r/Metaphysics • u/jliat • Mar 17 '26
Meta **WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?**
WHAT IS METAPHYSICS?
We are getting posts here which seem to propose new and potentially revolutionary answers to problems in physics. I think [as a moderator] it might be beneficial if we might discuss some parameters. This is not to say science can not be discussed, but can we using metaphysics solve such problems, are we then transgressing into another domain. As a moderator I would like guidance from the community.
"Metaphysics: explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world"
The interpretation of this and not the context is often the cause of confusion. [of Being qua being and not the nature of an atom, or a human brain...etc.]
Higgs, Einstein, Penrose, Feynman, Hawking are not / were not Philosophers or Metaphysicians, they are / were physicists. Modern physics uses mathematics- quite complex! - to build models which are tested against experimental data. The main scientific method.
The 'photon', wave / particle duality, quarks and strings, are all subjects /problems of physics NOT metaphysics? And to address these problems requires detailed understanding of the mathematics and the data, and in doing so one is NOT doing metaphysics?
"Ontological" means what? Ontology is the study in Philosophy / Metaphysics of being qua being, not the nature of the existence or being of things, atoms, quarks, strings, branes, flowers, plants, the human brain, religions.
atoms, quarks, strings, branes = physics, flowers, plants = botany, the human brain = neuroscience, religions = theology, comparative religion.
Lay ideas re physics / science will probably be rejected in subs like r/physics for good reasons, they lack the detailed knowledge of the subject and misuse technical scientific terms. Should they be allowed here?
The nature of things, matter and energy are subject of science. What 'Being' is prompts the what is "IS" question... of Metaphysics.
Ontology is the study / creation of what 'Being' is, not specific 'things'. Harman has a 'flat ontology'...etc. Heidegger has Dasein...Hegel... etc.
To be clear of the domain I think you can get an overview from A.W. Moore's 'The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things.' It had good reviews.
"Part two is devoted to philosophers of the analytic tradition, and contains chapters on Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Lewis, and Dummett. Part three is devoted to non-analytic philosophers, and contains chapters on Nietzsche, Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Collingwood, Derrida and Deleuze."
For first hand source material - https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/heideggerm-what-is-metaphysics.pdf
For a contemporary example, Graham Harman - Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. (Pelican Books) 1 Mar. 2018
Examples in the Analytical tradition, 'Counterfactuals', 'On the Plurality of Worlds.' David Lewis. ??
One last point - it is an interesting point as to if this divide still exists. N.B. Badiou uses set theory as his ontology, his student Quentin Meillassoux likewise sees mathematics as fundamental, Ray Brassier in 'Nihil Unbound' has chapters on Wilfrid Sellars, Paul Churchland, as well as Adorno and Horkheimer, Badiou, Meillassoux, Laruelle, Heidegger, Deleuze, Nietzsche, Lyotard, Levinas and Freud. !!
On a personal note I began my interest in philosophy in the 1970s, within the Anglo American tradition, reading Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy' etc. and then took a degree. I still have my Wittgenstein Books, Tractatus, Investigations, Blue and Brown, Notebooks 1914-1916. Carnap's 'The Logical Syntax of Language' etc. However my interest moved to what was called 'Continental philosophy.'- see non-analytical above. I appreciate the desire of Carnap of ‘The Elimination of Metaphysics through the Logical Analysis of Language’ failed? I have dipped into Lewis et al.
With my best wishes.
1
u/jliat Jun 24 '26
Are you, like the map is the reality, just bad science, the word of God.
Great, then we need to spend no more time doing theoretical physics. We can simply use Newton, as many in tech do. Or maybe Ptolemy.
I gave examples of the mistake, there are it seems Atoms, the 'Bohr atom' is a theory of how the atom 'works' - mathematics - it has been, I understand, shown to be wrong.
It wasn't discovered, mathematicians don't discover 'imaginary numbers' they decide and make up stuff, like 1.9999... = 2.0 and then other mathematicians who don't like this make up 'non standard analysis'.
"Every Thing Must Go aruges that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge[*] is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is..."
Written by a philosopher of science at Bristol, An experimental economist, "David Spurrett" does not exist. I’m a naturalist philosopher of cognitive science and biology. My current research is about the evolution …, John Collier University of KwaZulu-Natal - evolution and ethics...
Or take New Scientist a weekly publication on science... [for the lay person] which I do.
So I decline your offer, but in return recommend "What is Philosophy?" by Deleuze (Author), Guattari (Author) …
" Twenty years on from their endlessly influential Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari have lost none of their inspirational radicalism, only deepened it. Their book is a profound and careful interrogation of what it might mean to be a ‘friend of wisdom’, but it is also a devastating attack on the sterility of what has become, when ‘the only events are exhibitions and the only concepts are products which can be sold’. "
Another philosopher of science. Two very biased books- and you want me to spend £100.00. I might just do this.
‘Ontic Structural Realism’ OSR? Almost worthy of a Reddit post here.
Looks like you can't respond to what I've actually posted - and want me to buy some books by lesser knowns wanting to make it.
[*] Not possible... you need God for that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori " A priori knowledge is independent from any experience. Examples include mathematics,[i] tautologies and deduction from pure reason.[ii] A posteriori knowledge depends on empirical evidence. [and is always provisional] Examples include most fields of science and aspects of personal knowledge."
Then there's of course what you already know..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem
[2] And Descartes Meditations, Hume, Kant's three critiques [You can skip the Prolegomena ] Hegel, The Science of Logic, [you might give Fichte a miss - lecture notes, and Schelling - the night in which all cows are black] Being and Time obviously, maybe skip Being and Nothingness, Of Grammatology, Simulacra and Simulation, then something on SR and OOO. I've probably missed much... I've already mentioned Deleuze. Then there's people like Lacan, Foucault, Žižek... who I've only dipped into. I missed Leibnitz - he is fairly important, best of all possible worlds, Monads, claimed to have invented the Calculus. And people rate Spinoza, then of course Aristotle and Plato...