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 do you call something that is not a substance in philosophy?
Is the mind a substance in dual aspect monism?
In philosophy, "substance" is like "atom", which is the ultimate
independent real existence not depending on other entities, is the
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What motivated Whitehead to choose "Cogredience"?
I'm not a native english speaker, so I was not familiar with the term "cogredience" when I first saw it in Concept of Nature. frankly, it seems like its a word Whitehead used in a different ...
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Weakness of Spinoza's ontological argument
The ontological arguments of God are many, the weaknesses they suffer can be found in this reference.
My goal here is to focus on Spinoza’s ontological argument.
Spinoza's argument is different from ...
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Relationism, Substantivalism, and Simultaneity?
I've been breaking my head open lately over special relativity and its conception of spacetime's dynamical as well as kinematical features. One thing that has stuck in my head is that of whether the ...
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Perdurantism applied to non-physical objects
I have recently been reading up a lot on perdurantism aka four dimensionalism including papers by Rea, Sider, Bittner and Donnelly among others and I was interested in knowing whether there was any ...
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Is process philosophy at odds with orthodox Christian theology?
Process philosophy regards change, as opposed to stasis, as the basis of reality. Does this contradict orthodox Christian theology, such as Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the various Protestant ...
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Reference request on Idealist ontology
Apologies if this is original, it may or may not already exist (I've no idea), but it may also be a restatement of an ontology like Meinong's jungle. It contemplates a conception of concentric spheres ...
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Are ideas in the prolegomena meant to be the failure of understanding?
In the third section of the Prolegomena, Kant explains in section 40 (at least how I understand it) that ideas are merely the analogues categories of those concepts that cannot be experienced. As I ...
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Has there been any positive influence in current philosophical thinking which comes from Hans Vaihinger's 'As If'' Philosophy?
Hans Vaihinger- Born: Sep 25, 1852 · Nehren, Germany
Died: Dec 18, 1933 · Halle, Germany
Written works: The Philosophy of 'As if' · Die Philosophie Des ALS OB: System Der Theoretischen, Praktischen ...
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Looking for references regarding the history of metaphysics, and specially of ontology
Although many histories of ethics, of esthetics or of logic are available, it seems more difficult to find histories regarding other domains of philosophy. This is the case for epistemology and for ...
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Mathematical Universe
I have a beginner question on the type of claims this book or similar theories make. That book claims that universe is math structure.
I just want to clarify if I correctly understood his goal:
Does ...
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Is there an Abstract/Concrete Gray Area?
In natural language and daily life, it has become prevalent there is a class of entities which do not follow the abstract concrete distinction. Many people refer to abstractions that exist in time. (...
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Is it wrong to think that some continental philosophers make statements about the truth on an arbitrary basis?
The first thing I noticed when reading continental philosophers is that they make statements about the truth without any empirical or logical basis such that the statements were made on a completely ...
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What does Kierkegaard mean by 'spirit' in the following passage from "A Sickness unto Death"?
Soren Kierkegaard- "Sickness unto Death", (Princeton University Press 1983)
1848- From- Chapter 1- That 'despair' is the 'Sickness unto Death'- p 9
Man is a spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is ...
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Plato's Phaedo : Why does the soul stay separate from the body?
In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates established that death is the separation of soul and body. But he did not give any clue for this separation. What are the factors that lead to this separation? Physical ...
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Examples for necessary existence and necessary properties according to current metaphysics?
According to the survey article by Inwagen and Sullivan on metaphysics one subject of contemporary metaphysics are questions on modality.
The authors explain „necessity de re“
as the necessary ...
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Grounding without fundamental relations
Philosophers from Leibniz to John Heil have proposed the reduction/elimination of relations to non-relational features of their relata; essentially, they seek to formulate an ontology which does not ...
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Does Langan think syntax is meaning free isomorphic structures?
Refer: Christopher Langan, "An Introduction to Mathematical Metaphysics", Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 13, no. 2, 2017
Accepting syntax is that part or ...
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Collingwood, existence of God and its relation to natural science
I am reading Collingwood's essay in metaphysics and I have hard time in understanding his argument to the conclusion that Catholic Faith consists in (part) of absolute presuppositions of Greek thought ...
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Can an eternalist think that pastness and futureness are properties?
I take an eternalist to be someone who believes there are no past/future things, it all exists "at once". I understand the position as it applies to concrete objects, but I am not so clear on what the ...
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In which context does "Idealism" mean "non-corporeal substance"?
"Idealism" is one of the most vague concepts I've faced in philosophy. According to Wikipedia:
In philosophy, idealism is the group of metaphysical philosophies that
assert that reality, or ...
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Does the concept of Axis Mundi imply the idea of a symmetric universe?
In the mythologies of many cultures the universe is thought to have a center ( i do not mean the geographical concretisations which are obviously not accurate, i mean the philosophical conception ) ...
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Forms vs. universals for Aristotle
Aristotle associates the form of the human body with the soul and often De Anima iii 5 is interpreted so that Aristotle believed the human soul to be a subsistent form, which means the soul can exist ...
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Contact and Separation
If we say for argument that two objects are in contact withstanding physical properties of atoms that prohibit actual contact at that level of observation.
From classical observation of the world if ...
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Can we doubt the existence of our thoughts and feelings? How?
I'm reading Russell's "The problems of philosophy" and he says that the only thing we can be certain about is the existence of our "Sense-data" which are mainly our thoughts and emotions. I wonder if ...
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Reason for a reason
Ever since our childhood, we have been intuited to believe in an ever existing reason for everything that occurs around us. Every event that occurs has to have another event as its predicament, as it'...
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What is Malebranche's explanation for the source of human error?
An omnibenevolent God would not deceive us or cause us to be in error, thus the gifts from cannot be the source of error. Rather sin confuses our faculties and prevents us from using them as they ...
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How would Nietzsche argue against classical theism?
Completely out of curiosity, how would someone like Nietzsche, let's use him as an example, argue against Aquinas's metaphysical argument for classical theism. I can't seem to find any references in ...
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What's the relationship between good will and duty?
I'm writing an essay about the relationship between good will and duty, using an excerpt from Immanuel Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals". I find the subject very interesting, but I'm ...
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Mass and Density in De Rerum Natura
Lucretious poem, De Rerum Natura has the following:
Again, why see we among objects some
Of heavier weight, but of no bulkier size?
Indeed, if in a ball of wool there be
As much of body as in lump of ...
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field concept - historical and contemporay perspectives?
Can someone give me some reference (or insight) on the development of the field concept in physics.
In particularly, the period between 17th century Newton/Leibniz notion of force/action-at-distance ...
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At exactly what point do Farabi and Avicenna differ on the theory of emanation?
I have been trying to find an answer to this question but I haven't able to locate anything. Please see if you can respond.
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Is Parmenides a Dualist?
It's commonly understood that Parmenides denied the reality of change. That the world we perceive is an illusion. But is Parmenides better understood as the SEP indicates:
Both Plato and ...
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What are some examples of things that are ontologically parasitic
To be ontologically parasitic, a thing must exist only in reference to another thing.
For example, in the excellent video "How Many Holes Does a Human Have?", holes are identified as ontologically ...
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Can every idea including mathematical ideas be reduced to a series of simpler idea without information loss?
Can every idea including mathematical ideas be reduced to a series of simpler idea without information loss?
You would naturally think this is the case since most ideas could be explained using a ...
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Greek philosophy: Why would Finite Time weaken the forces of evil?
The inspiration for this question is the metaphysics of evil in Zurvanism, however, I do not want to use the internal logic of this religious system to understand this topic, rather I want to see if ...
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Can axiomatic (in-)dependence provide insights to the relation between natural and supernatural?
Suppose the natural world and supernatural world differ from each other by premises that both share, i.e. they are dependent on the same axioms.
Then the supernatural should also be a subsection of ...
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Leibniz, beginning of Principles of Nature and Grace
What did Leibniz mean at the beginning of "Principles of Nature and Grace," when he said, "Substance is a being capable of action." Afterall, a rock is made of substances, but it ...
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What philosophy did Nietzsche base his idea of "amor fati" on?
I've heard alot of people say that Nietzsche made his idea on amor fati from stoicism or stoic principles, is that true?
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How does Achille Varzi’s metaphysics avoid collapsing into Mark Heller’s Eliminativism
Achille Varzi is apparently a conventionalist about all kinds, natural and artifactual while being a mereological universalist who has a pretty permissive ontology. What keeps his position from ...
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Does existence consist of two categories?
The two categories I wish to describe is:
Eternal existence being uncaused and having always been
Short term existences such as human consciousness or other types which are destructible from their ...
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Under what conditions can we say that two things are ontological distinct?
I am curious as to under what conditions we say that two things are ontologically distinct. My hunch is that we say two things are ontologically distinct if they differ in their essential properties. ...
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Does utilitarianism imply materialism?
Does utilitarianism imply materialism?
Utilitarianism has for one component epicurianism, which is a materialist philosophy, and also consequentialism which cares about real life consequences of ...
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Is personhood different from personal identity?
I'm confused as to what the difference between these two terms are. Suppose that I am a cognitivist about personhood. Does this imply that higher order cognitive functions underwrite personal identity ...
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Hume’s Empiricism and the Possibility of an Epistemology Grounded in Metaphysics
Was epistemology continued in metaphysics? Was the impossibility of an epistemology grounded in metaphysics made impossible by Humean empiricism in the sense that a posteriori questions of fact are ...
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How can universal truths lead to particular truths?
Disclaimer: I have not read philosophy outside of limited Greek works
So, Plato theorized that there was a world of "universals" and "particulars", the world of general principles (...
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Why does Schopenhauerian "Will" appear as the Representation(s) that it does?
I believe that Schopenhauer is the closest to describing true reality - at least as far as I have currently developed my thoughts. But if reality-in-itself is pure Will (or what you might call an ...
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General Relativity as an equation of state?
So I prefer to interpret the theory of general relativity as an equation of state rather than an equation of mechanics.
There are others who prefer this well (padmanabhan's work centers around this ...
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How to give it's place to a new model of the [mater-life-thought] Totality?
I have a model of the [mater-life-thought] Totality I build for an IA thesis long time ago and I'm wondering how I can have it to find it's place among others known metaphysical systems ? That could ...
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Is partial symmetry one of the most fundamental concepts or laws of reality?
Brain is partially symmetric, planets are, most of the object that look symmetric, are actually partially symmetric. Is partial symmetry in some sense a fundamental concept of our mind or fundamental ...
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