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I. Definition and Key Ideas. Metaphysics is the most abstract branch of philosophy. It’s the branch that deals with the “first principles” of existence, seeking to define basic concepts like existence, being, causality, substance, time, and space. Within metaphysics, one of the main sub-branches is ontology, or the study of being.
metaphysics, Branch of philosophy that studies the ultimate structure and constitution of reality—i.e., of that which is real, insofar as it is real. The term, which means literally “what comes after physics,” was used to refer to the treatise by Aristotle on what he himself called “first philosophy.”
Nov 7, 2023 · The branch of philosophy called metaphysics concerns itself with the nature of reality itself. It is in this branch that the fundamental questions of our existence and our universe reside. For example, is our perception of time real, or is it merely an illusion? Are there fundamental properties that all things that exist must have?
Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. His contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him.
Overview. Metaphysics. By. Craig, Edward. DOI. 10.4324/9780415249126-N095-1. Article Summary. Metaphysics is a broad area of philosophy marked out by two types of inquiry.
Metaphysics is taken by Thomas Aquinas to be the study of being qua being, that is, a study of the most fundamental aspects of being that constitute a being and without which it could not be. Aquinas’s metaphysical thought follows a modified but general Aristotelian view.
The word “metaphysics” sometimes is used to describe questions or doctrines that are a priori, that is, that purport to concern what transcends experience, and particularly sense-experience.
