Questions tagged [metaphysics]
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the essence of things, of the fundamental nature of being and the world and the principles that organize the universe. Metaphysics is supposed to answer the question "What is the nature of reality?"
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What does it mean for a naturalist to claim that forces/actions "exist"?
tl;dr: How can forces (e.g. gravity) be said to "exist" or be true ?
I've had this question for so long, I assume it stems from a basic misunderstanding about naturalism or metaphysics, so please set ...
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What is Kant’s strategy to overcome Humean skepticism without having recourse to the metaphysical excesses of rationalism?
I understand that by metaphysical excesses, he meant supernatural entities, such as God, or the soul, to explain things in the phenomenal world.
Also, to my understanding, Hume's skepticism boils ...
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Is Camus 'Outsider' an argument for, or a critique of existentialism?
I've read Camus 'Outsider' twice. And have seen it acted out in the theatre.
I do not think I understand it, though I can admire Camus prose style.
Its often taken as canonical in existentialist ...
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Which contemporary philosophers are idealists?
I mean idealism, in that all is mind, as opposed to physicalism. I imagine that they would be more in the continental tradition than the anglo-american analytic tradition.
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How can categories be derived deductively?
In a book on Aristotle's metaphysics I read a passage on the differences between his and Kant's categories. It says that the concept of categories, in both Aristotle's and Kant's case, wasn't ...
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Is it arguable that philosophy is a crucial ingredient to a theory of mind?
I do not mean that there are philosophical positions on the theory of mind (as there most certainly are), but that philosophising must be part of the theory of mind, with a natural 'osmotic' unwilled ...
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Negative facts and truths
I know Russell and Wittgenstein argued about negative truths. It is easy to prove the existence of some property provided there is considerable empirical evidence for its existence, but what if we are ...
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What is Causality? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What does “to cause” mean?
Take an example, It is reported that short-circuit caused fire in city bakery. In this case short-circuit and fire was in a causality, short-circuit ...
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Philosophical implications of supplemental "time-like" dimensions?
Philosopher John G. Bennett proposed the idea that there are actually three time-like dimensions, in addition to the usual three spatial dimensions.
I would be curious to learn what the ...
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Can applicable skills be gained through dreaming?
Recently had a dream where I was in a situation I have never been before in "real life" - (no real experience prior to the dream of this situation).
After waking, all the feelings, thoughts, ...
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Spinoza's a priori proof for the existence of God
I am currently studying some aspects of Spinoza's philosophy, mainly in contrast to Kant. It seems to me that Spinoza is just the kind of "dogmatic metaphysician" Kant criticises. I know that Kant ...
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Is there really such a thing as art?
Suppose John asks Mary to show him a piece of art, and she shows him the Mona Lisa. In doing so, Mary seems to be claiming that the Mona Lisa is a piece of art—i.e., that the Mona Lisa has (or ...
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Is physicalism a current scientific consensus?
I was reading Wikipedia through materialism and physicalism article and was unable to find, whether modern scientists largely subscribe to physicalism in natural sciences.
What is the scientific ...
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Is this an Immanuel Kant quote? [closed]
You can imagine the perfect chair in your mind but you cannot build the perfect chair.
Or something very similar. I believe that is Kant but I cannot find any reference to the quote anywhere. Any ...
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Is there a known limit to relationship between physics and mathematics?
I am much interested in discussions such as Wigner's "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences". It's quite amazing that mathematics so well applies to our universe, and ...
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Who defined essence in the European tradition?
In 'Nagurjana, the limits of thought', Graham Priest defines essence to be
'For something to have an essence (Tibetan: rang bzhin; Sanskrit: svabhava) is for it to be what it is, in and of itself, ...
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Why did Wittgenstein read out loud metaphysical poetry to the Vienna Circle?
In this essay by Phil Shields, Wittgenstein & Silence he relates the following story:
Wittgenstein was invited to a meeting of the Vienna circle:
“When he finally came, instead of answering their ...
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What does "to cause" mean?
What does it mean, strictly, for one event to "cause" another? If I throw a ball, does the movement of my arm cause the ball to move, or are they simply correlated events? If you say the arm caused ...
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What are some criticisms of Epicurus' "death is nothing to us"?
Epicurus famously asserted that death should not be feared, with roughly the following argument:
When we die, we no longer exist;
Since we no longer exist, we can feel neither pain nor pleasure. ...
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Why do scientists get irate when mystical interpretations of physics are brought up? [closed]
Science typically refers people to Philosophy when such subjects are brought up. But yet they know that there are profound metaphysical implications of the physics of the last century, and since the ...
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Does compatibilism imply that a chess program has free will?
I am puzzled by compatibilism and am trying to understand what it means using a test example. Given that a typical chess program generates several choices, evaluates them with a goal of winning and ...
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Does Bergson view symbols negatively or only as a secondary source of knowledge?
In the Introduction to Metaphysics, metaphysics is defined as "that science which claims to dispense with symbols." Bergson contends that the human mind operates discursively, or by taking snapshots ...
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What area of philosophy deals with that which is outside of the normal (physical) reality (i.e. the "paranormal")?
I know that several different philosophy currents touch the subject of what we are as humans, what does it mean to be alive, and if we are something transcendent to the mere bodily representation that ...
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Is there a difference between the concepts of reality and existence in Aristotle's philosophy?
I'm reading a book on the history of philosophy and the author makes use of the word real-reality-really in such a way that is a bit confusing for me.
For example:
Aristotle's knowledge theory ...
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How could consciousness be evolutionarily selected if it makes no difference to the organisms survival?
An overwhelming amount of evidence points to indirect realism being true. This means that all perceptions are spatio-temporally located throughout brain processes. Therefore the body you perceive is ...
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Where is the universe?
Let's start with what is the universe: the universe is everything that exists - galaxies, stars, planets, matter, energies, etc. So the universe is composed of atomic components and the energies ...
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Is the coast of england a platonic form?
A real-world circle is not a true circle which, as far as Platos concerned, lives in the World of Forms. But isn't a fractal a mathematical form, so that does live in the the World of Forms; and as ...
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What is the "New Essentialism"?
Is the "New Essentialism" simply a return to Aristotelianism masked in new terminology, or is it a novel contribution to modern philosophy?
See:
Brian Ellis's Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the ...
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Evolution is rightly seen as non-teleological, but does that remain true when one goes down to the fundamental physical laws of the universe?
We have a theory (the standard model) that explains a great deal of the physical phenomena that we perceive. Let us grant Physicists their dream, and say we have a theory that explains all physical ...
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If ontology is the study of being, is there a name for the study of change?
I could be wrong, but it sounds like ontology is the study of what things exist. But I wonder what is the name for the study of what changes happen? The study of action, change, motion, etc.
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Life is illogical [closed]
The only porpose of life that I see is to feel good. Some try to achieve it by earning money, some try to achieve it by earning fame and respect, and there are still others who try to achieve it by ...
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How can domain modeling practice benefit from metaphysical ideas?
In software development, there is an activity called domain modeling, by which the developer creates a representation of the problem domain using some language (ultimately a programming language). ...
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What is the origin of the concept of "axis mundi", and how has it influenced Western philosophy?
Historically, many civilizations have contained in their culture, in one way or another, the concept of the "axis mundi" or world axis. Examples of this include Yggdrasil from Norse culture and Mount ...
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Do knowing quantities, which are measurable imply that one knows numbers?
Does a kid, which learns the meaning of the term "distance" (or any other expressions which might be thought of as physical quantities) automatically also develope a concept of numbers?
If I know ...
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Do Gödel's incompleteness theorems support the idea that the examination of a 'system' should only be undertaken to arrive at the inconsistency?
Roughly, Gödel demonstrated that in a logical system, that contains a model or arithmetic, there are statements which may be true, but are unprovable within the system.
If a statement is not ...
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David Lewis' conception of properties as classes [closed]
David Lewis' conception of abundant properties which he identifies with sets/classes ("no matter how oddly defined") is not quite clear to me. Since according to this position there cannot be - in no ...
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What were Descartes's justifications for the human ability to doubt, and why did he think it was so important?
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes resolved to systematically doubt that any of his beliefs were true. This was done in order to build a system of belief that would consist of only ...
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How are "conservation" and "happiness" the same thing for Kant?
Why does Kant equate "conservation" with "happiness" near the start of "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals"?
These seem like very different things (especially looking through an ...
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Does the 'too many thinkers' argument cripple Locke's conception of Man and Persons?
Does the too many thinkers problem present a counter-argument to John Locke's account of personal identity, if we apply it to his conceptions of Man and Person?
If so, how might Locke answer this ...
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Did Locke reject the idea that people had temporal parts?
I'm currently studying Locke's theory of personal identity and wondered if his writing rejected the idea that people had temporal parts.
Does anyone have any references that would support the idea ...
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Will fundamental physics eventually become an aesthetic construction and proceed on aesthetic grounds?
Consider the following argument:
Proposition 1: The language of physics (as an empirical science) is mathematics.
I think this should be uncontroversial to the majority of working physicists.
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Has modern physics undermined Berkeley's idealism?
To make a long story short, Bishop Berkeley argued that the idea of matter existing independently of perception was incoherent, since the properties of matter are (or were in Berkeley's time) defined ...
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How should we understand the teletransportation thought experiment?
Please read the short story here:Beam me up
First, I'd like to to know whether there is anything inherently inconsistent about this teletransportation idea? Is there fundamental reasons which say it'...
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What is the difference between naturalism and materialism?
What is the difference between naturalism and materialism, if any?
I see definitions of naturalism that say, in effect, it is the belief that there is no supernatural. But what is the supernatural ...
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Is there a parallel between Hegelian "essence" and Kantian "concept"?
I think I've found a paralelism between these two notions, at least to some extent. For Kant defines (in Logic, I, I, §1, also translated) concept as "an universal representation"
Every ...
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How well did Aristotle feel his belief in the eternity of the universe was established?
In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's belief that the world was eternal posed a major theological challenge for the many people who held a religious belief in Creation. Moses Maimonides, in his Guide for ...
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What are some good books on the relationship between animals and human beings?
So, there are a number of things I am actually after with this, but to try to encapsulate the concern briefly: which thinkers or writers might comment on the relationship between animals and human ...
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philosophical writings that explain "nature of nature is outside man's volition"
I read in Ayn Rand's essay "The metaphysical vs the man-made",
The nature of nature is outside man's volition.
Is there any other writings that discusses this concept in more detail?
Specifically ...
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How does Søren Kierkegaard use the word "dialectic" and how does his use of it differ from G.W.F. Hegel's?
According, to my understanding, the meaning of dialectic is...
In Plato: a back-and-forth conversational style of reasoning from his later dialogues
In the Middle Ages: the scholastic style of ...
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What role does "counting histories" play in Deutsch's critique of the "simulation argument"?
In his book The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch argues that there is a problematic assumption behind the simulation argument that "virtually all instances of us are in ... simulations and not in ...
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