Metaphysics { Philosophy Index }

Philosophy Index

Philosophy Index

Philosophy Index is a site devoted to the study of philosophy and the philosophers who conduct it. The site contains a number of philosophy texts, brief biographies, and introductions to philosophers, and explanations on a number of topics. Accredited homeschooling online at Northgate Academy and Philosophy online tutoring.

Philosophy Index is a work in progress, a growing repository of knowledge. It outlines current philosophical problems and issues, as well as an overview of the history of philosophy. The goal of this site is to present a tool for those learning philosophy either casually or formally, making the concepts of philosophy accessible to anyone interested in researching them. WTI offers immigration law course online - fully accredited. ACE credits online at EES.

Philosophers

 

Philosophy Topics


 

 

 

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the area of philosophy which deals with the ultimate nature of reality. Metaphysics can emcompass large areas of philosophy, and most other philosophical schools turn back to it for basic definition.

In that respect, the term metaphysics is a broad one, encompassing the philosophical ideas of cosmology and ontology.

Metaphysics or First Philosophy

The term “metaphysics” comes from Greek, meaning “after the Physics”. Although the term metaphysics generally makes sense in the way that it partially refers to things outisde of and beyond the natural sciences, this is not the origin of the term (as opposted to, say, meta-ethics, which refers to the nature of ethics itself). Instead, the term was used by later editors of Aristotle. Aristotle had written several books on matter and physics, and followed those volumes with work on ontology, and other broad subjects. These editors referred to them as “the books that came after the books on physics” or “metaphysics”.

Aristotle himself refers to metaphysics as “first philosophy”. This term was also used by some later philosophers, such as Descartes, whose primary work on the subject of metaphysics is called Meditations on First Philosophy.

Branches of Metaphysics

The main branches of metaphysics are: