Isn't almost everything founded on metaphysics? Science presupposes that there is access to reality and truth about it. Knowledge. Science is founded on metaphysical axioms; realism, causality, rational intelligibility, etc. First principles would generally be the axioms or foundations of your thinking. So realism might be one of these.

I understand metaphysics to be about what things are, in and of themselves.

For example, "which propositions are true?" is not a metaphysical question. But "what is truth?" is.

"Which propositions are known?" is not a metaphysical question. But "what is knowledge?" is.

"Which actions are right and which ones wrong?" is not a metaphysical question. But 'what is rightness?' is.

And so on. I think the same distinction is drawn by talking about 'first order' questions and 'second order' questions, where the latter are about the nature of the subject matter of the first.

The word 'meta' originally meant 'after', but I think it has subsequently come to mean the above.

The word 'meta' originally meant 'after', but I think it has subsequently come to mean the above. — Clarendon

I thought “meta” referred to self-referential discourse.

It might do on ordinary usage, I am not sure.

It comes from 'metaphysics' which was simply the title given to one of Aristotle's treatises - the one that came 'after the physics'.

In philosophy it is the study of what things are, in and of themselves.

I understand metaphysics to be about what things are, in and of themselves. — Clarendon

So this discussion is a metaphysical discussion?

No. It's about the meaning of the word 'metaphysics'.

For Aristotle, "Physics" is an investigation about "Phusis" or Nature.

How ever it came to be called "Metaphysics", that book is concerned with "being as being" and whether there could be such an investigation.

No, it was simply the title given to the work that had been placed 'after the physics'.

It denoted its placement in an order, not its subject matter.

So metaphysics is about investigating the properties of something?

I was not arguing against that idea. It is a received opinion. I figure we cannot know for sure. What the writing talks about is the best indication of its meaning.

Only insofar as that will tell you something about what sort of a thing it is, in and of itself.

It is a properly of the act of wantonly killing another that it is wrong. But that is not a metaphysical claim, though the fact acts can have that property may tell us something about what wrongness itself is. And that - the investigation of what wrongness is, in and of itself, is metaphysical.

But in point of fact, 'metaphysics' was first used as a label (not by Aristotle himself) denoting the placement of a treatise. It's like 'the house next door'. It literally just meant 'the work that I have placed after the physics'.

That's not what the word means today. In philosophy it has come to mean the study of the nature of things - so, what something is in and of itself (partly no doubt as a result of the content of the treatise that had been so-labelled). Not that there are any strict rules about it and not that there isn't room for some dispute over exactly when an area of philosophical inquiry becomes metaphysical (there is room for that).

And that - the investigation of what wrongness is, in and of itself, is metaphysical. — Clarendon

So then how is this not a metaphysical discussion on metaphysics? I only asked because trying to remember the definition kept alluding me, but a full duscussion, mostly, would give me a lasting idea of how to use the word.

The key thing to understand is that it starts with Aristotle. One of the later editors of Aristotle's texts applied the term 'metaphysics' meaning 'after' of 'over and above' the Physics, which he had edited previously (although in Aristotle's works there are considerable common threads that appear in each of his separate topics.)

But it's really important to grasp the Aristotelian origin - which is not easy to do as Aristotle is a very big subject. But the reason it's necessary, is because metaphysics is not just anyone's 'theory about what is real' or 'anything which isn't explainable in terms of physics'. It starts out with Aristotle's efforts to define terms and basic concepts rigorously. These were then laid out in a number of books (14 volumes in all!) Not that we can be expected to plough through all this content. But it's important to get some idea of where it started, otherwise talk of metaphysics easily degenates into vacuous phrases.

Maybe check out this lecture or the entries on Aristotle: Metaphysics at the Internet and Stanford Encyclopedias of Philosophy.

Because we're just discussing how a word is used. That's a first order question, not a second order one.

"What does the word 'metaphysics' mean?" is not a metaphysical question. I'm not doing philosophy in answering it, I'm just trying to explain what it means in philosophy (though with the caveat that there will be grey areas). It means the study of what things are, in and of themselves. I don't think it can be captured any better than that.

Or read the book itself. If one wants to swim, jump into the pool.

Agree. I believe the Joe Sachs edition is highly regarded. (I had a look - the Joe Sachs edition is not the Penguin Classics edition, which is less expensive, and still probably worthwhile.) https://amzn.asia/d/9c4U6ok https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-metaphysics-9780140446197

That commits the etymological fallacy.

Imagine 'The House Next Door' is the title someone gives to a book I wrote about the composition and appearance of the house next door.

Subsequently 'Thehousenextdoor' becomes a word that starts to be systematically used to refer to what a house - any house - may be made of.

Well, it would be quite misguided to think that one gains insight into what the word 'thehousenextdoor' means by reading the original work that gave the world the word, for then one would believe it is exclusively about what a particular house is made of, plus about its appearance.

Words change their meaning over time. It is of philosophy pub-quiz use to know that the word's origin came from its being used to denote a particular book's placement in an author's list of works.

That is a good translation. Apostle is also good.

Well, it would be quite misguided to think that one gains insight into what the word 'thehousenextdoor' means by reading the original work that gave the world the word, for then one would believe it is exclusively about what a particular house is made of, plus about its appearance. — Clarendon

Are you suggesting that reading the actual book would be misguided?

I am saying that it is not the way to understand what 'metaphysics' means.

For example, take the word 'cartoon'

The word 'cartoon' originally referred to a kind of paper on which artists would draw the outline of a painting for transfer onto wood or canvas.

Then it came to refer to the actual depiction - the working drawing itself.

Then it came to refer to, well, what we call cartoons today.

But if you want to know what 'cartoon' means it would be quite misguided to suggest going and looking at drawings by Raphael or a paper mill in Italy.

Words change their meaning over time. — Clarendon

It's not 'the etymological fallacy'. Certainly the word 'metaphysics' has acquired many meanings over time but, especially in this case, it's important to have a clear grasp of what it originally meant, as it's a highly complex subject. Which means that a very large percentage of what is written in popular sources about metaphysics is mush.

There's another way into the subject also, which is that certain philosophica and scientific issues raise metaphysical questions. Classics include the interpretation of the wave-function in quantum physics, and whether abstract entities like numbers are real and if so in what sense. But those questions provide a specific focus, which poorly formed 'what is metaphysic?' questions do not.

I think you quite clearly are committing the etymological fallacy.

The etymological fallacy occurs when someone argues that the current meaning of a word is determined by its original or historical meaning, yes?

No. If I said the meaning of metaphysics was restricted to the meaning in Aristotle's texts, and that it had no other meaning, then it would be. I'm just saying Aristotle is an important starting-point for getting your head around the question, as it's a difficult question. If you look at the way the question it posed in the OP, it is clear that the poster really has no idea what the word means. So, reading at least something about Aristotle's Metaphysics is a good start.

But it wouldn't clarify what the term means. Its current meaning is not determined by the content of Aristotle's work titled 'metaphysics'. That would literally be the same as thinking that to understand what the word cartoon means it is important to go and look at some drawings by Leonardo.

Metaphysics is the study of what things are, in and of themselves.

According to 'Clarendon'.

Thanks, but I choose my sources carefully.

What I mean is - 'what is a "thing?" What does "exist" mean? Does "exist" and "real" have the same meaning? - and so on. These are metaphysical questions, that sound straightforward, but they need a framework in which to be discussed. That is provided by the literature.

Metaphysics is my thing and my man is R.G. Collingwood. He wrote “An Essay on Metaphysics.” In it he wrote that metaphysics is the study of absolute presuppositions. Absolute presuppositions are the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, assumptions that underpin how we understand reality.

Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or group of persons, on this or that occasion or group of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking. — R.G. Collingwood - An Essay on Metaphysics

Here's what he says about absolute presuppositions:

Absolute presuppositions are not verifiable. This does not mean that we should like to verify them but are not able to; it means that the idea of verification is an idea which does not apply to them.... — R.G. Collingwood - An Essay on Metaphysics

An understanding of what is meant by "absolute presupposition" is at the heart of this approach. As I understand it, its two most important aspects are 1) that its application can be limited, as Collingwood notes, to specific people, at a particular time, for a particular purpose. And 2) that it can be neither true nor false. The value that an absolute presupposition has is dependent on it's usefulness for a particular purpose, not its truth value.

There's obviously a lot more to say about this. I'll try to give an example of what this means in a clearer context. I've taken this from E.A. Burtt's "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science." A great book. It's his summary of the changes that took place in scientific metaphysics during the 1600s with the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and all those other guys.

We have observed that the heart of the new scientific metaphysics is to be found in the ascription of ultimate reality and causal efficacy to the world of mathematics, which world is identified with the realm of material bodies moving in space and time. Expressed somewhat more fully, three essential points are to be distinguished in the transformation which issued in the victory of this metaphysical view; there is a change in the prevailing conception (1) of reality, (2) of causality, and (3) of the human mind.

First, the real world in which man lives is no longer regarded as a world of substances possessed of as many ultimate qualities as can be experienced in them, but has become a world of atoms (now electrons), equipped with none but mathematical characteristics and moving according to laws fully statable in mathematical form.

Second, explanations in terms of forms and final causes of events, both in this world and in the less independent realm of mind, have been definitely set aside in favour of explanations in terms of their simplest elements, the latter related temporally as efficient causes, and being mechanically treatable motions of bodies wherever it is possible so to regard them. In connexion with this aspect of the change, God ceased to be regarded as a Supreme Final Cause, and, where still believed in, became the First Efficient Cause of the world. Man likewise lost the high place over against nature which had been his as a part of the earlier teleological hierarchy, and his mind came to be described as a combination of sensations (now reactions) instead of in terms of the scholastic faculties.

Third, the attempt by philosophers of science in the light of these two changes to re-describe the relation of the human mind to nature, expressed itself in the popular form of the Cartesian dualism, with its doctrine of primary and secondary qualities, its location of the mind in a corner of the brain, and its account of the mechanical genesis of sensation and idea. These changes have conditioned practically the whole of modern exact thinking. — E.A. Burtt - The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science

One more thing--If you want a quick overview of all the things "metaphysics" might mean, this is a link to an old discussion. In the OP I lay out a bunch of definitions then in the first few posts, others put in their own $0.02 worth.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12096/what-is-metaphysics-yet-again/p1

For example, take the word 'cartoon'

The word 'cartoon' originally referred to a kind of paper on which artists would draw the outline of a painting for transfer onto wood or canvas.

Then it came to refer to the actual depiction - the working drawing itself.

Then it came to refer to, well, what we call cartoons today.

But if you want to know what 'cartoon' means it would be quite misguided to suggest going and looking at drawings by Raphael or a paper mill in Italy. — Clarendon

they all matter though...even though cartoons today are now more than likely computer generated, it's still basically the same thing as the series of drawings.

that is excellent, i appreciate your help (i guess i should have tried to find older threads of a similar type before posting this, I suppose, even though what you have there is much longer method for defining it)

Good links, "Metaphysics" is on my reading list for ancient philosophy, yet viewing some preliminary materials will probably help me understand it better...