The metaphysical is a branch of the Philosophie which studies the principles of reality beyond those of any particular science. It has also as an aim to explain the ultimate nature of the to be and the Monde.

The ontology is an important branch of metaphysics; she studies the types of things that there is in the world and which relations these things maintain the ones with the others. The metaphysician also tries to clarify the concepts by which people include/understand the world; the Existence, the Object, the Property (of a thing), the existence of God, the Space, the Time, the Causality, the Possibility.

Before the development of modern sciences, the Philosophie of nature was a branch of metaphysics; study objectifies physical Nature and principles. With the introduction of the empirical and experimental steps, this branch was called “Science” as from the 18th century, in order to distinguish it from the speculative interrogations concerning the nonphysical subjects.

Introduction

Etymology

Étymologiquement, the word is composed of φυσικά physiká , “nature” and its study, the “physical ”; and of a Greek preposition μετά metá with the so vague direction since it can mean: “in the medium, among, with, enters, afterwards”. These is the latter direction which explains the appearance of the mot.

Since I er the collection of the writings of Aristote (-384, -322) worked out by Andronicos of Rhodos separated the books phusikè achroasis (Lessons of '' Physique ''), on nature, and those which came after , meta your phusika , the Métaphysique. Posterior Greek philosophy did not always retain this discipline, the Stoïcisme thus divided the Logique, the ethical and the Physique.

But the scholastic Médiéval E forged the term by the use, giving the direction of “ across the physics” under which one recognizes from now on metaphysics.

The object of metaphysics

It is very delicate to want to define metaphysics because historically this term could cover with the very varied problems and questions.

By metaphysics one understands the study of the fundamental questions the such question concerning the immortality of the heart, the existence of God, the reasons of the existence of the Evil or the direction of the life.

But more specifically by metaphysics one understands also the study “to be it as being” to begin again celebrates it formula of Aristote i.e. of the study of (Substance). This discipline is called the ontology.

See also: Ontology (philosophy)

Some examples of metaphysics questions:

Key questions of metaphysics

The majority of the standpoint which can be adopted taking into consideration following question are taken into account by one or the other of the principal philosophers.

It is often difficult to tally the questions in a not discussed way.

the heart

The two the most important metaphysics questions concerning the heart relate to the nature of the relation between the heart and the spirit and in addition the immortality of the heart.

The problem of the relationship between the body and the spirit

See also: Philosophy of the spirit, Problem body-spirit

There are other types of very different problems in metaphysics. The apple is a type of thing; now if Sophie is in the part, and that we say that Sophie has a Esprit, we surely will say that the spirit of Sophie is a type of thing different from apple (so at least it is a type of thing ). It could say that its spirit is immaterial, but the apple is a material object (although there is much dissension among the philosophers on the metaphysical statute of the Esprit S. Moreover, that seems a little strange to say that the spirit of Sophie is located in a particular place ; perhaps could one say that it is some share in the part; but the apple is located obviously in a particular place, namely in the middle of the table. That seems clear that the Esprit S are basically different from the physical bodies. But if it is the case, how can something of mental, like a decision to eat, it cause a physical event, like crunching apple? How the things without Cerveau can't make mental operations, like making decisions or to have feelings? How the spirit and the body are inter-connected from a causal point of view if there are two completely different types of things? This is called the Problème body-spirit, which constitutes today the clean object of a under-discipline of philosophy called Philosophie of the spirit. The problem body-spirit is sometimes still regarded as part of metaphysics; however, perhaps the true problem pertaining to this branch is it that of the Conscience. No discipline was still able to completely explain what is the conscience and how it functions, although it seems clear that requires a certain activity of the Cerveau.

The question of the immortality of the heart

Since the Phédon of Plato the question of the immortality of the heart is one of the most important objects of metaphysics. The two fundamental theses which are opposed on this question are respectively the materialists (like Épicure) and the spiritualistic. Proof of the immortality (Plato) of the heart what is simple (nondecomposable) can be seized only by something of simple. However the idea (within the meaning of Plato) is simple (for example the idea of the triangle is simple; I seized what is the triangle in only one operation of the spirit). What is seized, the idea, it is the reason (it is not imagination, nor the directions). The reason is simple because it cannot break up; it is always the same one. Thus the reason (or the heart) is immortal.

See also: Life after death

God

This problem arises at the time of the research of the principles or causes which are at the origin of the man, of his own existence - “I am, therefore it east” could say the man -, but also bearing on Nature. Thus one seeks the cause of a Creator first, of an omnipotent architect, responsible for all the beings on Earth, but also for the gasolines which compose them. However certain philosophers deny the existence of this god, not in the direction of a religion but in the direction of an origin from which rise plurality from the beings, and them causes which caused their existence. Others, affirm the existence of God, like Descartes, which, in the Meditations Metaphysics, after having confirmed its existence, thanks to the doubt, concludes with the existence from God. So it implements a methodical argumentation (order of the reasons) where it presents the following idea: God, which is creator of all things, of gasolines same, of beings and of étants, of which knowledge, the knowledge, would be unlimited and even inconceivable for the human reason which is limited, exists simple fact that it has origin in my spirit, or reason, the idea even of its possible existence. Moreover, there exists at Descartes a hierarchy of the ideas, oú the cause of something must be more perfect than than it origin. Therefore, our idea of God, still imperfect and limited, watch although itself is owner of an infinite perfection. In addition, the Cartesian theory of the eternal truths is based on the fact that God is creator of absolutely all things, including the truths of nature, the physical and material causes of the world, the gasolines of the animated or inanimate beings, the universal order.

freedom

The question of freedom can be regarded as a metaphysical question par excellence insofar as it relates to the statute of the Homme within the Nature. Freedom indeed qualifies the relation of the man as an agent and the world Physique, relation in particular considered in his report/ratio with a supposed or real determinism. This question thus relates to particularly the immanence and the transcendence of the human will compared to the world.

Freedom is opposed in general (it is thus not always the case) to the Déterminisme, the Fatalisme and any doctrines which support the thesis of the need for becoming. The concept of freedom very schematically divides the philosophers into two camps: those which make of it the base of the action and morals human (Épicure, Descartes, Kant), and those which deny any transcendence of the will compared to determinisms such as the sensitivity (Démocrite, Spinoza, Nietzsche):

“There existed two opinions on which the former philosophers divided themselves, ones thinking that all occurs by the destiny, so that this destiny brought the force of the need (Démocrite, Héraclite, Empédocle, Aristote were of this opinion), the others for which the voluntary movements of the heart existed without any intervention of the destiny; Chrysippe, in position of semi-official referee, appears me to have chosen the intermediate position; but it is attached rather to those which want to see the movements of the heart released from the need. ” (Cicéron, Of the destiny, §39).

One would tell today that there is an opposition between physicalism and mentalism, to i.e between the physical Causalité (physicalism) to which all the beings can be reduced and the mental causality (mentalism), which can be a theory materialist, while recognizing a clean action of the mental one. In the first case, it is a question of explaining how one can naturalize the Volonté, without renewing a traditional Dualisme metaphysical, and how it is still possible to speak about action and responsibility, whereas one removed the condition of it; in the second case, it is rather a question of explaining how a mental causality is possible which avoids also this dualism often difficult to make understandable. One of the most interesting points that clarifies thus this opposition, it is the character often difficult to determine concept of freedom.

Space and time

In this direction, physics and metaphysics are not so distant one from the other. On a side, science rests on a faith , on presupposed metaphysics (as Nietzsche affirms it); and other side, “ science creates philosophy ” (dixit Gaston Bachelard). It is interesting, moreover, to note the very direct impact of the Einsteinian revolution on metaphysics, that whose one finds an example significant through the work of Alfred North Whitehead, in particular its “Test of Cosmology”, Procès and Réalité - it with what one could add that it is not about an exception, since all the revolutions in physics (that they are those initiated by Galileo or Isaac Newton) had consequences on the metaphysical thought.

Need and possibility

The metaphysicians study questions about what the world could have been. David Lewis, in “On the plurality of the worlds”, adopted a point of view called modal concrete realism , according to which the things could have become true in other concrete worlds, as in ours where the things are different.

Other philosophers, as Gottfried Leibniz treated idea of possible worlds too. The idea of need is that done everything necessary is true through all the possible worlds; i.e., that we cannot imagine that it is differently. A possible fact is a fact which is true in a possible world, even if it is not it in the current world. For example, it would have been possible that certain categories of apples did not exist. On the contrary, certain truths seem necessary, like the analytical truths, e.g. “all the graduates are unmarried. ” The example of the need for an analytical truth is not universally accepted among the philosophers. A point of view less discussed could be than the car-identity is necessary, owing to the fact that it seems basically incoherent to affirm that for all X , it is not identical to itself.

History of metaphysics

See also: History of metaphysics

Metaphysics knew the many ones and important transformations during its history. One in general breaks up the history of metaphysics into four periods:

• ancient metaphysics, with Aristote, taking as a starting point the ontology of Parménide,
• medieval metaphysics, heiress of ancient metaphysics, with the Scholastic founded by Pierre Abélard and developed by Thomas d' Aquin,
• the “modern” metaphysics, which put the metaphysics questions at the center of the philosophical debate, with varied and sometimes contradictory positions: Descartes, in reaction to the lawsuit of Galileo, was opposed to the Scolastique and defines a metaphysics as base of all the philosphie and of sciences, some encased to him the step (Malebranche), others had more moderated positions (Spinoza, Leibniz…), or criticized it (Hume,
• contemporary metaphysics saw various currents: Kant tried refonder metaphysics, the Positivisme (Auguste Count, Cercle of Vienna) and the Idéologie S denied it, while resurgences occurred (Phénoménologie with Heidegger, Spiritualisme French with Louis Lavelle, Jacques Maritain, analytical philosophy).

Outstanding Metaphysicians

Let us recall that the Greek philosopher Parménide is at the origin of the concept of Être as Être.

Aristote (384 av. J-C., 322 av. J-C.) is at the origin of the concept of substance , and was interested in physics, metaphysics (in current language), with the Logique, the ethical , the Politique, the language.

One finds below a list by chronological order of outstanding metaphysicians with their place or their contribution in philosophy:

Metaphysics in other civilizations

See also: Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy

But this term of Greek origin is obviously not reserved for the western world: one can apply it, with some important nuances, with almost all great Eastern civilizations: the Védanta in India, the writings Taoïstes in China are “metaphysics as much” though the methods of approach are different from those of the graeco-latin and Christian world.

For example, in the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, song XI shows Arjuna contemplating the omniform one:

“And how, O great person, they would not be inclined in front of you, worthier than Brahmâ itself, you it directing paramount? O Infinite lord of the gods, you who make universe your residence, you are the imperishable one, the Being and Not To be and what is beyond. ”

In CAT-you-king of Lao-tseu

"The way which could be a way

is not the eternal way.

the name which could name it

is not a name eternal.

Without name, it is the beginning of the sky and the ground.

Having a name, it is the mother of thousands of êtres."

The philosopher Nāgārjuna exposes in the Mulamadhyamakakarika the Buddhist doctrines of the Vacuité, which from the point of view of Western philosophy is a ontological Scepticisme:

“If the Being is not, of what the non-being is the negation? ”

Quotations

• “metaphysical nausea makes us hoqueter why. ” Jean Rostand biologist (1894-1977).

• “a big challenge which arises to us at the end of this millenium is to know to achieve the passage, as necessary as urgent, of the phenomenon to the base. It is not possible to stop with the only experiment; even when this one expresses and proclamation the interiority of the man and his spirituality, it is necessary that the speculative reflection reaches the spiritual Substance and the base on which it rests. A philosophical thought which would refuse any metaphysical opening would be thus radically inadequate to fulfill a function of mediation in the intelligence of the Révélation. ” Jean-Paul II, Encyclical Fides and Ratio of September 14th 1998

• “ Subtlety in the shortage. - especially Keep you to make fun you of the mythology of the Greeks, under pretext which it resembles if little your deep metaphysics! You should admire people which, in this particular case, imposed a stop on his rigorous intelligence and which had a long time enough tact to escape the danger from the scholastic and the sophistical superstition. ” Nietzsche, Dawn §85

• “If physics deals with dialectiquer natural nature/, metaphysics, it, confronts the natural man/” (Simon Chenier)

• “It thus should be said that the adequate object of this metaphysical science is being as being real to it” (Francisco Suarez, Disputationes metaphysicae , I; 1)

• “One names metaphysical what exceeds the nature and which is beyond causality and of the language” (Errenios)

• “God is not prone in metaphysics it has there only one science in connection with God like first subject, which is not metaphysics” it [[theology]] (Duns Scot, Reportata parensiensa )

• “In metaphysics, the philosopher determines together being common to it and the first being, which is separated from the matter. ” (Thomas d' Aquin, In generatione E corruptione )
• “metaphysics has that of good which she does not ask of the quite awkward preliminary studies: it is there that one can all know without nothing to have learned” (Voltaire)
• “a philosopher is not philosophical if he is not metaphysician; and it is the intuition to be it which makes the metaphysician” (Maritain)
• “metaphysics rests on a privileged experiment which is that of the act which makes me be” (Lavelle)
• “biology… (is science) which tries to go most directly in the middle of the problems that it is necessary to have solved before only being able to pose that of the “human nature” in terms other than metaphysics. ” Jacques Monod (1910-1976) Nobel Prize 1965 of medicine (biology.)
• “In metaphysics nothing is sure, except the migraine which is the price”. Schopenhauer, in on the religion.

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