Introduction to Metaphysics

introduction to metaphysics the philosopher Immanuel Kant once referred to metaphysics as a bottomless abyss and a dark ocean without a shore while the American philosopher William James called it nothing but an unusually obstinate way to think clearly in this lecture we are going to provide an introduction to metaphysics to do so we will look at the history of the discipline examine its subject matter and discuss the 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's influential views on metaphysics metaphysics is a branch of philosophy whose roots stretch back to the time of the ancient Greeks approximately 2500 years ago along with ethics epistemology and logic metaphysics is considered one of the main branches of philosophy while there is no agreed-upon definition of metaphysics it is often described as the discipline which is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality however to those not familiar with metaphysics such a definition will prove rather vague so in order to better grasp its subject matter it will be helpful to examine the history of the discipline a few hundred years following his death around the first century BC Aristotle's works were being published in the ancient city of Alexandria one of the works published was given the title metaphysics which literally means after the physics this title was not meant to reflect the content of the treatise as Aristotle had referred to the subject-matter of it as first philosophy or theology rather it was given this title because it had followed or come after the publication of a treatise by Aristotle titled physics however due to Aristotle's immense influence the word metaphysics soon evolved from merely being the title of one of his books to becoming the name of an entire philosophical discipline while Aristotle's work covered a wide array of topics there are two underlying themes to it which many have pointed to as constituting the essence of metaphysics the first of these themes is the study of first causes or in other words that which does not change and from which emanates the things in this world we experience the interest in first causes is why God has been a prominent topic of metaphysics throughout history the second theme is the study of being or existence in which Aristotle attempted to identify and delineate the fundamental categories of being the study of being is simply the study of that which is or that which exists while Aristotle's conception of metaphysics continues to be influential up to the present day the discipline did see some important developments in the 17th and 18th centuries during this time a group of philosophers known as the Continental rationalists began to distinguish between what they called general metaphysics and special metaphysics general metaphysics or what they also referred to as ontology is the study of being or existence and is in line with Aristotle's conception of metaphysics special metaphysics on the other hand was divided into three disciplines cosmology rational psychology and natural theology however while general metaphysics was concerned with being at a broad fundamental level special metaphysics addressed more specific questions concerning existence topics addressed within special metaphysics included such things as immortality freedom of the will and the mind-body problem the interest with these more specific issues continues to the present day however the problems of general metaphysics or what is more commonly called ontology these days remains the most prominent area of metaphysics present-day ontology it should be noted are not generally concerned with what the concept of existence means rather they try to provide accounts or inventories of the things that do exist or in other words like Aristotle they are concerned with identifying the fundamental categories of being thus ontology will try to determine whether such things as properties numbers events relations souls material objects or universals exist and if they do what the characteristics of such things are the question of whether universals exists is one of the oldest questions of ontology and has been debated since the time of the ancient Greeks universals are things which can be instantiated or shared by different individual objects examples of universals include redness squareness and beauty obviously there are many different things which can be Red Square or beautiful but the question is whether the universals themselves have any sort of existence apart from the particular things they occupy along with these questions of ontology Mehta physicians today like the Continental rationalists also examine more specific questions topics addressed by contemporary Mehta physicians include the nature of time in space the mind-body problem causality what it means to be a person and the problem of freewill amongst others the philosopher Peter van wagon has put forth three questions which he believes encapsulate the subject matter of contemporary metaphysics what are the most general features of the world and what sorts of things does it contain what is the world like why does the world exist and more specifically why is there a world having the features and the content described in the answer to question one what is our place in the world how do we human beings fit into it as should be now evident metaphysics deals with some very abstract questions questions which many philosophers metaphysicians amongst them believe may not even be answerable in fact the 19th century philosopher F H Bradley wrote somewhat humorously metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct Ludwig Wittgenstein one of the most influential philosophers of all time was also skeptical about the ability to answer metaphysical questions as he wrote most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical consequently we cannot give any answer to questions of this kind but can only establish that they are nonsensical they belong to the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful what did victim Stein who it should be noted is by no means the clearest of philosophers mean when he said that most philosophical propositions and questions are not false but rather nonsensical Katy fan provides an explanation in his excellent work victim Stein's conception of philosophy his point is simply this philosophical propositions are not false they do not miss state facts which could be correctly stated for they do not state or miss state any facts at all they merely look like propositions but are in reality not propositions in the strict sense the attempt to say something in the sense of stating propositions about what transcends the world the inexpressible results in nonsense in other words that can Stein did not believe that the questions posed by meta physicians could be answered with the use of language instead the problems of metaphysics according to him transcend the world or as VidCon Stein put it the solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time or alternatively there are indeed things that are inexpressible they show themselves they are what is mystical however it should be noted that even though Vidkun Stein did not believe that most of the problems of metaphysics could be answered he was not completely against the discipline in fact he was heavily influenced by the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who put forth one of the most elaborate and extensive metaphysical systems in the history of philosophy and to conclude this lecture we will provide a quote by Vidkun Stein which reveals his appreciation of metaphysics don't think I despise metaphysics or ridicule it on the contrary I regard the great metaphysical writings of the past as among the noblest productions of the human mind

Channel: Academy of Ideas

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Keywords: metaphysics, academy of ideas, ontology, being, existence, aristotle, wittgenstein, universals, philosophy, metaphysics explained, introduction to metaphysics, Intro

Id: qKq0Afmsj-U

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2013