Download Introduction to Metaphysical Terms

Introduction to
Metaphysical
Philosophers and
Terms
Introduction to Metaphysics
What is metaphysics?
 Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that
studies the structure of reality.
 Metaphysics is often called “First Philosophy”
because it examines questions at the heart of other
areas of philosophy.
 Metaphysical questions must be answered before
many other philosophical questions can be
considered.
Metaphysics Questions
Metaphysical questions include:
 What is reality?
 What is the self?
 What is the relationship between the mind and the body?
 Am I free or do other forces determine my life?
 What is the meaning of life?
 Does a Supreme Being exist?
 What is a person?
Common-sense Realism
What you
perceive is
what you
see.
Common-sense Realism
 The world is perceived exactly as it is; what people
perceive under ordinary conditions is reality.
 The world is full of objects that are perceived by our
senses.
 “What you see is what you get.”
Idealist
• Idealists believe that
the physical objects
you bump into, in
your everyday
interactions with the
world, are actually
manifestations of
mind or intelligences
rather than material
things independent
of mind.
George Berkeley
Idealist
 George Berkeley was an idealist.
 Idealism views reality as mental or thought-like.
 Reality consists of ideas and the minds that house or
store them.
 He maintained that what people “common sensically”
view as material objects are really ideas that God
placed in humans.
 Idealists are philosophers who deny the existence of
material things.
Platonic Realism
Plato’s Theory
Platonic Realism
 Developed by Plato.
 Reality is ideal forms/ideas that are timeless and
unchanging, immaterial and more perfect than the
every day world we live in and encounter through
sense perception.
 Connection Reminder: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Materialism
• Materialists believe
that consciousness,
mind, intelligence, and
self are just complex
phenomena that can be
fully explained in terms
of matter.
Thomas Hobbes
Materialism
 Thomas Hobbes is a supporter of Materialism.
 Everything is material and is composed of matter.
 Even a person’s thoughts, consciousness and
personality is composed of matter  by-products
of the brain.
Monists
• According to monism,
reality is ultimately
one unified allencompassing thing
(matter or mind).
Baruch Spinoza
Monists
 Reality is one all-encompassing thing and all things
are manifestations or expressions of this one thing.
 This thing can be material, mental or divine.
Dualists
• Dualism by contrast,
is the view that
reality consists
ultimately of two
different kinds of
properties.
René Descartes
Dualists
 Reality is two different things: mind and
matter or mental states and physical states.
 They have nothing in common, however,
they can interact.
Ontology
• Area of metaphysics
that deals with the
nature of being and
reality.
Martin Heidegger
Ontology
 Martin Heidegger proposed the following
ontological questions: What is being? What
does it mean to be?
 What is the relation of “being” to particular
things that exist?
Determinism
• Every physical event
that occurs in the
universe is caused by
previous events that
unfold according to
causal laws.
Determinism
 This theory states that every event in our lives is
determined by a chain of causes extending back in
time.
Substance
 Something that has an independent
existence.
 The basic element/ingredient of which things
are made – mental or material.
Substance
What “substance” are
these items made
from?
Essence
 Fundamental nature of a thing.
 An unchanging blueprint.
 The thing that makes it what it is.
Essence
What makes your
house a “home”?
Does your “home”
have an essence?