• T Clark
    13.9k
    This is a spinoff from the “The difference between philosophy and science” thread which was a spinoff from the “You don't need to read philosophy to be a philosopher” thread. I checked - there have been 22 threads with “metaphysics” in the title in the past year, including Shawn’s “Metaphysics defined.” So, why a new one? Good question! Forget it. I quit….

    But seriously. I want to do this, redo this, now because the question “What do you mean when you say ‘metaphysics’” has come up several times in the parent thread to this one. As I’ve said many times, failure to carefully define terms is the primary failing of many of the discussions on the forum. For me, no term in philosophy is harder to define and more important than “metaphysics.” Since it’s all been done before, I’ve pulled some text I think is interesting which may be helpful from various past posts to get us started. To start, here is my take, from the OP of “An attempt to clarify my thoughts about metaphysics” from the far distant past:

    So, what is metaphysics. Here are some definitions from the web:

    • The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
    • Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy exploring the fundamental questions, including the nature of concepts like being, existence, and reality.
    • A division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology
    • The philosophical study whose object is to determine the real nature of things—to determine the meaning, structure, and principles of whatever is insofar as it is.

    As noted, epistemology is not always included in metaphysics. To me it belongs, but maybe that’s because epistemology is what I am most interested in.

    For a minute, let’s discuss what I want metaphysics to be, but which it probably isn’t. At least not entirely – I want it to be the set of rules, assumptions we agree on to allow discussion, reason, to proceed, e.g. there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of it; it’s turtles all the way down; the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. Ha!

    Now, let’s discuss what I don’t want metaphysics to be, but which it probably is. I discussed this briefly in a couple of other posts recently. I don’t think metaphysics should include a discussion of the existence of a particular God or the substance of particular religions. At least as it’s often considered, the existence of God is a matter of fact – he does or he does not. To me, matters of fact are not metaphysics. On the other hand, I think there is a discussion about god that is appropriately metaphysical.

    So, anyway - Metaphysical questions cannot be addressed with yes or no answers. They’re not issues of right or wrong, what matters is usefulness.

    During that thread, I was introduced to R.G. Collingwood’s “An Essay on Metaphysics.” I find his discussion of “absolute presuppositions” very helpful. It’s given me language to talk about things that had only been vague ideas to me before.

    Now here are some other people’s ideas about metaphysics from past discussions. I’ve got them hidden so they won’t take up too much room. No need to read them if you’d rather just dive in with your own ideas.

    Reveal
    I would define metaphysics as follows: anything left over that won't be explained by more rigorous fields. To the extent that it has value, the field of being and content has been removed from metaphysics by physics, phenomonology, etc. To the extent that it has value, the field of causation and origins has been stolen by science generally and cosmology and evolutionary biology in particular. To the extent that they have value, the constants of nature have been annexed by physics. If any idea in metaphysics is found to have any value, it ceases to be metaphysics and becomes something else. Metaphysics is then all of the ideas that will never be found to have any value. I'd put them in the following groups:

    Metaphysics of the gaps: This Kantian metaphysics relies on things being unknown, such as having an incomplete picture of how mind arises from physical constituents and processes.
    Metaphysics of the unfalsifiable: This relies on the outside chance that an unjustifiable idea might be true, such as the existence of God.

    Metaphysics of ignorance: This relies on the metaphysician not knowing or pretending to not know how something is so they can continue on the basis that it is not, such as the evolution of species or the arrow of time (although some metaphysical questions regarding the arrow of time fall under MotG). The difference between this and MotG is that the latter claims justification via the gaps, whereas this tends to insist on purely metaphysical (i.e. not useful) approaches to well-understood problems.
    Metaphysics of the impossible: This relies on considering only scenarios that are logically impossible or factually untrue, such as the "do otherwise" scenario of anti-determinist free will formulations.

    You can do metaphysics then by picking one of the above, say: that the root cause of the creation of the universe is unknown. Despite the fact that everything we do know about the start of the universe comes from astronomy, cosmology, particle physics and the like, the next step is to disregard all of this and insist on a completely useless framework for understanding how it might occur. When asked to justify the framework, you can do so in any of the above four ways: claim that there is no hard evidence for an alternative solution; claim that your solution cannot be disproven; claim that any reference to non-metaphysical knowledge is out of scope, inferior, or invalid for epistemological reasons; and finally claim that anything that follows from your proposal that seems invalid doesn't matter because it's ab initio, therefore independent of how things are or can be in reality.
    Kenosha Kid

    via Jose Benardete, I think the most concise definition of metaphysics I know - at least in it's classical guise:

    "Metaphysics in its classic sense has always been understood to be the rational investigation of the eternal order. Central to that investigation is the distinction between that which is eternal and that which is perishable, and though metaphysics addresses itself to both of those grades of being, its primary concern lies with the eternal, so that if there is nothing eternal, or if nothing eternal can be known, then metaphysics is an impossibility. The distinction between the eternal and the perishable may be said to be a cosmological one, in that the concept of time is cardinal to it.

    That distinction may be translated into what might be styled ontological terms, as a distinction between the necessary and the contingent. What is eternal must also be necessary, and in this sense metaphysics is the science of being qua being, or of being as such, or of being insofar as it is necessary. If there is nothing which is necessary, or if nothing necessary can be known, then metaphysics is impossible." ("The Analytic A Posteriori and the Foundations of Metaphysics")
    StreetlightX

    Meta-physics :
    The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
    1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
    2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
    3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
    4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
    5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).
    Gnomon

    "Ontology" is a word often used here and elsewhere. What does it mean? This from online, "Branch of metaphysics concerned with identifying, in the most general terms, the kinds of things that actually exist." The more I think about this definition the less I understand it. And implied is that it is a species of, metaphysics. These are often referred to as sciences, but that doesn't seem right: what would they be sciences of?

    Two words, then: metaphysics and ontology. Metaphysics, from online: "Branch of philosophy concerned with providing a comprehensive account of the most general features of reality as a whole; the study of being as such."

    Ontology comes from the Greek ῶν (on), being, and λόγος (logos), knowledge.

    It's well known that Metaphysics is also the name of an Aristotelian treatise, and almost as well known that the title, Metaphysics, says nothing about the contents of the treatise, not being Aristotle's title, it having been applied long afterwards and meaning "the books after the Physics."

    And this thread is not about Aristotle's Metaphysics specifically. It is about what we understand now or can or should understand now about these words. If Aristotle speaks to that, then that's welcome. But in that case what he says is a matter of fact and the question goes to relevance. The distinction is that in one sense, while Metaphysics is the non-committal title of an ancient book, metaphysics is a modern name. Of what, exactly, I'm hoping I'll learn as this thread develops.

    I'm hoping that certain difficulties with the two words will become apparent and that we can quickly dismantle problematic definitions. What, then, we end up with I'm curious to see.

    Both seem concerned with "the most general terms" and "the most general features." Being and existence are the two most general terms, and I am not even sure what a "general" feature is. So we can say of something that exists, that it is. And no doubt much more, but everything else, it seems to me, devolves to non-general predicates. And of being itself, what predicates does that have?

    Ontology seems self-limited, then, to the proposition that being is - and no more than that can be said. And metaphysics, pending a good definition for a "general" feature, seems about in the same circumstance. That is, that they're both empty - almost empty - concepts. At least as defined above. Is that the final word?
    tim wood

    In recent discussions, it has become clear to me that I have no clear idea of what metaphysics is. So I've come here, to ask the experts.... :wink: Seriously, can we have a stab here at defining and describing metaphysics? Does it have, as I suspect, many definitions that have evolved over years, and maybe within particular disciplines?

    I think the everyday use of "metaphysical" is something like this:
    Metaphysical
    (popularly) abstract, abstruse, or unduly theoretical.
    Incorporeal; supernatural.
    — Collins English dictionary

    But I think we need something better than "stuff that's a bit weird" for our use, don't we? :wink:

    Accepting that "metaphysics" is used to describe quite a lot of philosophical thinking, the 'definition' that means most to me is one I thought I read in Pirsig's first novel. I've looked for it recently, and can't find it. Maybe I invented it? Anyway, I got the impression that if we start from all thought, ideas, and so forth, and we start to divide it, in order to reduce the pieces to bite-size. We might divide Everything into (say) Subject and Object. Then we would proceed to make further cuts. This process of deciding how to subdivide Everything is metaphysics.

    But I'm sure you've got better ideas than this. What are they? What definition(s) of metaphysics do you find the most useful and meaningful?
    Pattern-chaser

    I like the answer that says its just an attempt to clarify what is. 30 years of reading books on physics, especially QM, but GR etc as well, and philosophical writings on it by people like Wittgenstein (conventionalism), Poincare (conventionalism as well), Turing (applications were paramount. But had a magnificent debate with Wittgenstein about one of the most fundamental of things - math - https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/lectures/Turing-and-Wittgenstein-on-Logic-and-Mathematics.pdf . Its ironic that before being a philosopher Wittgenstein used applied math all the time as an aeronautical researcher), Weinberg (realist - science is progressing towards something), Kuhn - well I am sure you get my drift - I still have no firm idea. I think its one of those things you need to read and form your own view - if you can - like I said I can't. I recently found a little known discussion between Dirac and Heisenberg that helped me quite a lot:
    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.485.9188&rep=rep1&type=pdf

    I side with Dirac in that what is, is never really known, we just continually advance theories about it. Weinberg thinks we are advancing towards something, I think he is right, but bowed if I can justify it.

    To me it's maddening we cant even pin it down well.
    Bill Hobba

    I’ll leave it there. There's lot's more. In particular, I found @Pattern-chaser's "Metaphysics - what is it?" thread, which I didn't remember, really interesting.
  • Verdi
    116
    The litteral meaning is outside of physics, with slight variations on outside, like near, or adjacent. But still connected to it.


    You can't do much with this though. I have noticed you like to make divisions. A break-up can be made into physical stuff and metaphysical stuff. But together they form a whole bigger than their parts.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    You can't do much with this though. I have noticed you like to make divisions. A break-up can be made into physical stuff and metaphysical stuff. But together they form a whole bigger than their parts.Verdi

    You and I just had a similar discussion in another thread. As I noted, I've started this so the participants in that discussion can all work from the same meaning.
  • Verdi
    116


    Great! I like all the views you presented! Must have been quite some work to collect them! I think examples can illuminate the distinction.
  • Manuel
    4.1k
    "They say that the name metaphysics is almost accidental, it was just the book by Aristotle that came after the book called ‘Physics’, so it doesn’t really have a meaning, but it’s not very difficult to say what it is, it’s just the attempt to study the most general characteristic of what is or may be and what must be”

    - Galen Strawson

    "Metaphysics... business is to study the most general features of reality and real objects.... Here let us set down almost at random a small specimen of the questions of metaphysics which press, not for hasty answers, but for industrious and solid investigation:... Whether there is any distinction between, other than more or less. between fact and fancy? Or between the external and internal worlds?... What external reality do the qualities of sense represent in general?

    - C.S. Peirce

    "I take metaphysics to be about the world, not just about our concepts, conceptual schemes, or languages; and to depend on experience—not, however, on the kind of specialized, recherché experience on which the empirical sciences call, but on close attention to familiar, everyday experience."

    - Susan Haack

    "Metaphysical enquiry employs the same cognitive power as is employed in commonsense and scientific judgements about the world of experience: the very same principles of reasoning as are employed in empirical judgements about tables and atoms, are employed in a purified form, in metaphysical judgements about God and the soul.”

    - Sebastian Gardner
  • Mikie
    6.7k
    there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of itT Clark

    I reject both of these, because I think the "subject/object" distinction, though very old, is not very useful. So I guess that rules me out of discussion.

    The best remarks on the topic, in my view, are from Introduction to Metaphysics, by Heidegger. If you really want something to challenge you, that's worth looking at.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of it
    — T Clark

    I reject both of these, because I think the "subject/object" distinction, though very old, is not very useful. So I guess that rules me out of discussion.
    Xtrix

    Those statements were presented as examples of metaphysical statements, not as metaphysical positions to be discussed. The point of this thread is to discuss the meaning of the word "metaphysics" not to discuss any particular metaphysical issue unless it is relevant to the meaning of the word.
  • Verdi
    116
    For a minute, let’s discuss what I want metaphysics to be, but which it probably isn’t. At least not entirely – I want it to be the set of rules, assumptions we agree on to allow discussion, reason, to proceed, e.g. there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of it; it’s turtles all the way down; the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. HaT Clark

    Again, you make a distinction here, and rightly so, but you consider them separate without a connection. You posit the existence of an unknowable truth, be it physical or religious, or the gods of the Hopi. You say that we have a representation of world. The external world is objective. And it's knowable, be it God, physical reality, the gods of the Hopi, etc. Truth is the correspondence between reality and its representation.

    But... You never seem to actually make contact with objective reality. It will always stay out of reach, turtles all the way down. This gives me a creepy feeling. Why not say each turtle is objective reality. That's what I meant (in the former very nice conversation we had in another thread) by saying that the combination of both divisions contains qualities not present in the both separate. Each metaphysics can influence the physics in the context of the whole. An observer and reality together give rise to a new reality and new observers, in mutual correspondence.

    So reality is not observer independent. The reality perceived and thought is reality and not an approached representation of it. This being out of reach gives the feeling of endlessly trying in vain.

    The Tao perceived is the Tao how it truly is. I don't claim that everything you think is true, not at all (might you think this).

    I think the ultimate form of metaphysics is mathematics.
  • Verdi
    116
    Those statements were presented as examples of metaphysical statements,T Clark

    Then this metaphysics needs reconsideration. Why can't that be discussed?
  • T Clark
    13.9k


    I like all the quotes you provided. If you take them all, add all the ones I included in my post along with 1,000 more I could have provided if I wanted to take the time, you get an, at best, impressionistic picture of meaning that looks like one of those paintings done by elephants. Maybe that's the best we can do.

    The problem is that I want to talk about a very specific sense of the word, the one I presented in the OP. I'd be happy to call it something else, but that would only make things worse.
  • Mikie
    6.7k
    The point of this thread is to discuss the meaning of the word "metaphysics"T Clark

    So far as I can see, there's no technical notion of metaphysics. You're aware of its humble etymological beginnings in Aristotle. You ask any person and they can give you a slightly different answer. I tend to think of metaphysics as, at heart, the study of beings -- which several definitions you mentioned also include. Pretty general.

    But meta ta physika is the meaning of the word: after the physics. The end. What's next?
  • jgill
    3.9k
    Academia tries to firm up the ectoplasm called metaphysics:

    Metaphysical Resarch Lab

    Theory of Abstract Objects

    Metaphysics of Science

    From my perspective (as one of Leibniz's many, many professional descendants), I think of infinitesimals when thinking of Leibniz. He made many contributions to math, but an infinitesimal lies within the definition of metaphysics for me.

    Sorry to interrupt a lively discussion.
  • Joshs
    5.7k
    I think the ultimate form of metaphysics is mathematics.Verdi

    My favorite philosophers derive mathematics
    from quantification. Quantification in turn presupposes an enduringly self-identical object. Why? Because a calculation counts identical instances of a meaning whose sense is kept fixed during the counting . To count is to count continuously changing instances OF something that holds itself as self-identical through a duration or extension.

    Husserl writes:

    “ The consideration of the conditions in principle of the possibility of something identical that gives itself (harmoniously) in flowing and subjectively changing manners of appearance leads to the mathematization of the appearances as a necessity which is immanent in them.”
    “A true object in the sense of logic is an object which is absolutely identical "with itself," that is, which is, absolutely identically, what it is; or, to express it in another way: an object is through its determinations, its quiddities [Weisheiten], its predicates, and it is identical if these quiddities are identical as belonging to it or when their belonging absolutely excludes their not belonging. Purely mathematical thinking is related to possible objects which are thought determinately through ideal-"exact" mathematical (limit-) concepts.”

    Heidegger writes:

    “Thus what can be shown to have the character of constantly remaining, as remanens capax mutationem, constitutes the true being of beings which can be experienced in the world. What enduringly remains truly is. This is the sort of thing that mathematics knows. What mathematics makes accessible in beings constitutes their being.”

    So the question is , where do self-identical objects comefrom? If we believe the ultimate form of metaphysics is mathematics , we are likely to believe that self -identical presence is a fundamental grounding of the real. But my favorite philosophers argue that the objectively present object is a fabrication. It is a synthesis of constantly changing senses of experience . This means that mathematics , like objective presence, is a derived construction rather than a metaphysical grounding. What is metaphysically primordial is the process of subjective and intersubjective acts of sense making.
  • Manuel
    4.1k


    That's the problem. We have many definitions, sometimes incompatible with each other, so we have to choose one. Or leave the topic ambiguous.

    I think that if we want to keep the spirit of Aristotle's "being qua being", metaphysics has to be reinterpreted epistemologically. Our physics would today, be Aristotle's metaphysics back then.

    The goal of metaphysics was to explain the world. Now we know that we can say less about the world than was thought in antiquity. Aristotle wanted to (for example) show what a house was. Today we'd say that a house is mind-dependent not a aspect of the world.

    If we want to talk about houses, or statues or clocks or people, we have to elucidate how these things appear to us, how do we think about them (is a cave a house?) and what can we say about the world for people (are colours a property of the world?, is our ordinary picture of the world misleading?, etc.).

    That's what I concluded after looking at this for some time, but, like anything else in philosophy people are going to disagree.
  • Wayfarer
    22.5k
    I think the Aristotelian origin of 'metaphysics' ought not to be forgotten, otherwise an already difficult subject becomes impossible to define. Even though everyone here probably knows this, it should be mentioned that the term 'metaphysics' was coined by a later editor of Aristotle's works, who applied it to a group of treatises that were logically dealt with after those on physics. Aristotle set the terms within which metaphysics proper was defined, and if that is lost sight of, then 'metaphysics' becomes a catch-all term for 'vaguely spiritual'.

    The second point I think needs to be made is the centrality of the Greek verb 'to be'. I'm not a Greek scholar, but a paper that StreetlightX linked some time ago, "The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Problem of Being", Charles Kahn, elucidates this at some length and is definitely worth the read.

    I say this because Aristotle's consideration of the various meanings of 'to be' are central to his metaphysics, which is really about 'the meaning of being'. This is important with regards to the central term 'substance'.

    The Greek term 'ouisia' was translated into the Latin 'substantia', which then became the English 'substance'. But there's a deep problem, in that the usual meaning of the term 'substance' is 'a material with uniform properties'. Whereas the Greek 'ousia' is much nearer in meaning to our term 'being' or 'subject' - a 'bearer of attributes'. And this introduces a diabolical confusion into many debates about metaphysics, all the more so because the confusion is not recognised as such. When pre-modern texts talk of 'substances' they don't mean any kind of 'stuff', but that which is independently existent i.e. not derivative. This persisted up until early modern philosophy:

    The philosophers of the 17th century follow tradition in associating inherence with dependence. They all agree that the existence of a mode is dependent in a way that the existence of a substance is not. The idea is that modes, as the ways that things are, depend for their existence on that of which they are modes, e.g. there is no mode of ‘being 8’0 long’ without there being a subject that is 8’0 long. Put otherwise, the view is that the existence of a mode ultimately requires or presupposes the existence of a substance. This point is sometimes put by saying that substances, as subjects, are metaphysically prior to modes.

    Degrees of Reality

    In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees — that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. Given that there are only substances and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances are the most real constituents of reality. 1

    The notion of there being greater and lesser degrees of reality is, I contend, something that has dropped out of modern philosophy.

    When traditional philosophy speaks of 'substance' it is not speaking of any kind of thing. Whereas in our day it is natural to assume that the ultimate concern of metaphysics is what kind of things are fundamentally real. But I say that looses sight of a basic distinction between 'beings' and 'things' - a distinction which I think is barely recognised, due in part to the meaning of 'ousia' having been lost in the transition to modernity.

    Our physics would today, be Aristotle's metaphysics back then.Manuel

    It should be mentioned that when Galileo overthrew Aristotelian physics, the Aristotelian notion of 'causation' was rejected along with it - the idea of formal and final causes, or the reasons for a thing, in the sense of its telos.
  • Manuel
    4.1k
    The notion of there being greater and lesser degrees of reality is, I contend, something that has dropped out of modern philosophy.Wayfarer

    Susan Haack picks up on that in her The World According to Innocent Realism. She discusses fiction and how it relates to the world and concludes that reality comes in degrees or parts. But you're right that it's not a subject much dealt with at the moment.

    It should be mentioned that when Galileo overthrew Aristotelian physics, the Aristotelian notion of 'causation' was rejected along with it - the idea of formal and final causes, or the reasons for a thing, in the sense of its telos.Wayfarer

    Yes. So these things need a rearticulating of sorts.
  • Verdi
    116


    You wrote it yourself:

    "I think separating the study of the nature of things from the study of how we know the nature of things is wrong-headed. They are really the same thing."

    About epistemology, the knowledge about knowledge. Knowledge about knowledge is best obtained by wallowing in it. Not by an abstract epistemology.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    At least not entirely – I want it to be the set of rules, assumptions we agree on to allow discussion, reason, to proceed, e.g. there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of itT Clark

    It just seems to me that we could come up with all manner of rules and principles that are perhaps internally intelligible, but don't apply to the reality we actually deal with. Like solipsism. It makes a strange kind of sense, but it doesn't compute with the data available to us.


    (P.s. thanks for the new thread! I'm afraid the little'uns get in the way of my spending too much time constructing lengthy posts, let alone OPs on here, so I appreciate your efforts.)
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    there's no technical notion of metaphysics.Xtrix

    I don't think that's true, unless I misunderstand what you mean by "technical." Collingwood's definition fits the bill:

    Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or groups of persons, on this or that occasion or groups of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking.

    That's what I want to talk about when I talk about "metaphysics." Maybe I'll just change the word so it won't get so confusing. I'm going to start calling it "Collingwood's metaphysics," "C-metaphysics" for short.

    Seriously. That's what I'm going to do from now on.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    It just seems to me that we could come up with all manner of rules and principles that are perhaps internally intelligible, but don't apply to the reality we actually deal with. Like solipsism. It makes a strange kind of sense, but it doesn't compute with the data available to us.Artemis

    That's the problem. We have many definitions, sometimes incompatible with each other, so we have to choose one. Or leave the topic ambiguous.Manuel

    As I noted in my previous post, I've solved the "metaphysics" problem once and for all, at least for myself. It's taken years, but I've finally figured out how to handle it. The only metaphysics I'm really interested in discussing is metaphysics as define by Collingwood:

    Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or groups of persons, on this or that occasion or groups of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking.

    From now on, I'm just going to use the term "C-metaphysics" to denote that usage. I'm serious. I mean it. You guys can all go fry ice. I don't care what you say....No.. No.. La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

    I really am serious.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    From now on, I'm just going to use the term "C-metaphysics" to denote that usage. I'm serious. I mean it. You guys can all go fry ice. I don't care what you say....No.. No.. La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

    I really am serious.
    T Clark

    That's actually valid. Academics do it all the time.
  • Manuel
    4.1k


    Things remain the same. People will continue to speak about metaphysics and you'll be limited to speaking about "C-metaphysics".

    It's good you found a solution.

    It seems the problem with the term is here to stay.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    It seems the problem with the term is here to stay.Manuel

    My only problem with the term was that I couldn't get people to use it the way I want them to.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    That's actually valid. Academics do it all the time.Artemis

    So, what you're saying is that I am a brilliant, towering genius. Thank you. Thank you very much.
  • Philosophim
    2.6k
    My advice for serious philosophical conclusions is to heed your own words.
    As I’ve said many times, failure to carefully define terms is the primary failing of many of the discussions on the forum.T Clark

    Ask the person who you're debating with what they mean by metaphysics. Get them to define their particular terms. Phrases are digests of complex simple ideas. The act of doing philosophy should be to breaking down those phrases into complex simple terms with the person who you are discussing with. You're not debating the phrase, you're debating the underlying logical components. Those transcend any labels or ideologies.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    Ask the person who you're debating with what they mean by metaphysics. Get them to define their particular terms. Phrases are digests of complex simple ideas. The act of doing philosophy should be to breaking down those phrases into complex simple terms with the person who you are discussing with. You're not debating the phrase, you're debating the underlying logical components. Those transcend any labels or ideologies.Philosophim

    I agree. The failure to do as you specify is the cause of many, most?, of the misunderstandings and disagreements here on the forum. Discussions often end up being derailed by what you call "debatingi the phrase."
  • Manuel
    4.1k


    Ideally, that would be nice.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    So, what you're saying is that I am a brilliant, towering genius. Thank you. Thank you very much.T Clark

    Well, that's par for the course :wink:

    But I do in fact think and agree that the conversations on the ENTIRE forum would go better if people clarified their terminology/baseline positions and worldviews before getting into the actual debates :chin:
  • Mikie
    6.7k
    there's no technical notion of metaphysics.
    — Xtrix

    I don't think that's true, unless I misunderstand what you mean by "technical." Collingwood's definition fits the bill:

    Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or groups of persons, on this or that occasion or groups of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking.
    T Clark

    That's the one you like the most, but doesn't make it a technical notion. I think you did misunderstand. I mean by "technical notion" those used in the sciences -- like "energy," "work," etc. These notions are given a meaning in the context of a theory. Metaphysics can be defined any way we want. There are some common themes running through the various ways it is described; it's a fairly amorphous term.

    But what is the goal here? To arrive at a definitive meaning of "metaphysics"? How will we know when we arrive there? Seems to me on par with trying to find the world's longest sentence -- as soon as you get there, you can also add a word.

    But C-metaphysics seems to be nothing more than discussing various assumptions people make or hold. That's certainly worthy of discussion, yes. That seems different than wanting to determine the meaning of metaphysics.
  • Manuel
    4.1k
    It might be better to say "metaphysics" is, whatever people who work and study on this subject say it is.

    That will lead to some poor quality New Age stuff, but that's unavoidable.

    But these posts will continue to arise. I suppose I kind of like them.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    But what is the goal here? To arrive at a definitive meaning of "metaphysics"? How will we know when we arrive there? Seems to me on par with trying to find the world's longest sentence -- as soon as you get there, you can also add a word.Xtrix

    Metaphysics, in Collingwood's sense, is very important to me. It is central to my understanding of the nature of reality and our relationship to it. In order to talk about it effectively, I need a good word for the idea I'm trying to get across. I've spent years here on the forum trying to force the word "metaphysics" to fit that bill, but, as everyone acknowledges, it just means too many different things to too many different people. The epiphany I've just had is that I should just give up. Screw it. I'll make up a new word. Here's some ideas:

      [1] Potrzebics
      [2] Stuff n' things
      [3] Collingwood's metaphysics (C-metaphysics)
      [4] Craptastics
      [5] Rigamarole

    I think I'll use number 3.
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