Metaphysics

Metaphysics (Greek words meta = after/beyond and physics = nature) is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of "first principles" and "being" (ontology).

The origin of the word 'metaphysics'

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle produced a number of works which together were called the Physics. In an early edition, the works of Aristotle were organized in such a way that another set of works was placed right after the Physics. These books seemed to concern a basic, fundamental area of philosophical inquiry, which at the time did not have a name; Aristotle himself just called it "first philosophy". So early Aristotelian scholars called those books τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά βιβλια, "ta meta ta physika biblia", which means "the books that come after the (books about) physics." That is the origin of the word 'metaphysics' (in Greek, μεταφυσικά).

Related Topics:
Aristotle - Greek

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Hence, etymologically speaking, metaphysics is the subject of those books by Aristotle which were called, collectively, the Metaphysics. Technically, it was so named because it came after the book of Physics. But the actual subject matter in the book, perhaps coincidentally, are on the topic of things that underlie the physical—"beyond" the physical, so to speak—therefore fitting the word in two ways.

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The Metaphysics was divided into three parts, now regarded as the traditional branches of Western metaphysics, called (1) ontology, (2) theology, and (3) universal science. There were also some smaller, perhaps tangential matters: a philosophical lexicon, an attempt to define philosophy in general, and several extracts from the Physics repeated verbatim.

Related Topics:
Ontology - Theology - Universal science

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• Ontology is the study of existence; it has been traditionally defined as 'the science of being qua being'.
• Theology means, here, the study of God or the gods and of questions about the divine.
• Universal science is supposed to be the study of so-called first principles, which underlie all other inquiries; an example of such a principle is the law of non-contradiction: A thing cannot both be and not be at the same time, and in the same respect. A particular apple cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. It can't be all red and all green at the same time. Universal science or first philosophy treats of "being qua being" — that is, what is basic to all science before one adds the particular details of any one science. This includes matters like causality, substance, species, and elements.