hzt Intro to Metaphysics

Metaphysics = The study of the nature of reality

Metaphysical Questions

❖What is reality?

❖Why is there something and not nothing?

❖What is a being?

❖What is a person?

❖Am I free?

❖Is there a supreme being?

• ​Who am I?

• Why am I here?

• Where did I come from?

• Where am I going?

Definitions

Metaphysics:
the philosophy of being which seeks to answer questions about existence.

Metaphysics:
study of questions about the world left unanswered by the natural sciences, such as

• First Causes;

• Laws of the Universe;

• Mind/Body;

• Freedom/Determinism.

First used by Aristotle who wrote first his Physics (concerning the physical world) and the Metaphysics (beyond the physical world).

2 Foundational Principles

• Principle of non-contradiction - no real being can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.

• Principle of sufficient reason: every being has the sufficient reason for existence in itself or in another. It is not possible for something to be its own cause (otherwise it would violate .....

• .... the Principle of non-contradiction). Every being that does not possess the sufficient reason for its own existence in itself must have an efficient cause (necessarily extrinsic to itself).

Theories

Common Sense Realism
• What people perceive under ordinary conditions is reality.

​Idealism

• George Berkeley 18th Century

• Denies existence of material things

• Reality is ideas and the minds that hold these ideas

• “Esse est percipi” (“to be is to be perceived”)

• Objects are ideas that God placed in humans

Theories

Platonic Realism
• Reality is ideal forms or ideas that are timeless, unchanging, immaterial, and more perfect than the world of changeable things
• Forms in the World of Being
• Things in the World of Becoming

Theories

❖Materialism or Physicalism
• Pre-Socratic Philosophers
• Everything is physical; Reality consists of matter.
• Matter – particles in motion and forces like gravity.

​❖Monism

• Reality is one all encompassing thing

• All particular things are expressions of this one thing

• Things can be material or mental

• String Theory – everything is composed of one-dimensional strings of energy

Theories

❖Dualism
• Descartes Reality consists of two things: Mind and Matter
• Interactionism is a common version of dualism
• Mind and Body co-exist as separate entities
• Mental is separate from Physical
• Mind and Soul can pre-exist the body and survive bodily death
• Dualists believe in the afterlife, and the paranormal

❖Materialism
• Man is simply an animal, and brains are simply chemical systems
• No soul
• Humans are like computers.

Poll

Are we free?

• We have freedom to choose.

• No Freedom: Our actions are governed by nature and nurture,

• We have some freedom apart from nature and nurture ... but not much.

Open Ended

What do you think is really real?

Open Ended

What is ultimate reality?

Poll

Are you a materialist or a dualist ?

• Materialist

• dualist

Open Ended

Where did we come from?

Open Ended

Where are we going?

Poll

Do we have a mind distinct from the body? Or is the mind simply brain states?

• mind distinct from the body

• mind simply brain states