Metaphysics is the philosophical investigation of the ultimate nature of reality. Some Basic Types of Questions in Metaphysics: (1) Questions concerning reality as a whole; (2) Questions concerning things that must be true of absolutely everything that exists; (3) Questions concerning possibilities

1. Metaphysics
What is
there?

2. https://existentialcomics.co
m/comic/219

5. WHAT METAPHYSICAL IS
*What is reality?
*Why is there something and not nothing?
*What is Causation
*What is a person?
*Am I free?
*Who am I?
*What is the mind?
*What is time?
*Is there a supreme being?
*What is Identity?

6. Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that studies questions about
existence.
Questions about the world left unanswered by the natural sciences: First
Causes; Laws of the Universe; Mind/Body; Freedom/Determinism.
First used by Aristotle who wrote first his Physics (concerning the
physical world) and the Metaphysics (beyond the physical world).

7. ONTOLOGY
 a branch of metaphysics relating to the
nature and relations of being
 a particular theory about the nature of
being or the kinds of existence

8. 2 FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES
 Principle of non-contradiction - no real being can both be
and not be at the same time and in the same respect.
 Principle of sufficient reason: every being has the sufficient
reason for existence in itself or in another. It is not possible
for something to be its own cause (otherwise it would violate
the Principle of non-contradiction). Every being that does not
possess the sufficient reason for its own existence in itself
must have an efficient cause (necessarily extrinsic to itself).

9. THEORIES
Naïve Realism
•What people perceive under ordinary conditions is
reality.

10. THEORIES
Idealism
• George Berkeley 18th Century
• Denies existence of material things
• Reality is ideas and the minds that hold these ideas
• “to be is to be perceived”
• Objects are ideas that God placed in humans

11. THEORIES
Platonic Realism
• Reality is ideal forms or ideas that are timeless, unchanging, immaterial, and
more perfect than the world of changeable things
Intelligible World: Forms in the realm of being
Physical World: Copies of the forms

12. THEORIES
Materialism or Physicalism
• Pre-Socratic Philosophers
• Everything is physical; Reality consists of matter.
• Thales: Everything is water!
• Democritus: Matter – particles in motion and forces like gravity.

13. THEORIES
Monism
• Reality is one all encompassing thing
• All particular things are expressions of this one thing
• Things can be material or mental
• Baruch Spinoza argued it could also be divine

14. THEORIES
Dualism
• Descartes
• Reality consists of two things: Mind and Matter
• Interactionism is a common version of dualism
• Mind and Body co-exist as separate entities

15. Why Study Metaphysics?
* Because it is fun
* Because it shapes our worldview
* Because our curious nature is to ask
* Because it studies that about which we deeply care

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