Metaphysics

We explain what metaphysics is and what this branch of philosophy consists of. In addition, its characteristics and some scholars in this area.

Metaphysics - Aristotle
Metaphysics studies nature, reality and its laws and components.

What is metaphysics?

Metaphysics is a philosophical discipline that studies being and not being. Furthermore, it is one of the oldest branches of philosophy, which in its beginnings did not distinguish one branch from the other.

The metaphysical question par excellence is: “Why is there being and not nothing?”.

From Parmenides to contemporary philosophy, philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger dedicated themselves to metaphysics.

As the origin of philosophy, metaphysics can be divided into different branches, called “special metaphysics.” Some of these branches are ontology, which studies being, theology, which studies the concept of God or the supreme being, and meontology, which studies non-being.

The word metaphysics comes from the Greek tà metà tà physikà which is what is after physics or “beyond nature.”

Etymology and definitions of metaphysics

Andronicus of Rhodes used the term “metaphysics” to categorize Aristotle's works that dealt with the question of being: according to his bibliographic classification criteria, he ordered them after the treatises related to physics.

At work Metaphysics Different definitions of metaphysics appear, which can be grouped into five main ideas:

  1. metaphysics is “the knowledge (the episteme) that deals with the entity as an entity and that which dominates the entity as it constitutes its foundation.”. This is the idea of ​​metaphysics as that which studies being as what characterizes the entity.
  2. metaphysics is “the prote philosophia“, the first philosophy. This is the idea of ​​metaphysics as that which is the first philosophy and stands above the rest.
  3. metaphysics is “the episteme “which deals with first principles and first causes”. This is the idea of ​​metaphysics as that which studies the fundamental principles and causes of everything that exists.
  4. metaphysics is “the sophia (wisdom). This is the idea of ​​metaphysics as that which is studied by the wise man, who knows the first principles and the first causes of all that is.
  5. metaphysics is episteme theologiké (theological knowledge)”. This is the idea that metaphysics is that which deals with the divine, which is the Greek concept of to theion.

These definitions were taken up by Kant to talk about the disciplinary scheme of metaphysics. This scheme divides the study topics into two large groups:

  • ontology (general metaphysics);
  • special metaphysics (regional ontologies, which study a certain area of ​​the study of being). For Kant, special metaphysics are subdivided into three:
    • rational psychology, which studies the subject of the soul;
    • rational cosmology, which studies the subject of the world;
    • rational theology, which studies the topic of God.

Structure of metaphysics

Metaphysics can be thought of as a science that responds to a certain structure. In this case, it responds to the structure arkhicwhich means “of the foundation” or “of the origin.”

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For Aristotle, the arkhe It is that which is at the origin of all that is and, as such, it governs everything that is by being the foundation of being, of becoming (idea of ​​cause) and of knowing (as the principle of knowledge).

Thus, metaphysical systems can be thought of in terms of a relationship that exists between:

  • The notion of arkhe as a foundation.
  • The notion of telos as the purpose towards which the actions of private life tend.
  • The notion of principium princeps as the foundation of the actions of public or political life.
  • The notion of nomos as the order of the elements of economic life.

This idea of ​​metaphysics as a structure arkhic was criticized by Nietzsche, who raised the idea of ​​monotonotheism: a history of metaphysics dominated by God as a principle arkhica God who is always the same, is the same, the immutable and the absolute.

Major scholars of metaphysics

Epistemology - Knowledge - Plato
Plato was one of the philosophers who studied metaphysics.

Almost all philosophers, from Antiquity to the present day, dedicated themselves to a greater or lesser extent to metaphysics. Among the most important are the following:

  • Parmenides of Elea (VI-V century BC). He was the first to speak of being and beings in an abstract way.
  • Socrates (470-399 BC). He was the one who worked on the idea of ​​a logos or final reason to explain what makes one thing that thing and not another.
  • Plato (427-347 BC). He was the one who formulated the theory of ideas to explain how the logos Socratic responded to an intelligible idea.
  • Aristotle (384-322 BC). Although he never used the word “metaphysics,” he was the one who formulated a systematic theory for being, beings, causes, and first principles.
  • Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). He was the one who wrote down the ontological argument that rationally justifies the existence of God.
  • Thomas Aquinas (1224-1225). He was the one who systematized scholastic teaching and reintroduced Aristotle to the metaphysical studies of the time.
  • Rene Descartes (1596-1650)). He was one of the most important metaphysical philosophers of the Modern Age and theorized about thinking substance and extended substance.
  • Christian Wolff (1679-1754). He was the one who proposed the classification of metaphysics into philosophy of nature, philosophy of man and natural theology.
  • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). He was the one who gave a Copernican twist to metaphysics by writing the Critique of pure reason and reinterpret it as an empirical-rational epistemology.
  • Georg W.F. Hegel (1770-1831). He was the one who developed German idealism and proposed the idea of ​​the Spirit as the absolute.
  • Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). He was the one who spoke of the “fulfillment of metaphysics” and returned, when the question about its meaning was already being asked, the importance they had in Antiquity.
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References

  • Bergson, H., & Moreno, R. (1960). Introduction to metaphysics. National Autonomous University of Mexico.
  • Heidegger, M., Zubiri, X., & Paci, E. (2003). What is metaphysics?. Renaissance.
  • Heidegger, M. (2012). Kant and the problem of metaphysics. Economic culture background.
  • Heidegger, M. (1969). What is metaphysics?. Duas Cities.
  • Grondin, J. (2014). Introduction to metaphysics. Herder Editorial.
  • Álvarez, Á. G. (1951). Introduction to metaphysics. National University of Cuyo.