Talk:Introduction to Philosophy/What is Metaphysics

Hey! Thanks for adding on!

Michael J. Burns

"Meta" in Metaphysics
Michael, I believe this passage has to be corrected:

"Early use of the term simply referred to the topics covered by the work placed before (hence meta) the Physics in the traditional ordering of Aristotle's works."

"meta" in this sense means the opposite, that is, it means: "after". Please read this:

"The philosopher and editor Andronicus of Rhodes gave this title to Aristotle's writings that came after the Physics in his collected works."

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20000321

Thank you.

That's an interesting definition of metaphysics and definitely one I'll consider. I am not sure if I would go with it however. Perhaps you could add some reference to the concept of "reality" which is the way I have most often seen metaphysics defined.

I've always thought that the difference between science (physics) and metaphysics was that with science only phenomena are explained - and, to the extent that this is possible, phenomena are explained always in terms of simpler phenomena, with the minimal use of concepts that to not correspond to some simpler form of sense-data (science still has problems with some concepts that are are not quite sensible e.g. time)

Metaphysics on the other hand deals with reality - the reality that underlies the phenomena, the reality that is not knowable directly. Metaphysical theories then are necessarily speculative and are, for the agnostic, impossible to verify or judge (this does not imply they are of no value - they can be explored as interesting fictions for example)

My explanation is not better than your own, but perhaps you could incorporate a little of the above into your explanation.

The problem is that there is no one definition of the term that is universally acceptable, I think.

Best of luck,

Paul Barry

Metaphysics/Physics Distinction
I am not an editor of Wikipedia but I was reading the article and the line

The statement that "Evil does not exist" is metaphysical because it is a statement that deals with the object 'evil' as opposed to 'good' which is a metaphysical subject, whereas the statement that "all things are composed of smaller things, which are in turn composed of still smaller things, and so on down to infinity" is definitely not metaphysics, utmost a concern of physical sciences.

caused me some concern. Though mathematical infinity exists, there is 'no way to prove that infinity exists physically'. That means that if you look deeper into a cell and find atoms, and then collide small electrons with atoms to find quarks and smaller particles, you will be able to detect these subatomic particles in a magnetic field in a particle accelerator. Though physical science has accepted that idea that even these particles can be theoretically broken down into even smaller particles, this hypothesis cannot be tested and thus cannot be considered "physics". Therefore I would argue that your statement is in the realm of metaphysics and not physics.

- Evan (emg39@cornell.edu) 5/23/2006

Huh?
This module uses a very strange (and confusing) use of "metaphysics". It's not "beyond physics", it's "about physics". For example, a discussion of how the 7 (I think it's 7 now) forces of physics work is a discussion of physics, while the statement "all physical objects obey a finite number of physical laws" is a metaphysical statement. IOW, physics is about the what and how, metaphysics is about the why (or perhaps the who, when mixed with theology). -- SB_Johnny | talk 03:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You're correct. But the original use of "meta" didn't have a philosophical meaning.  It simply pointed to the bibliographic sequence Andronicus of Rhodes established, that is, the metaphysical books were put AFTER the physical-nature books. Centuries passed and the European philosophers took the word in a post-Neo-Platonic way. Speaking circularly, they metaphysically interpreted the word "metaphysical" and Andronicus intentions. 201.19.217.19 14:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)