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| Different approaches
toward resolving the mind–body problem. |
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a major branch of philosophy. It concerns
existence and the nature of things that exist.
Altogether it is a theory of reality.
Ontology is the part of metaphysics which discusses what
exists: the categories of being. Apart from ontology,
metaphysics concerns the nature of, and relations among,
the things that exist.
The metaphysical idea that reality exists independently
of one's mind and yet can be known is called realism.
The metaphysical idea that no mind-independent reality
exists or can be known is idealism. These are two main
battlegrounds of metaphysics. |
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History
Natural philosophy
In the West, metaphysics is usually traced to the
natural philosophers in ancient Greece, where Aristotle
systematized a metaphysical description of nature
equivalent to today's theoretical science.
By the 4th century AD in Alexandria, Egypt, alchemy was
starting its transformation into chemistry. The
conventional view is that alchemy was steeped in
mysticism, and that chemistry did not quite become what
we would call science until it entered the 19th century.
Science
In the early 17th century, Galileo introduced to physics
his experiments with earthly objects: the dawn of
empirical science in Western Europe. Galilean laws of
motion led to the overthrow of Aristotle's ideas, a
revolution more or less completed by the wide acceptance
of Cartesian physics, built upon Copernican and Galilean
mechanics.
Newtonian physics rapidly replaced Cartesian physics.
Isaac Newton, like others that we now call scientists,
was known as a natural philosopher. In the 1830s,
Auguste Comte created positivism, the first modern
philosophy of science. It sought the divorce of science
from religion and metaphysics.
In 1847, Hermann von Helmholtz's paper "On the
conservation of energy", stated the first law of
thermodynamics, and tried to reduce physiology to
physics. In 1859, Darwin proposed an explanation of
evolution by natural selection. Both seemed plausible
and compatible with physical theory. |
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Common use
By the 1860s, the term science (as meaning something
distinct from philosophy) entered the dictionary. Today
the term metaphysics usually refers to discussion of
aspects of reality which are beyond physics.
Particularly among those seeking to be scientific, the
term metaphysics can be pejorative to varying degrees.
However, philosophers of science recognize that science
is impossible without metaphysics. At the very least,
before beginning empirical investigation, one needs an
ontology. This is because categories are needed to sort
observations into. |
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