What Is Metaphysics

Jay

Wed Oct 09 2024 05:43:10 PM PDT

When reading, Riddles of Existence (Earl Conee & Theodore Sider), chapter 11, "What is Metaphysics,"
it became increasingly clear that it’s not a simple task to  define it. The author, Earl Conne, would often
spend time saying what it’s not! Then in my effort to dwell deeper in the subject, my 2-year-old son, 
Lyric, approaches me. Out of curiosity and to poke fun, I ask him, “What is metaphysics?” He takes the book
and flips through pages, and points at the words, “the soul,” funny coincidence – I like to imagine he’s
referring to Hegel’s Geist. After that amusing display I returned to my task at hand: just what is this
elusive metaphysics? Aristotle, with his “qua being” points to metaphysics being about general existence.
Metaphysics does have a great deal to say about existence, but it is not exclusively about existence.


Metaphysics also covers the matter of free will, time, universals, and other subjects. Perhaps it’s deeper
than that, metaphysics can go so far as to tell us about ultimate reality, until we conclude that this doesn’t
necessarily distinguish metaphysics from any other factual investigations. Earl continues to explore
metaphysics and compares it to physics, logic, and mathematics, but we never quite get a conclusive 
picture of what exactly is metaphysics. I now know, that I don’t completely know what metaphysics is,
but I have a better idea of what it is not.