Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a very complicated subject and continues to be debated in philosophical circles (eg, ‘first causes’, ‘unchanging things’, ‘being as such’). In academic philosophy to assert metaphysical claims as physical would constitute as irrational knowledge; to assert metaphysical claims as non-physical would count as rational. Metaphysics plays a role in the investigation of language where the Philosophy of Language explores intensional statements (idea the word means and the physical form of the word) such as 'De Dicto' ("about what is said") and 'De Re' ("about the thing"). Physics deals with the observable world and its laws whereas Metaphysics (after Aristotle’s ‘Physics’), in order to understand an unobservable world, must deal with non-perceptual means to get at the bottom of things. We know that there’s something there, but perception will not get us there. The late Professor of philosophy Daniel Robinson (Georgetown Univ.) clarifies the quandary, “If science is primarily based on observation and if we know that observation yields only phenomenal reality and not noumenal reality, then it could be that science has built in limitations. And one of the reasons we’re not seeing what there is to be seeing is because we are engaging reality with nothing more than our eyes. So there’s that possibility also built into that Enlightenment criticality that of which Kant perhaps is the greatest exemplar.” The Greeks proposed the existence of five basic elements. Four were observable - fire, air, water & earth – whereas the fifth element, the ‘metaphysical’ one, was the one cannot be seen – Spirit. Prior to modern science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. The term science itself meant "knowledge of”. The scientific method transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics represented philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence. In the days of Kant metaphysics was divided
into three parts: Typical questions that confront the
metaphysician:
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