Metaphysics

Metaphysics (Latin metaphysica; gr μετά Meta, then ',' behind ',' beyond ' and φύσις physis, nature ', ' natural condition ') is a basic discipline of philosophy. Metaphysical system designs treat in their classical forms the central problems in theoretical philosophy, namely the description of the foundations, conditions, causes, or " first principles " of the most common structures, regularities and principles and the meaning and purpose of the whole of reality and of all being.

Specifically, this means that classical metaphysics "ultimate questions " negotiated, for example: Is there an ultimate sense why the world exists? And that it is just set up as it is? Is there a God / gods, and if so, what we can about him / her know? What is the essence of man? Is there such a thing as " spiritual ", in particular a fundamental difference between matter and spirit ( mind-body problem)? Man possesses an immortal soul, he has a free will? Everything is changing or there are also things and relationships that always stay the same for all change of appearances?

Objects of metaphysics are, the classic explanation claim, not accessible by detailed empirical studies, but these underlying aspects of reality. The claim at all to formulate findings outside the boundaries of sensory experience, has been widely criticized - beginnings of a general critique of metaphysics accompany the metaphysical system attempts from the beginning, in particular but developed and often understood as a characteristic of modern philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries been. On the other hand you have questions about an ultimate meaning and a systematic writable " big picture " as naturally created in the people, a " unhintertreibliches need " is understood as (Kant), so the people even as "animal metaphysicum ", as a " metaphysics driving creatures "means ( Schopenhauer ). Since the mid -20th century, classical analytic- empiricist critique of metaphysics and continental defiance, back out complex systematic debates on metaphysical problems of sides usually analytically trained philosophers.

Its 3.1 3.1.1 univocal and analogous concept of being
3.1.2 use ways of "being"

5.1 Classical Texts
5.2 Metaphysics History
5.3 Systematic introductions

Conceptual history

The term " metaphysics " comes after today's majority opinion from a work of Aristotle, which consisted of 14 books in general philosophical content. The Peripatetic philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes ( first century BC) located in the first edition of Aristotle these books behind whose eight books on the " physics " a ( τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά tà metà ta physika that after / beside the Physics '). Thus, the term " metaphysics " that is, which actually means was: "that which is behind of the physics on the shelf ", but at the same didactic said: " what the remarks about the nature follows " or scientific- systematic means: " the what comes after physics. " Which of the two approaches is believed to be original, is controversial among historians philosophy. The exact meaning of the word then is unclear. First is the term for Nikolaos of Damascus. Aristotle himself did not use the term.

Since late antiquity is named with " metaphysics " is also an independent philosophical discipline. In late antiquity, and occasionally in the early Middle Ages, the metaphysics also receives the name Epoptie ( looking from Greek, capture ). On the other hand, the adjective was " metaphysical" particularly since the 19th century but " dubious speculative" in a derogatory manner in the sense of " unscientific ", " meaningless ", " totalitarian" or " non-empirical thought gimmick" used.

Introduction

Topics of metaphysics

The aim of metaphysics is the knowledge of the basic structure and principles of reality. Depending on the philosophical position, metaphysics can different, i a very broad subject areas range.

Moreover, the classical metaphysics a fundamental question that can be formulated roughly as follows:

Why are there beings rather than nothing? What is the reality of the real - what is the Being of beings?

This question about a recent statement of what constitutes reality as such, is more fundamental than the specific individual questions of classical metaphysics. So is asked in the general metaphysics, for example, creating a connection of all beings is constituted, as well as classical as often as this overall context, it is useful interpretable.

Specifically, the classical metaphysics covers topics such as:

What are the basic concepts and principles of ontology to analyze, such as Being and Nothingness, and decay, reality and possibility, freedom and necessity, spirit and nature, soul and matter, temporality and eternity, etc.?
What corresponds to the building blocks of our sentences and thoughts, whereupon take this reference, thus making them true? How, for example, the relationship between something individual ( individual objects ) and the universal (such as the property of being red) like? Come to the General an independent existence? Are there numbers? ( see also the article of universals )
What about the reference of normative and descriptive, value and existential statements? As with religious beliefs? What makes this each right? Are there moral objects (values, facts )? Is there a first principle of reality, which can be identified with a god? How would this raise? How exactly would you raise with respect to us?

The metaphysics developed basic concepts such as form / matter, act / potency, essence, existence, substance, etc.

If these basic concepts are predicable of all being, they are called as in Aristotle, Kant, and in this respect participating authors categories. However, partially unclear in the interpretation of whether categories are mere words or concepts or meet these independently existing objects or types of objects.

In metaphysical concepts build various philosophical individual disciplines, to, indirectly, various individual sciences. In this respect, metaphysics can ever be regarded as fundamental to philosophy.

Systems and methods

Traditionally, metaphysics in a general ( metaphysica generalis ) and a special ( metaphysica specialis ) branch is divorced; the first is the ontology, which includes other philosophical theology, psychology and cosmology:

The general metaphysics of all sciences the highest level of abstraction; she asks for the most common categories of being and therefore translate into fundamental philosophy. It deals with what are things, properties, or processes by their very nature and in which the relationship between them. Unless they studied being as being, it is called ontology or ontology.

The rational theology asks for the first cause of all being, that is, after God as the highest being and as the basis of all reality. This philosophical sub-discipline is also called Philosophical or Natural Theology.

The rational psychology is concerned with the soul and the (human) mind as a simple substance ( anthropology ).

The rational cosmology studies the nature of the world, ie the connection of all beings as a whole. When teaching the structure of the material world as a natural system of physical substances they 'll think together since ancient times mainly with natural philosophy.

Metaphysics can proceed differently:

A critical reflection of their own basic concepts, principles and structures of argumentation was as much from the beginning of the Metaphysics as a distinction from the other philosophical disciplines and to the individual sciences (physics, mathematics, biology, psychology, etc. ).

Metaphysical positions

Basic concepts and problems of metaphysics

Be

Univocal and analogous concept of being

Of crucial importance to the statements of the respective metaphysics is the underlying concept of existence. In the tradition, there are two fundamentally different approaches:

In a univocal understanding of being is "being" as the all- common feature of any things (called " beings " or "entities" ) understood. It is what all beings after deduction of each individual properties is still in common: that they are, in other words, that all of them His plays (see ontological difference ). This concept of being leads to an "essence metaphysics." "Essence" ( essentia ) here refers to properties (such as that which makes every man to a man ), "being" ( existentia ) the existence. For example, distinguishes Avicenna and in its reception about ( the early) Thomas Aquinas ( concise and well-known in De ente et essentia ).

In an analogous understanding of being is "being" understood as that which especially belongs, though. Depending on different ways ( Analogia entis ) Being is that wherein the one hand, agree all the objects and how they are different at the same time. This understanding of being leads to a ( dialectical ) " metaphysics of being ." The antonym to being here is nothing, nothing can stand outside of being. His is understood here as fullness. An example of this approach provides the later philosophy of Thomas Aquinas ( Summa Theologica ).

Uses of "being"

In the ontological tradition "being" is regarded as the central basic concept. In principle, three ways of using the term "being" can be distinguished that are already found in Plato: existence ( " cogito, ergo sum " ), identity (" Kant is the author of the Critique of Pure Reason " ) and predication ( " Peter is a man "). In traditional ontology, the question is discussed, as is the Being to beings behave. Martin Heidegger speaks here of the " ontological difference ", which stands for the separation of existentiality ( Man as an in- the-world Seiender ) and categoriality (World lot).

The most common use of the word "is" is the use for the purposes of predication. After classical Aristotelian view that has remained dominant until the 19th century, relates the word "is ", understood as the copula of the proposition, the predicate to the subject. In this orientation to linguistic form Aristotle comes to his ontology, according to which the world consists of substances and their attributes. In this model, is awarded to a general property by the predicate to a subject.

In analytical philosophy, the " is " of the declarative sentence not more than copula understood, but as part of the predicate. In this understanding is the "is" for a particular connection, the relationship that connects the individual to the property ( exemplification ). In the center of viewing the sentence as a whole is, which refers to a situation.

Transcendentals

Authors of Latin scholasticism of the Middle Ages denoted by the expression transcendentals (Latin transcend talia, from transcendere " exceed " ) such terms, get the all beings and therefore wrap around the one rushing categories. While categories are predicated only of certain beings, all transcendentals come to every being, but are predicated of different beings in different ways ( teaching analogy ). As transcendentals usually the truth ( verum), the one ( unum ) and the good ( bonum ), often also the Beautiful ( pulchrum ) apply. In classical ontology these transcendentals were among themselves as interchangeable: What ( highly ) was good, was at the same time as ( highly ) true and beautiful, and vice versa. In the 13th century has been controversial, as this transcendental terms are to be understood. In the modern ontology more transcendentals as reality ( actuality ), existence, possibility, similarity, identity or difference found (difference).

Individuals

In the ontology is "individual" ( the indivisible, nor " individual thing ", English: particular. ) Is a fundamental concept that is not defined by other ontological concepts. Thus, although individuals have characteristics that they are not used for characterization. Thus possess proper names of individuals no predicative character. One can say something, but do not use Socrates as a predicate on Socrates. Next, individuals are characterized in that they can not be in different places at the same time. Multi-locality is only available for properties. Third, individuals are by Gottlob Frege saturated entities, ie, they are objects that are self-contained, require no further designation.

An important distinction within individuals is that of physical individuals ( objects, body) and non-physical individuals ( abstracts ). Examples of the latter are institutions, melodies, dates or numbers, where the ontological character of numbers is controversial. This can also be interpreted as properties. For the ontology also problematic the classification of discussed in the philosophy of mind mental states and the associated contents of the terms consciousness, mind, soul (see also qualia and dualism (ontology ) ). In addition, a distinction is made between dependent and independent individuals. An individual is subject to when it can not exist without a specific other individual exists. Examples are a shadow or a mirror image. Whether a smile as a dependent individual is considered, or whether it is purely a property, in turn, is controversial. Independent physical individuals are called in the ontology also substance ( ousia ).

Controversy remains as to whether and to what extent properties that are realized in a particular substance are as a particular form of individuals, as a property of individuals to conceive. So you can understand the white beard of Socrates as a name for a certain time occurrence. Other examples are the body size of a particular people or the speed of a specific car each at any given time. Property individuals are sometimes referred to as the tropics. They are accidents of a substance, so always have a backing and are always dependent.

Issues

Situations are structured entities that refer to constellations in space and time, which are composed of individuals, properties and relations. Unless facts in reality have a correspondence, we speak of facts. For realistic ontologists statements have issues a correspondence in reality, the collect statements as truth-makers to facts.

Ludwig Wittgenstein has outlined an ontology in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which is based entirely on facts. Key sentences:

"The world is the totality of facts, not of things. " (1.1 )
" What is the case, the fact is the existence of atomic facts. " ( 2)
" The fact is a combination of objects. ( Entities, things ). " ( 2.01)
" The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality. " ( 2:06 )
" The way of how things hang together in the atomic fact is the structure of the facts. " ( 2032 )
" The shape is the ability of the structure. " ( 2033 )

There are a number of ontologists, such as Reinhardt Grossmann, the facts to the basic categories of the world are. Uwe Meixner, in the first step is different between the categories of the objects and features that are in addition to the individual circumstances a fundamental shape of the objects. In situations properties and relations are exemplified. On the other hand, as Peter Strawson has denied that facts in addition to the things have a reality in the world. Because the concept of fact is not sufficiently clarified, Donald Davidson concluded that theories based on the notion of fact are to be considered even clarified as insufficient. Among the representatives who keep matters as fundamental constituents of the world, David Armstrong counts.

Universals

In contrast to individuals and situations universals are spatially and temporally bound. One can distinguish four types of universals. For one, including characteristics are taken that may arise for an object such as a blush in a billiard ball. ( Eigenschaftsuniversalien ). Second, there are terms with which individuals are grouped as species and genera, as Socrates - man - mammal - living things. ( Substanzuniversalien ). The third case, the relations that Aristotle has captured even under the properties. You can see the relationship " is father of " regarded as characteristic of a person, by the she stands in a relationship to another. Bertrand Russell has called this and rejected as " monism ". For him, and in consequence for most ontologists a relation aRb is an individuals external relation R that exists between individuals a and b. Characteristics in individuals, relations in matters " exemplified ". They have a presence in a particular object. There is the fourth finally not - predicative universals that do not have the character of an object and a property, such as the Platonic Ideas, Beethoven's Ninth, the turtle ( as a species ) or the high C. Such type objects ( types) can spatially and time occur more than once. There are several performances of Beethoven's Ninth, and various printed music. Type objects can not be expressed by a predicate. You can not say " schildkrötig ".

From the beginning, there was the problem of how to what is referred to these general terms, ontologically classify. ( Universals ) Here, positions are compared with that in various ways the universals own reality award ( universals ) or those who believe rather that universals are purely conceptual, mental products with which certain characteristics of particular things eg the basis of similarity or other criteria assigned a name ( nominalism ). A more modern term for universals is " abstract objects ". This should be made clear in particular that also type objects, such as the number Pi are included in the analysis.

Part and whole

The part-whole relationship ( mereology ) is discussed at different levels. So the head of Socrates is an individual who is a spatial part of the individual Socrates. Because it belongs to the essence of Socrates, to have a head, the head is called an essential part of Socrates. There are also group individuals ( plural individuals ) as the Berlin Philharmonic, the EU's main cities, or the three from the gas station, each consisting of several individuals. The part-whole relationship has different character. If a musician from the Berlin Philharmonic or occurs in another EU State, the character of the individual group does not change, even if the numerical identity has changed. However, separating one of the Three Musketeers from the group, so the character of this group will go out. Here are some individuals as parts gruppenkonstitutiv for the whole.

A well-known example of problems that is arising from the part-whole relationship originating from the ancient world thought experiment from the ship of Theseus. Topological concepts such as " edge " and " context " can be studied with mereological agents, from which the Mereotopologie arises. Applications can be found among others in the field of artificial intelligence and knowledge representation. Because the part-whole relationship of different entities is a true feature, they can also be counted among the transcendentals.

Critique of metaphysics

The metaphysics since its creation, but especially since the 17th century, fundamental criticism. Frequently represented critics of metaphysics a variant of the position, the questions of metaphysics are not to answer with the means at its disposal in an adequate manner. While criticism in the 17th and 18th centuries argued especially with respect to the dependence of human cognition of empirical objects as knowledge objects, since the late 19th century aspects of the valid use of language as a medium of philosophical knowledge have moved into the center of the critique of metaphysics. As the main author of the critique of metaphysics Kant is often regarded, who argued the end of the 18th century, the basic concepts, would be operated by means of which metaphysics, possess no validity for the objects of metaphysics. However, he did not call for the end of metaphysics but advocated a philosophy based on a fundamental critical reflection of their methods.

Metaphysics (Aristotle) Camille Flammarion Empirical research Arthur Schopenhauer Analytic philosophy Physics (Aristotle) Liberty Discipline (academia) Property (philosophy) Philosophical anthropology Classical antiquity Monad (philosophy) Univocity of being Existentiell Henology Object (philosophy) Dualism (philosophy of mind) Trope (philosophy) Accident (philosophy) Donald Davidson (philosopher) David Malet Armstrong Mereotopology Phaedo The Republic (Plato) Monadology Science of Logic The World as Will and Representation Negative Dialectics Heinz Heimsoeth Jaegwon Kim Ernest Sosa Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Heidegger Gesamtausgabe Sophist (dialogue) Barry Smith (academic and ontologist) Integrated Authority File

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