Metaphysics 101

Metaphysics is a type of philosophy or study that uses broad concepts to help define reality and our understanding of it. Metaphysics includes the study of the nature of the human mind, the definition and meaning of existence, or the nature of space, time, and/or causality.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of existence, being and the world. Arguably, metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy: Aristotle calls it “first philosophy” (or sometimes just “wisdom”), and says it is the subject that deals with “first causes and the principles of things“.

It asks questions like: “What is the nature of reality?”, “How does the world exist, and what is its origin or source of creation?”, “Does the world exist outside the mind?”, “How can the incorporeal mind affect the physical body?”, “If things exist, what is their objective nature?”, “Is there a God (or many gods, or no god at all)?”

Originally, the Greek word “metaphysika” (literally “after physics”) merely indicated that part of Aristotle’s oeuvre which came, in its sequence, after those chapters which dealt with physics. Later, it was misinterpreted by Medieval commentators on the classical texts as that which is above or beyond the physical, and so over time metaphysics has effectively become the study of that which transcends physics.

Aristotle originally split his metaphysics into three main sections and these remain the main branches of metaphysics:

• Ontology (the study of being and existence, including the definition and classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of change)
• Natural Theology (the study of God, including the nature of religion and the world, existence of the divine, questions about the creation, and the various other religious or spiritual issues)
• Universal Science (the study of first principles of logic and reasoning, such as the law of noncontradiction)