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Definition: metaphysics from Philip's Encyclopedia

Branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of reality and with the nature of the universe. Metaphysics divides into ontology, the study of the essence of being, and cosmology, the study of the structure of the universe. Leading metaphysical thinkers include Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and A.N. Whitehead.

metaphysics

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(mĕtӘfĭz'ĭks), branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of existence. It perpetuates the Metaphysics of Aristotle, a collection of treatises placed after the Physics [Gr. metaphysics =after physics ] and treating what Aristotle called the First Philosophy. The principal area of metaphysical speculation is generally called ontology and is the study of the ultimate nature of being. However, philosophical theology and cosmology are also usually considered branches of metaphysics. In the history of philosophy there have been many great metaphysical systems. One of the most carefully constructed systems is that of the scholastic philosophy (see scholasticism ), which essentially is based on Aristotle's metaphysical system. In the 17th cent. the great rationalistic systems of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Nicolas Malebranche, and G. W. von Leibniz were developed. They were followed in the 18th cent. by Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy, which demonstrated the impossibility…
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Full text Article Metaphysics

From Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
Metaphysics aims to determine the basic nature of entities, states, properties, and events. A meta-physics of cognition will specify the logical relationship between mental and physical entities, and will account for the representational power of brain states. There are several longstanding…
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Full text Article metaphysics

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(mĕtӘfĭz'ĭks), branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of existence. It perpetuates the Metaphysics of Aristotle, a collection of treatises placed after the Physics [Gr. metaphysics =after physics ] and treating what Aristotle called the First Philosophy. The principal area of…
| 268 words
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Full text Article Metaphysics

From Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology
The adjective ‘metaphysical’ is in both religious and non-religious contexts often used loosely and in a broadly undefined way to signal a concern with certain points of reference – e.g., the divine, the supernatural, the noumenal, the incorporeal, the religiously visional, etc. – that are taken to…
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Full text Article Metaphysics

From The Classical Tradition
The most central discipline in philosophy, which investigates fundamental and general problems, such as the nature of being, substances and attributes, individuals and universals, identity, act and potency, and causation. The name ta meta ta physika was first used as the title for a group of…
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Full text Article METAPHYSICS

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English poet I walked on, musing with myself … whether, after all, A larger metaphysics might not help Our physics … Aurora Leigh Aurora Leigh C.S. Francis & Co. New York New York USA . 1857. English philosopher Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to…
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Full text Article METAPHYSICS

From Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms
‘Metaphysics’ has evolved into a term for the primordial science of ultimate matters, the systematic investigation of being and existence. It asks the unnerving questions: why is there anything rather than nothing? Why are there beings, rather than nothing? In ordinary language the term refers to…
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Full text Article metaphysics

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, oil on canvas by...
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.” In the…
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Full text Article metaphysics

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Branch of philosophy that deals with first principles, in particular ‘being’ (ontology) and ‘knowing’ ( epistemology ), and that is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality. It has been maintained that no certain knowledge of metaphysical questions is possible. Epistemology, or the study of how…
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Full text Article Metaphysics

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The branch of philosophy that deals with first principles. At various times the whole range of philosophical enquiry has been classed as metaphysics and the contrast between philosophy and science is comparatively modern. Jack: But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my name…
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Full text Article metaphysics

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
most generally, the philosophical investigation of the nature, constitution, and structure of reality. It is broader in scope than science, e.g. physics and even cosmology (the science of the nature, structure, and origin of the universe as a whole), since one of its traditional concerns is the…
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