There are two broad stances about what is "the world" studied by metaphysics. For example: claiming that "electrons have charge" is espousing a scientific theory while exploring what it means for electrons to be (or at least, to be perceived as) "objects", charge to be a "property", and for both to exist in a topological entity called "space," is the task of metaphysics. While metaphysics may, as a special case, study the entities postulated by fundamental science such as atoms and superstrings, its core topic is the set of categories such as object, property and causality which those scientific theories assume.
In mathematics, there are many different ways to define numbers similarly, in metaphysics, there are many different ways to define objects, properties, and Goals, for it to become concepts of its Nature, and other entities that are claimed to make up the world.
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Like foundational mathematics (which is sometimes considered a special case of metaphysics applied to the existence of number), it tries to give a coherent account of the structure of the world, capable of explaining our everyday and scientific perception of the world, and being free from contradictions. Metaphysical study is conducted using deduction from that which is known a priori. ( October 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Rather, it is the subject which provides the vocabulary and logic with which such beliefs might be analyzed and studied, for example to search for inconsistencies both within themselves and with other accepted systems such as science. Metaphysics as a subject does not preclude beliefs in such magical entities but neither does it promote them. This usage stemmed from the various historical schools of speculative metaphysics which operated by postulating all manner of physical, mental and spiritual entities as bases for particular metaphysical systems. For example, "metaphysical healing" to refer to healing by means of remedies that are magical rather than scientific. Ĭommon parlance also uses the word metaphysics for a different referent from that of those already mentioned, namely for beliefs in arbitrary non-physical or magical entities. Ī person who creates or develops metaphysical theories is called a metaphysician. Following this tradition, the prefix meta- has more recently been prefixed to the names of sciences to designate higher sciences dealing with ulterior and more fundamental problems: hence metamathematics, metalinguistics, metaphysiology, etc. The term was misread by other medieval commentators, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical". For instance, Thomas Aquinas understood it 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". However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find other reasons for its appropriateness. 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 τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ βιβλία ( tà metà tà physikà biblía) or "the books after the physics". Aristotle himself did not call the subject of his books "metaphysics" he referred to it as " first philosophy" ( Greek: πρώτη φιλοσοφία Latin: philosophia prima). The prefix meta- ("after") indicates that these works come "after" the chapters on physics. 'after the Physics ' – another of Aristotle's works). It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, meta ta physika, lit. The word "metaphysics" derives from the Greek words μετά ( metá, "after") and φυσικά ( physiká, "physics").
Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions of: What is it that exists and What it is like. Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence are there. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.
Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality.
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