
	Where results make sense

Topic: Introduction to metaphysics

	Metaphysics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the nature of the world.
		Metaphysics as a discipline was a central part of academic inquiry and scholarly education even before the age of Aristotle.
		Other problems that were considered metaphysical problems for centuries are now typically relegated to their own separate subheadings in philosophy, such as philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Metaphysics (1804 words)

	Metaphysics - MSN Encarta
		Metaphysics is customarily divided into ontology, which deals with the question of how many fundamentally distinct sorts of entities compose the universe, and metaphysics proper, which is concerned with describing the most general traits of reality.
		Before the time of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, metaphysics was characterized by a tendency to construct theories on the basis of a priori knowledge, that is, knowledge derived from reason alone, in contradistinction to a posteriori knowledge, which is gained from experience.
		The metaphysical theories that were developed using this method may be divided into monism, which holds that the universe is made up of a single fundamental substance; dualism, the belief in two such substances; and pluralism, which proposes the existence of many fundamental substances.
	uk.encarta.msn.com /encyclopedia_761555386/Metaphysics.html (1255 words)

	Pathways to Metaphysics - Introductory readings in Metaphysics
		On this conception, metaphysics is the most general of all the disciplines; its aim is to identify the nature and structure of all that there is. Central to this project is the delineation of the categories of being.
		From the Introduction: "It is not the purpose of this essay to expound and to defend a particular system of immanent or transcendent metaphysics, but to inquire into the common structure and function of such systems, whether explicitly formulated, e.g., by philosophers, philosophically minded theologians or scientists, or only implicitly accepted.
		From the Introduction: "Because it is the most central and general subdivision of philosophy, and because it is among the oldest and most persistently cultivated parts of the field, metaphysics raises special difficulties of selection for a companion such as this.
	www.formalontology.it /pathways_metaphysics.htm (8426 words)

	[No title]
		Ascetics GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS I. The active faculty of the human mind, as the faculty of desire in its widest sense, is the power which man has, through his mental representations, of becoming the cause of objects corresponding to these representations.
		It has been shown in The Metaphysical Principles of the Science of Nature that there must be principles a priori for the natural science that has to deal with the objects of the external senses.
		In other words, this amounts to saying that a metaphysic of morals cannot be founded on anthropology as the empirical science of man, but may be applied to it.
	eserver.org /philosophy/kant/intro-to-metaphys-of-morals.txt (6667 words)

	Metaphysics
		Metaphysics is the popular name for the ancient philosophy of Idealism, first taught by Plato and Aristotle about 2500 years ago.
		Metaphysics means "beyond physics" - it is the attempt to present a comprehensive, coherent and consistent account of reality, of the Universe as a whole, including ourselves.
		Metaphysics acknowledges a cosmic mind as the operating principle of order and change as well as the source of all existence.
	websyte.com /Alan/calgmeta.htm (1347 words)

	metaphysics
		However, Philosophy and Metaphysics have always known that there was an underlying Dynamic Unity of Reality, to explain the necessary interconnection of all things in the Universe.
		Metaphysics aims to overcome this problem by using reason to try and understand what the real world is, which causes both our logic and our senses (and ourselves!).
		Time was, when she (Metaphysics) was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour.
	www.spaceandmotion.com /metaphysics.htm (5342 words)

	metaphysics
		Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy consisting of ontology and cosmology.
		The term 'metaphysics' is often used to entail ideas and theories as to what kinds of beings are real, the nature of those beings and of the concepts and language used to think and speak or write about those beings.
		Metaphysical speculation about kinds of realities, which at one time dominated Western philosophy, has gradually given way to careful analyses of what can reasonably be posited about reality given what we know about how we come to experience reality and how we come to generate ideas about reality.
	skepdic.com /metaphysics.html (573 words)

	Metaphysics
		Metaphysics is supposed to answer the question "What is the nature of reality?" (see Metaphysics, introduction).
		But we cannot answer this question without first understanding what is the meaning of metaphysics, if any, and in what respect metaphysics differs from science, which tries to answer similar questions but through more concrete methods.
		Metaphysics is traditionally subdivided in ontology, the theory of being in itself, and cosmology, the theory describing the origin and structure of the universe.
	pespmc1.vub.ac.be /METAPHYS.html (453 words)

	Metaphysics, introduction
		But it is not unlikely that the term won a ready acceptance as denoting this part of philosophy because it conveyed the purpose of metaphysics, which is to reach beyond nature (physis) as we perceive it, and to discover the "true nature" of things, their ultimate essence and the reason for being.
		Metaphysics creates a linguistic model (logical or conceptual structure) to serve as a basis for further refinements.
		Even though a mature physical theory fastidiously distinguishes itself from metaphysics by formalizing its basic notions and introducing verifiable criteria, metaphysics, in a very important sense, is physics.
	pespmc1.vub.ac.be /METAPHI.html (344 words)

	Felt Meanings of the World Introduction
		Rationalist metaphysics is based on the idea that the part of human nature that relates to the meaning of the world and that also realizes this meaning inasmuch as the rational contemplation of God is the unconditioned purpose of the world, is reason.
		But metaphysical feelings, understood from what is genuinely the perspective of feeling, do not relate to reasons for the world but to its ways of being important, and they do not relate ineffably but effably—but their effability is not that of reason.
		Since the metaphysics of feeling transcends to a different realm than the metaphysics of reason, the problems that are dealt with in the meta physics of reason acquire a transformed sense in the metaphysics of feel ing.
	www.qsmithwmu.com /felt_meanings_of_the_world_introduction.htm (13630 words)

	Metaphysics Principles Reality: Quotes by Philosophers Aristotle, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Einstein on Metaphysics Truth
		As Aristotle explains, Metaphysics is the study of the One Substance (and its Properties) which exists and causes all things, and is therefore the necessary foundation for all human knowledge.
		Metaphysics, then, is regarded by Aristotle as a single, comprehensive study of what is fundamental to all existence, all knowledge and all explanation.
		The Metaphysics of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) explains the necessary connection of matter (cause and effect) due to the interconnection (and changing velocity) of the Spherical In and Out-waves with all the other matter in the universe.
	www.spaceandmotion.com /Metaphysics-Principles-Reality.htm (11043 words)

	An approach to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics
		Heidegger's analysis of the question shifts back on the second page of ITM from giving an account of the existential event or encounter as he calls it to the issue of the priority of the Question which began that account.
		Despite the focus in the preceding sections being primarily on ITM I want to now turn to the beginning of BT, a text that precedes ITM by nearly a decade and which also begins with the question, although this time in quite a different way.
		But the emptiness of the word 'being', the total disappearance of its appellative force, is not merely a particular instance of the general exhaustion of language; rather, the destroyed relation to being as such is the actual reason for the general misrelation to language.
	homepage.ntlworld.com /matt.lee7/itm.htm (11321 words)

	Introduction to Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Many of the stories we inherit are metaphysical, in the sense that they are about the origins, the nature, the meaning, and the unity of the world.
		Any metaphysical story worth taking seriously should therefore be contemporary -- it should take full account of the wisdom of the past, certainly, but also of what has changed since then, whether in the world or in our knowledge of it.
		Metaphysics is often said to be inherently reductive: how everything else is must be reducible to how things are at a deeper level.
	www.vanderbilt.edu /~postjf/mciintro.htm (1632 words)

	Metaphysics (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy responsible for the study of existence.
		It answers the question "What is?" It encompasses everything that exists, as well as the nature of existence itself.
		The degree to which our metaphysical worldview is correct is the degree to which we are able to comprehend the world, and act accordingly.
	www.importanceofphilosophy.com /Metaphysics_Main.html (236 words)

	Doug Renselle's Review of Henri Louis Bergson's 'An Introduction to Metaphysics,' with connections to Quantonics, ...
		The inherent difficulties of metaphysic, the antinomies which it gives rise to, and the contradictions into which it falls, the division into antagonistic schools, and the irreducible opposition between systems are largely the result of our applying, to the disinterested knowledge of the real, processes which we generally employ for practical ends.
		While it would make of metaphysics a positive science—that is, a progressive and indefinitely perfectible one—it would at the same time lead the positive sciences, properly so-called, to become conscious of their true scope, often far greater than they imagine.
		But this metaphysics, like this science, has enfolded its deeper life in a rich tissue of symbols, forgetting something that, while science needs symbols for its analytical development, the main object of metaphysics is to do away with symbols.
	www.quantonics.com /Review_of_Bergsons_An_Intro_to_Metaphysics.html (11443 words)

	HPR \| Metaphysics
		In response to those logical positivists who regard metaphysics as a pseudo-science whose concerns are only the products of an uncritical imagination, McInerny shows how the principles and categories of metaphysics are not “meaningless” because “not subject to empirical verification” but rather the very conditions for any meaningful discourse.
		And to those who do express an appreciation for metaphysics but prefer an eclectic pluralism in their approach, McInerny shows the gaps that remain in one’s understanding of being without a systematic application of the basic principles of metaphysics.
		In Thomistic metaphysics the transcendentals refer not to the properties that make a being of one kind distinct from beings of another kind (that is, substance and the nine kinds of accident), but to the common properties of any being as being.
	www.ignatius.com /magazines/hprweb/bk_mcinerny.htm (1054 words)

	Cybrarian: An Introduction to Metaphysics by Henri Bergson
		Cybrarian: An Introduction to Metaphysics by Henri Bergson
		It has, however, more importance than a simple introduction would have, for in it M. Bergson explains, at greater length and in greater detail than in the other books, exactly what he means to convey by the word intuition.
		T. A COMPARISON of the definitions of metaphysics and the various concepts of the absolute leads to the discovery that philosophers, in spite of their apparent divergencies, agree in distinguishing two profoundly different ways of knowing a thing.
	www.pscelebrities.com /cyberlibrarian/2005/07/introduction-to-metaphysics-by-henri.html (701 words)

	PHIL 100 - LEARN - The University of Auckland Library
		Metaphysics deals with fundamental questions about the nature of mind and reality, while the Theory of Knowledge investigates the nature of human knowledge and the conditions under which it is possible.
		This course covers a range of topics, including the existence of God, the possibility of freedom of the will, the nature of the self and of personal identity, the relationship between mind and body, and the way in which metaphysical schemes endow life with significance or reveal its absurdity.
		Matter and Consciousness: a Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind.
	www.library.auckland.ac.nz /subjects/philos/course-pages/phi100.htm (993 words)

	Amazon.com: Introduction to Metaphysics (Yale Nota Bene S.): Books: Martin Heidegger,Gregory Fried,Richard Polt (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics is one of the most important works written by this towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy.
		And this is in no way a text book on metaphysics or an introduction to the subject of metaphysics (I picked it up when I did not know who Heidegger was and wanted a quick introduction to 'metaphysics' about which I was hazy then.
		Heidegger's `Introduction to Metaphysics' was banned in Germany until the early 1950s.
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300083289?v=glance (2416 words)

	Contemporary Metaphysics? - Mitch Hodge - The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal
		Very rarely, except when needed for historical context, does Loux ever introduce what might be typically referred to as traditional metaphysical concerns, and most all of this is done in the introduction where he runs through a very brief history of metaphysics itself.
		Even though this topic is one of the hottest debated in contemporary metaphysics, the reader might be surprise that such an in-depth position would be included in an introduction.
		Yet, with even a mild introduction to philosophy, the reader will be carried into an even greater understanding of philosophy, and perhaps it most misunderstood and often neglected branch, metaphysics.
	www.examinedlifejournal.com /archives/vol2ed6/loux.html (974 words)

	Amazon.com: A Companion to Heidegger`s "Introduction to Metaphysics": Books: Richard F. H. Polt,Gregory Fried (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, first published in 1953, is a highly significant work by a towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy.
		This new companion to the Introduction to Metaphysics presents an overview of Heidegger's text and a variety of perspectives on its interpretation from more than a dozen highly respected contributors.
		In the editors' introduction to the book, Richard Polt and Gregory Fried alert readers to the important themes and problems of Introduction to Metaphysics.
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300085249?v=glance (989 words)

	Metaphysics Books
		Here are a few of my favorite metaphysics books to supplement your readings for our course, or to read after you've gone through PHIL 312.
		This book is somewhat technical, and presents metaphysics in a style that is somewhat outdated.
		This is a truly great book, a fine introduction to the deeper technical issues in metaphysics today.
	www.wpunj.edu /cohss/Philosophy/COURSES/PHIL312/MBOOKS.HTM (273 words)

	Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		"An engaging and challenging introduction to metaphysics, informed by contemporary developments in philosophy and science, by one of the most innovative modem contributors to the field."
		Metaphysics offers a thoughtful and engaging introduction to metaphysics, the theory of what if anything are the origins, the nature, the meaning and the unity of all there is that is clear, sometimes humorous, and accessible to all students, while covering topics of considerable contemporary interest.
		In addition, Metaphysics covers topics not found in current texts, such as contemporary anti-metaphysics, including deconstruction; realism versus anti-realism; fact and value; and new ideas about consciousness, intentionality, and value.
	www.vanderbilt.edu /~postjf/contentsmci.htm (241 words)

	Metaphysics.html (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		If, as some claim, Heidegger's work marks the end of metaphysics, then it is striking that the discipline should terminate in confrontation with the same question that so puzzled the pre-Socratic philosophers of the ancient world.
		Metaphysics also overlaps with metaethics - the general theories about the meaning of words like 'should' and 'ought' (when used in their moral senses), and of the relations between facts and values.
		Students are able to follow up particular metaphysical questions or issues for themselves, not limited strictly to the topics or questions mentioned above.
	www.arts.uwa.edu.au /PhilosWWW/HonsSeminars/Metaphysics.html (393 words)

	Amazon.ca: Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics: Books (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		This collection was assembled by Bergson toward the end of his life, and it includes essays, such as "Introduction to Metaphysics" that were written some thirty-five years earlier.
		He sees science and philosophy as capable of being complementary."Science and metaphysics will differ in object and method, but will commune in experience." It seems that the precision is needed to actually arrive at answers to our questions as opposed to giving birth to even more new questions.
		The difference between metaphysics and science will be, namely, that whereas science relies on analysis metaphysics will use Intuition.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0806504218 (1618 words)

	Bristol University: Undergraduate Prospectus - Philosophy - Introduction
		We are a friendly, active, middle-sized department with an established reputation for excellence in teaching and research.
		You will learn the basics of logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy, and will be able to explore your own interests through special units and independent research.
		You'll gain a basic knowledge of some fundamental problems of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy; competence in logic and the analysis of arguments; and reading and writing skills.
	www.bris.ac.uk /prospectus/undergraduate/2007/sections/ARTF/PHIL/dept_intro (1436 words)

	Philosophy 102, Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		This course is an introduction to metaphysics and epistemology, two of the main areas of philosophy.
		Metaphysics is concerned with the ultimate character of reality.
		Answers to these epistemological questions are essential if we are to have any confidence in the methods and results of our metaphysical investigations.
	williams.edu /philosophy/faculty/wdudley/previous_dudley_page/102.html (814 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)