BothAndBlog Forum

What’s your description of Metaphysics?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/880357

Metaphysics is the study of everything beyond what physics explains, that is a satisfying enough answer for many people, especially laymen. After all, when we talk about possibility, the modality of metaphysics encompasses the modality of physics. — Lionino


'Metaphysics', by my lights, is the study of that which is beyond the possibility of all experience, but is necessary to understand that experience. — Bob Ross

Those are good practical definitions of a term that is too often dismissed as religious superstitions.

Metaphysical prowling is a uniquely human endeavor. Presumably, few animals would waste their time thinking about thinking. But something in the nature of the human mind evokes not just feelings & experiences, but recursive reflections about those experiences. And it is that inward-aimed "eye" of Reason that allows us to "see" logical possibilities that are not yet actual & real --- "beyond what physics explains".

As a worldview, Metaphysics is the opposite of Materialism, which arbitrarily defines ideas, and ideas-about-ideas, as-if mere objects, whose value is only in feeding physical needs & motives. Metaphysics is not impersonal & objective, but selfish & subjective. Hence, the top tier of Maslow's hierarchy, self-actualization of personal potential, is inherently a meta-physical "fiction" that we tell ourselves to provide non-physical motivation. That "need" is self-understanding ; including the relationship of the Self to the non-self world. Not just to experience the world, but to "understand the experience".

Why do PF posters spend their valuable time fictionalizing reality, if not to feed those abstract high-level needs? Do we get a dopamine boost from writing a few bon mots that sometimes make us sound like grinning idiots? Or is there a higher motive --- more than the thrill of a greyhound chasing a fake rabbit --- that prompts us to stalk the unseen possibilities and unknown probabilities of mysteries, such as the physical or metaphysical underpinnings of Self-Awareness (Consciousness)? And to share that interpretation of universal principles with others who presumably have similar needs.

Metaphysical Prowling : careful intentional searching for intellectual sustenance

MASLOW'S PYRAMID OF HUMAN NECESSITIES
not just to maintain the body, but to feed the need for intellectual growth
maslow-needs3-1024x1024.jpg

Metaphysics can be fun speculation and because it’s an arena where there are no right or wrong answers simply because those answers are unable to be probed by science means that only good critical thinking need be applied to various metaphysical postulations insuring against logical inconsistencies. — kindred

Yes, Metaphysical speculation is "fun" for those who have time & inclination to explore the big questions that have haunted humanity for eons. It's like a game or puzzle or hobby or lifting weights that won't put food on the table, but will add muscle to the Mind. Science has appropriated the "easy" questions --- that have right or wrong answers --- and left the "hard" questions --- such as the evolutionary role of Consciousness --- to feckless philosophers.

Many modern scientists, and ironically TPF posters, dismiss such open-ended speculation as a fruitless waste of time. But that's because they are prejudiced by their pragmatic - reductive - particular - solemn Belief System*1, typically labeled Materialism, Physicalism, Immanentism, etc., which arbitrarily define tangible Matter as prior to intangible Mind*2. For those of us who take a more imaginative - inclusive - playful perspective, we may try to imagine the world as a complete integrated system of parts, which add-up to a whole that is more than the sum.

It's knowledge of that elusive "more" --- which Aristotle labeled "wisdom"*3 --- that distinguishes idealistic humans from pragmatic animals. Most animals are experts at the necessities of life for their species. But humans are generalists, whose concerns go beyond Self & Tribe & Species & Now to encompass the whole universe, and other times & places. Universal causes & principles can be applied to any problem, including both practical & theoretical issues. For humans, once our practical necessities are taken care of, we have the leisure to turn our attention to a quixotic pursuit of Principles, that govern all of reality, both Mind & Matter : Metaphysics.


*1. Metaphysical materialism is a philosophical approach that argues that all philosophical, emotional, mental, and conscious states are a result from the material/physical world. Therefore, everything can be explained by looking at matter or ''the real world.
https://homework.study.com/explanation/ ... alism.html
Note --- It's a faith, not a fact, that matter explains everything.
Philosophers seem to assume that "everything can be explained" by Universal Principles instead of Particular Objects.

*2. “Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.” “Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points concepts and truth and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.”
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosop ... sopher.htm

*3. Aristotle Metaphysics :
"Since we are investigating this kind of knowledge, we must consider what these causes and principles are whose knowledge is Wisdom." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 0086,025:1



PHYSICS vs METAPHYSICS = PART vs WHOLE
puzzle-piece-1.jpg

Hence, the top tier of Maslow's hierarchy, self-actualization of personal potential, is inherently a meta-physical "fiction" that we tell ourselves to provide non-physical motivation. That "need" is self-understanding ; including the relationship of the Self to the non-self world. Not just to experience the world, but to "understand the experience". — Gnomon
Or is it merely a shift in consciousness, in feeling, away from the neurotic need to understand, that leads to the deluded belief in the possibility of understanding, the relationship of the self to the non-self world in any way beyond, or more perfect than, the ordinary everyday? — Janus

Are you suggesting that metaphysical speculation is a mental illness similar to the hallucinations of psychosis? If so, how could we tell the difference between our hazy delusions and undiluted reality? Why not just accept the world as it is presented to our filtered awareness, without asking questions about True Reality? What difference does it make to psychotics, if their apparitions don't match those of the psychologist? Why not let the inmates run the asylum?

Perhaps posting on a forum can allow us to share & compare our personal delusions (speculations) with those of other loonies. Besides, how else can we gauge the progress of our "neurotic" need to actualize our personal potential? Do our pet animals feel a compulsion to climb above their subservient status, perhaps to reverse the master/pet relationship? Would it be an advantage to them to go beyond just experiencing whatever comes their way, in order to "understand the experience"? What's so important about broader understanding? Does it make the world any more predictable & controllable? Why not just go with the flow?

I'm closer to saying that there is no metaphysical speculation; it is rather metaphysical imagination. We speculate only about that which might later be confirmed or disconfirmed. Much of metaphysics consists in playing dialectically with language—what if such and such (such and such that is the dialectical opposite of what we actually encounter) is really the case. — Janus

I agree that much of modern linguistic discussion is like a "what if" word-game played with abstruse terminology that wouldn't mean much to us mere mortals. But I prefer to think of Metaphysics, as Aristotle did : the study of Nature in general, and of ourselves as imaginative beings. This is the essence of Philosophy, as the search for useful Wisdom --- attempting to gain an omniscient worldview.

Since modern Science took over most of the objective pragmatic study of physical Nature though, Philosophy was left with mostly navel-gazing subjective subject-matter : turning its focus inward to learn about the mysterious Self doing the looking. Unfortunately, that self-directed introspection opens us to the slippery-slope of spiraling like a moth around an imaginary Truth. But forums like this can reveal non-self perspectives on the inner world, that may help to pull us out of our spin.

What-if counter-factual games may reveal more about the player, than about the wider world.

PS___ My response above was tongue-in-cheek, because I suspected that your post was a tease. Hence the smilie.


Metaphysics, for Aristotle, was the study of nature and ourselves. In this sense he brings metaphysics to this world of sense experience–where we live, learn, know, think, and speak. Metaphysics is the study of being qua being, which is, first, the study of the different ways the word “be” can be used
https://open.library.okstate.edu/introp ... /__unknown__/

The statement was aimed at those - including some hereabouts on a philosophy forum - which are antagonistic toward metaphysical enquiries period, to include investigations into the nature of causation, time, space, and identity, among others issues of metaphysical concern. And to me it goes hand in hand with what I've said here. — javra

To put this as colloquially as I can, metaphysical enquiry is the attempt to figure out what reality is really all about. — javra

I agree that Aristotle was concerned with Reality in general, and included Mental phenomena under the heading of Phusis (nature). But, since modern empirical Science split-off from traditional Philosophy, to go its own way, for some the term "metaphysics" came to mean "unscientific", with implications of "irrational". For my own purposes, I equate Metaphysics with Modern Philosophy, which has abandoned Empirical research to focus solely on Theoretical speculation. I even spell it with a hyphen, Meta-Physics, to emphasize that it's primarily the study of non-physical phenomena, such as Consciousness, and causation-in-general (vs specific causes).

Unfortunately, some TPF posters still seem to think that Metaphysics should be empirical. Hence, they insist that dissecting brains is the only way to understand the quality of Self-Awareness --- which seems to be unique to only a small selection of organic matter. For example, ↪180 Proof asserted above that "metaphysics is not theoretical". So, it seems that he is "antagonistic" only to Theoretical inquiries, that go beyond physical evidence, to conjecture about, not what is physically Real, but what is logically Possible. Hence, he might reject the Multiverse theories, not as Meta-Physical (literally beyond our space-time world), but as merely un-scientific, because empirical evidence is impossible. But the parallel notion of a First Cause, prior to the Big Bang, would be characterized as mystical "woo-woo", presumably because it's pure speculation, un-grounded in hard facts.

According to that reasoning, "investigations into the nature of Causation" would have to be limited to looking at its material effects, not its original source : Aristotle's imaginary First Cause. For those "antagonistic" toward theoretical Metaphysics, any universal or general concepts would be taboo. That's because empirical Science can only study particulars, and to generalize (via induction) would be presumptive of omniscience. Ironically, polymath scientists do that all the time, crossing the line between Empirical Science and Theoretical Philosophy ; between what's Real, and what's Ideal ; twixt what's Actual and what's Potential .

As a common enough example, for such people proclaiming “science says so” is to proclaim the unquestionable truth of that which is stipulated. . . . .
Any position held on all of these many issues then being entirely metaphysical claims. — javra

Yes, but when I accuse them of holding a belief in authoritative Scientism, they don't seem to see what's wrong with that. Instead, they appear to think that Philosophy should be subservient to the final authority of infallible Empirical Science. But, when I ask for book, chapter & verse from their "unquestionable" Science Bible, I get no answer.

As I noted above, ↪180 Proof has a different definition of "metaphysics" from mine. And that discrepancy may be the reason for the topical question of this OP. In the 20th century, European physicists were still being trained in philosophy, and made metaphysical conjectures routinely, especially to explain the paradoxes of Quantum Theory. Are these aggressive anti-philosophy beliefs being promulgated in universities these days? I assume it's not just ignorance of philosophical concepts, of which 180 seems to be an expert.


DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SCIENCE AND SCIENTISM :
Scientism assumes that rational knowledge is scientific, and that everything else that claims to be knowledge is just superstitious, irrational, emotional, or nonsensical. Although Science and Scientism do share the same topics and content, their worldviews are entirely different.
https://journal.unpar.ac.id