm, and can exist uninstantiated in visible things, Aristotelean essences "indwell" in particulars. Potentiality and Actuality[17] are principles of a dichotomy which Aristotle used throughout his philosophical works to analyze motion, causality and other issues. The Aristotelean theory of change and causality stretches to four causes: the material, formal, efficient and final. The efficient cause corresponds to what is now known as a cause simpliciter. Final causes are explicitly teleological, a concept now regarded as controversial in science. The Matter/Form dichotomy was to become highly influential in later philosophy as the substance/essence distinction.
In the early modern period (17th and 18th centuries), the system-building scope of philosophy is often linked to the rationalist method of philosophy, that is the technique of deducing the nature of the world by pure reason. The scholastic concepts of substance and accident were employed.
Leibniz proposed in his Monadology a plurality of non-interacting substances. Descartes is famous for his Dualism of material and mental substances. Spinoza believed reality was a single substance of God-or-nature.
British empiricism
British empiricism marked something of a reaction to rationalist and system-building philosophy, or speculative metaphysics as it was pejoratively termed. The sceptic David Hume famously declared that most metaphysics should be consigned to the flames (see below). Hume was notorious among his contemporaries as one of the first philosophers to openly doubt religion, but is better known now for his critique of causality. John Stuart Mill, Thomas Reid and John Locke were less sceptical, embracing a more cautious style of metaphysics based on realism, common sense and science. Other philosophers, notably George Berkeley were led from empiricism to idealistic metaphysics.
Kant
Immanuel Kant attempted a grand synthesis and revision of the trends already mentioned: scholastic philosophy, systematic metaphysics, and skeptical empiricism, not to forget the burgeoning science of his day. Like the systems builders, he had an overarching framework in which all questions were to be addressed. Like Hume, who famously woke him from his 'dogmatic slumbers', he was suspicious of metaphysical speculation, and also places much emphasis on the limitations of the human mind. Kant saw rationalist philosophers as aiming for a kind of metaphysical knowledge he defined as the synthetic apriori that is knowledge that does not come from the senses (it is a priori) but is nonetheless about reality (synthetic). Inasmuch as it is about reality, it is unlike abstract mathematical propositions (which he terms analytical apriori), and being apriori it is distinct from empirical, scientific knowledge (which he terms synthetic aposteriori). The only synthetic apriori knowledge we can have is of how our minds organise the data of the senses; that organising framework is space and time, which for Kant have no mind-independent existence, but nonetheless operate uniformly in all humans. Apriori knowledge of space and time is all that remains of metaphysics as traditionally conceived. There is a reality beyond sensory data or phenomena, which he calls the realm of noumena; however, we cannot know it as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us. He allows himself to speculate that the origins of God, morality, and free will might exist in the noumenal realm, but these possibilities have to be set against its basic unknowability for humans. Although he saw himself as having disposed of metaphysics, in a sense, he has generally been regarded in retrospect as having a metaphysics of his own. 19th Century philosophy was overwhelmingly influenced by Kant and his successors. Schopenhauer, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel all purveyed their own panoramic versions of German Idealism, Kant's own caution about metaphysical speculation, and refutation of idealism, having fallen by the wayside. The idealistic impulse continued into the early 20th century with British idealists such as F. H. Bradley and J. M. E. McTaggart.
Followers of Karl Marx took Hegel's dialectic view of history and re-fashioned it as materialism.
Continental philosophy
The forces that shaped analytical philosophy the break with idealism, and the influence of science were much less significant outside the English speaking world, although there was a shared turn toward language. Continental philosophy continued in a trajectory from post Kantianism. The phenomenology of Husserl and others was intended as a collaborative project for the investigation of the features and structure of consciousness common to all humans, in line with Kant's basing his synthetic apriori on the uniform operation of consciousness. It was officially neutral with regards to ontology, but was nonetheless to spawn a number of metaphysical systems. Brentano's concept of intentionality would become widely influential, including on analytical philosophy. Heidegger, author of Being and Time, saw himself as re-focusing on Being-qua-being, introducing the novel concept of Dasein in the process. Classing himself an existentialist, Sartre wrote an extensive study of "Being and Nothingness. The speculative realism movement marks a return to full blooded realism.
Among the developments that led to the revival of metaphysical theorizing were Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, which was generally taken to undermine Carnap's distinction between existence questions internal to a framework and those external to it.[18] The philosophy of fiction, the problem of empty names, and the debate over existence's status as a property have all risen out of relative obscurity to become central concerns, while perennial issues such as free will, possible worlds, and the philosophy of time have had new life breathed into them.[19][20]
Rejections of metaphysics
A number of individuals have suggested that much of metaphysics should be rejected. In the 18th century, David Hume took an extreme position, arguing that all genuine knowledge involves either mathematics or matters of fact and that metaphysics, which goes beyond these, is worthless. He concludes his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding with the statement: If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.[21] In the 1930s, A. J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap endorsed Hume's position; Carnap quoted the passage above.[22] They argued that metaphysical statements are neither true nor false but meaningless since, according to their verifiability theory of meaning, a statement is meaningful only if there can be empirical evidence for or against it. Thus, while Ayer rejected the monism of Spinoza, noted above, he avoided a commitment to pluralism, the contrary position, by holding both views to be without meaning.[23] Carnap took a similar line with the controversy over the reality of the external world.[24] 33 years after Hume's Enquiry appeared, Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason. Though he followed Hume in rejecting much of previous metaphysics, he argued that there was still room for some synthetic a priori knowledge, concerned with matters of fact yet obtainable independent of experience. These included fundamental structures of space, time, and causality. He also argued for the freedom of the will and the existence of "things in themselves", the ultimate (but unknowable) objects of experience.
Metaphysics in science
Much recent work has been devoted to analyzing the role of metaphysics in scientific theorizing. Alexandre Koyr led this movement, declaring in his book Metaphysics and Measurement, "It is not by following experiment, but by outstripping experiment, that the scientific mind makes progress."[25] Imre Lakatos maintained that all scientific theories have a metaphysical "hard core" essential for the generation of hypotheses and theoretical assumptions.[26] Thus, according to Lakatos, "scientific changes are connected with vast cataclysmic metaphysical revolutions."[27]
An example from biology of Lakatos' thesis: David Hull has argued that changes in the ontological status of the species concept have been central in the development of biological thought from Aristotle through Cuvier, Lamarck, and Darwin. Darwin's ignorance of metaphysics made it more difficult for him to respond to his critics because he could not readily grasp the ways in which their underlying metaphysical views differed from his own.[28] In physics, new metaphysical ideas have arisen in connection with quantum mechanics, where subatomic particles arguably do not have the same sort of individuality as the particulars with which philosophy has traditionally been concerned.[29] Also, adherence to a deterministic metaphysics in the face of the challenge posed by the quantum-mechanical uncertainty principle led physicists like Albert Einstein to propose alternative theories that retained determinism.[30] In chemistry, Gilbert Newton Lewis addressed the nature of motion, arguing that an electron should not be said to move when it has none of the properties of motion.[31] Katherine Hawley notes that the metaphysics even of a widely accepted scientific theory may be challenged if it can be argued that the metaphysical presuppositions of the theory make no contribution to its predictive success.[32]
See also
Philosophy portal
Afterlife Alchemy Concerning existence of material things, and real distinction between mind and body (Descartes) Epistemology Essence Logic Metaphilosophy Metaethics Mindbody problem Nihilism Ontology Parapsychology Personal identity Philosophical logic Philosophical realism Philosophical theology Philosophy of Mathematics Philosophy of physics Pluralism (philosophy of mind) Substance theory Time travel
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
19. ^ Everett, Anthony and Thomas Hofweber (eds.) (2000), Empty Names, Fiction and the Puzzles of Non-Existence. 20. ^ Van Inwagen, Peter, and Dean Zimmerman (eds.) (1998), Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 21. ^ Hume, David (1748). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 132. 22. ^ Carnap, Rudolf (1935) (excerpt), Philosophy and Logical Syntax, retrieved September 2, 2012 23. ^ Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, Truth and Logic. Victor Gollantz. p. 22. 24. ^ Carnap, Rudolf (1928). Der Logische Aufbau der Welt. Trans. 1967 by Rolf A. George as The Logical Structure of the World. University of California Press. pp. 333f. ISBN 0-520-01417-0. 25. ^ Koyr, Alexandre (1968). Metaphysics and Measurement. Harvard University Press. p. 80. 26. ^ Brekke, John S. (1986). "Scientific Imperatives in Social Work Research: Pluralism Is Not Skepticism". Social Service Review 60 (4): 538554. 27. ^ Lakatos, Imre (1970). "Science: reason or religion". Section 1 of "Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programs" in Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52107826-1. 28. ^ Hull, David (1967). "The Metaphysics of Evolution". British Journal for the History of Science 3 (4): 309337. 29. ^ Arenhart, Jonas R. B. (2012). "Ontological frameworks for scientific theories". Foundations of Science 17 (4). doi:10.1007/s10699-012-9288-5. 30. ^ Hawking, Stephen (1999). "Does God play dice?". Retrieved September 2, 2012. 31. ^ Rodebush, Worth H. (1929). "The electron theory of valence". Chemical Reviews (American Chemical Society) 5 (4): 509531. doi:10.1021/cr60020a007. 32. ^ Hawley, Katherine (2006). "Science as a Guide to Metaphysics?". Synthese (Springer Netherlands) 149 (3): 451470. doi:10.1007/s11229-005-0569-1. ISSN 0039-7857.
Bibliography
Assiter, Alison (2009). Kierkegaard, metaphysics and political theory unfinished selves. London New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 9780826498311. 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. Gay, Peter. (1966). The Enlightenment: An Interpretation (2 vols.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 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. Le Poidevin R. & al. Ed. (2009). The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics. New York, Routledge. Werner Heisenberg (1958), Atomic Physics and Causal Law, from The Physicist's Conception of Nature
External links
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica article Metaphysics. Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Metaphysics
Metaphysics at PhilPapers Metaphysics at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project Metaphysics entry by Peter van Inwagen in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Aristotle's Metaphysics trans. by W. D. Ross Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Mirrored at eBooks@Adelaide Aristotle's Metaphysics trans. by Hugh Tredennick (HTML at Perseus) E-text (The Norman Kemp Smith translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason)