Metaphysics

Definition

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as the first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry.

Related concepts

A-theory of time A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge A priori and a posteriori A series and B series Abductive reasoning Abhidharma Absolute idealism Abstract and concrete Abstract object theory Abstract reasoning Academic Skepticism Accident (philosophy)Achintya Bheda Abheda Action (philosophy)Action theory (philosophy)Actual idealism Advaita Vedanta Aesthetic emotions Aesthetics African philosophy Africana philosophy Agent causation Agriculturalism Ajñana Al-Ghazali Al-Kindi Al-Nijat Alan Turing Alexander Bain (philosopher)Alexius Meinong Alfred J. Andrea Alfred North Whitehead Alva Noë Alvin Goldman Alvin Plantinga Alyssa Ney American Journal of Archaeology American philosophy Analytic philosophy Analytical Marxism Analytical feminism Anarchism Ancient China Ancient Egyptian philosophy Ancient Greece Ancient Greek philosophy Ancient India Ancient Roman philosophy Ancient period Ancient philosophy Andronicus of Rhodes Andy Clark Anekantavada Anima mundi Animal machine Anthropology Anti-realism Antihumanism Antipositivism Applied ethics Applied philosophy Archaeology Aristotelianism Aristotle Arthur Schopenhauer Artificial intelligence Arts and Humanities Research Council Atomism Augustinianism Aura (paranormal)Australian philosophy Averroes Averroism Avicenna Avicennism Axiology Axiom Aztec philosophy Baruch Spinoza Baseball Basic Formal Ontology Beauty Behaviorism Being and Nothingness Being and Time Belles-lettres Bernard Bolzano Bertrand Russell Bhedabheda Bildung Biological naturalism Biology Boethius Brahman British idealism British philosophy Buddhism Buddhist philosophy Bundle theory Byzantine philosophy C. D. Broad C. S. Peirce Canadian idealism Cartesian dualism Cartesianism Categories (Aristotle)Categories of being Category (Kant)Category of being Causal closure Causal determinism Causality Chan Buddhism Charles Sanders Peirce Charvaka Chinese philosophy Chinese room Christian Wolff (philosopher)Christian philosophy Church Fathers Classical Realism Classical liberalism Classics Cogito, ergo sum Cognition Cognitive closure (philosophy)Coherence theory of truth Coherentism Collectivism and individualism Common sense Communitarianism Compatibilism Compatibilists Composition (objects)Computational metaphysics Computer science Concept Conceptual analysis Conceptualism Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Condition of possibility Confucianism Consciousness Consciousness-only Consequence argument Consequentialism Conservatism Constant conjunction Contemporary philosophy Continental philosophy Correspondence theory of truth Cosmology Cosmos Counterfactual conditional Counterfactual thinking Counterpart theory Creativity Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event Critical philosophy Critical rationalism Critical theory Criticism Critique of Pure Reason Cultural literacy Culture Cynicism (philosophy)Cyrenaics Czech philosophy D. M. Armstrong Daedalus (journal)Dance Daneshnameh-ye Alai Daniel Dennett Danish philosophy Data David Chalmers David Hume David Lewis (philosopher)David Malet Armstrong De rerum natura Deconstruction Deductive reasoning Deflationary theory of truth Deontology Derek Parfit Desiring Determinism Dharmakirti Digital humanities Dinosaurs Disagreements (epistemology)Disease Dispositio Disposition Doctor of Metaphysics Donald Davidson (philosopher)Duns Scotus Dutch philosophy Dvaita Vedanta E. J. Lowe (philosopher)Early modern philosophy Eastern philosophy Economics Edmund Husserl Edo neo-Confucianism Educational essentialism Eidetic variation Eleatics Electrons Eliminative materialism Embodied cognition Emergent materialism Emergentism Empirical evidence Empirical observation Empiricism Enactivism Encyclopædia Britannica Endurantism Enneads Enrico Berti Entity Environmental humanities Epicureanism Epiphenomenalism Epistemological idealism Epistemological particularism Epistemology Eretrian school Esse est percipi Essence Essentialism Eternalism (philosophy of time)Ethics Ethics (Spinoza book)Ethiopian philosophy Event (philosophy)Existence Existential quantifier Existentialism Experience Experimental philosophy Explanatory power Fact Falsifiability Feeling Feminist metaphysics Feminist philosophy Fiction Fictionalism Fideism Filmmaking First-order logic First cause First principle Flow of time Formalism (art)Foundationalism Four causes Francis Bacon Francis Herbert Bradley Francisco Suárez Frank Cameron Jackson Frankfurt School Franz Brentano Fred Dretske Free will French philosophy Friedrich Nietzsche Functionalism (philosophy of mind)Fundamental ontology Fundamental question of metaphysics G. E. M. Anscombe G. E. 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Anthony Blair J. L. Austin Jacques Derrida Jain philosophy Japanese philosophy Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Jerry Fodor Jewish philosophy John Dewey John Locke John Rawls John Searle (American philosopher)Journal of Controversial Ideas Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400)Kalam Kant's antinomies Kantianism Kashmir Shaivism Knowledge Kokugaku Korean Confucianism Korean philosophy Krausism Kyoto School Language of thought hypothesis Laozi Latin school Law Laws of thermodynamics Legal positivism Legalism (Chinese philosophy)Leonardo (journal)Li (neo-Confucianism)Liberal arts education Libertarianism (metaphysics)Liberty LibriVox Linguistic modality Linguistics List of Slovene philosophers List of Turkish philosophers List of humanities journals List of metaphysicians List of people considered a founder in a humanities field List of philosophers of mind Literature Logic Logic translation Logical atomism Logical formula Logical positivism Logical reasoning Logical system Logos Lucretius Ludwig Wittgenstein Madhyamaka Mahatma Gandhi Marcus Willaschek Martin Heidegger Marvin Minsky Marxist philosophy Master of Humanities Materialism Matter Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maya (religion)Mazdakism Meaning (existential)Meaning (philosophy)Meaning of life Medical humanities Medicine Medieval India Medieval period Medieval philosophy Meditations on First Philosophy Megarian school Mental event Mental image Mental representation Mental state Mereological nihilism Mereology Meta-analysis Meta-communication Meta-emotion Meta-ethics Meta-learning Meta-ontology Meta-optimization Meta-organization Meta-reference Meta-regulation Meta-system Meta (prefix)Metabibliography Metaclass Metaclass (Semantic Web)Metacognition Metacomputing Metadata Metadesign Metadiscourse Metaepistemology Metaethics Metafiction Metagaming Metagenomics Metaheuristic Metahistory (concept)Metaknowledge Metalanguage Metalinguistics Metalogic Metamaterials Metamathematics Metamedia Metamemory Metametaphysics Metamodeling Metamodernism Metamood Metamotivation Metanarrative Metaobject Metaontology Metaphenomics Metaphilosophy Metaphysical anti-realism Metaphysical cosmology Metaphysical naturalism Metaphysical necessity Metaphysical realism Metaphysics (Aristotle)Metaphysics (disambiguation)Metapolitics Metapopulation Metapragmatics Metaprogramming Metapsychiatry Metapsychology Metapuzzle Metascience Metasemantics Metasyntax Metatheorem Metatheory Metaverse Michael Dummett Michael Tye (philosopher)Middle Eastern philosophy Middle Platonism Mind Mind–body dualism Mind–body problem Mithraism Modal metaphysics Modal realism Modern period Modern philosophy Modernism Mohism Moksha Monad (philosophy)Monadology Money Monism Monistic idealism Moral absolutism Moral character Moral nihilism Moral particularism Moral realism Moral responsibility Moral skepticism Moral universalism Moscow University for the Humanities Motion Mozi Musicology Mīmāṃsā National Endowment for the Humanities National Humanities Medal Natural kind Natural law Naturalism (philosophy)Naturalized epistemology Nature (philosophy)Navya-Nyāya Naïve realism Ned Block Nelson Mandela Neo-Confucianism Neo-Kantianism Neo-Marxism Neo-scholasticism Neoplatonism Neopythagoreanism Neurophenomenology Neutral monism New Confucianism New historicism New mysterianism Newton's law of universal gravitation Newtonianism Nicolas Malebranche Nihilism Nimbarka Sampradaya Nominalism Nondualism Nonexistent objects Norm (philosophy)Normative ethics Nova Religio Novalis Number Nyaya Nyāya Sūtras Objective idealism Objectivism Objectivity (philosophy)Observations Occamism Occasionalism Occult Ockham's Razor Ockham's razor Ontological commitment Ontological commitments Ontology Ordinary language philosophy Outline of philosophy Outline of the humanities P. F. Strawson Pain (philosophy)Painting Pakistani philosophy Panpsychism Paranormal Parmenides Particular Patricia Churchland Pattern Paul Churchland Pegasus Perceiving Perception Perdurantism Performing arts Peripatetic school Personal identity Personhood Peter Abelard Peter van Inwagen Phenomenalism Phenomenology (philosophy)Phenomenon PhilPapers Philistinism Philosophical methodology Philosophical pessimism Philosophical realism Philosophical skepticism Philosophical zombie Philosophical zombies Philosophy Philosophy in Canada Philosophy in Malta Philosophy in Taiwan Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard Philosophy of artificial intelligence Philosophy of education Philosophy of information Philosophy of language Philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of matter Philosophy of mind Philosophy of perception Philosophy of psychology Philosophy of religion Philosophy of science Philosophy of self Philosophy of space and time Phosphorus (morning star)Physical cosmology Physical object Physicalism Physics Physics (Aristotle)Plato Platonic Academy Platonic forms Platonic idealism Plotinus Poetry Political idealism Political philosophy Popular culture Porphyry (philosopher)Positivism Possible world Post-structuralism Postanalytic philosophy Postcritique Posthumanism Postmodern philosophy Practical idealism Practical philosophy Pragmatic theory of truth Pragmatism Prakṛti Pre-Socratic Pre-Socratic philosophy Predicate (logic)Presentism (philosophy of time)Principle Principle of identity Probabilistic causation Problem of other minds Problem of universals Process and Reality Process philosophy Proclus Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Property (philosophy)Property dualism Propositional attitude Psychiatry Psychology Psychophysical parallelism Public humanities Pudgalavada Purusha Pyramid power Pyrrhonism Pythagoreanism Quadrivium Qualia Quality (philosophy)Quantity Quietism (philosophy)Quran R. 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