Metaphysics in Philosophy Explained - Introduction to Metaphysics, What is it?

What is Metaphysics?

What is a person? If parts of you were to begin to vanish, at what point would you no longer be considered a person? If we know a person is fundamentally made up of individual atoms, is the concept of a person really an illusion? Is there a fundamental structure to reality? What exactly is time, and how does it fit in? These questions are just a few that one might find in metaphysics. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies what reality is, answering questions like ‘what is there?’ and ‘what is it like?’.

However, what metaphysics is precisely is controversial and difficult to define. The reason being that this branch of philosophy and what it attempts to solve has changed throughout the centuries.

This video will serve as a brief introduction to metaphysics. We’ll differentiate between ‘old’ metaphysics and ‘new’ metaphysics, examine whether metaphysics is even possible, how science today relates to metaphysics, and exciting problems metaphysics hopes to solve.

0:00 Introduction
0:23 Metaphysics Defined
0:56 Where the Term Comes From
1:41 'Old ' Metaphysics
3:12 ‘New’ Metaphysics
4:36 Can Metaphysics Be Done?
7:43 Metaphysics & Methodology
8:36 Science & Metaphysics
10:14 Ontology
10:56 Philosophy of Mind
11:46 Causation, Determinism, & Free Will
12:30 Space & Time
13:27 Conclusion - Metaphysics Reborn

[metaphysicswithariyana]

the best thorough explanation of Metaphysics I've come across so far. Thank you, Ben. I'll be listening to and unpacking this for a long time.

[ULINEgo]

THANKS MAN- This ticked all the boxes. Brilliant summary to introduce to the concepts.

[metaphysicswithariyana]

I wonder if sometimes there are just smart people who sometimes just don't have the ability to experience spiritual things, like dream, meditate or have intuition. and that's why some people don't see the value of Metaphysics. What do you think?

[jalepezo]

love the milenial friendly approach, as an ESL student I appreciate the friendly approach ! thanks

[georgedoyle]

Well done!! Good overview and clear and concise.

The one thing I would have added is that it was actually the brilliant mathematician Kurt Godel who put the final nail in the coffin for logical positivism in the 1930s with his discovery of the incompleteness theorems. Not mentioning Kurt Godels incompleteness theorems in this context is like forgetting to mention Einstein when discussing E = mc2.

Einstein used to get up early to walk with Godel so he could pick Godels brains. Furthermore, a lot of atheist Edge lords still don’t know that logical positivism is self refuting hence the scientism and materialism of the gaps fallacies committed by the modern cult of “reason” such as the “new atheist” movement!! All the best.

[godfreydebouillon]

In the end, it is not possible to even do science without metaphysics, because it isn't even possible to do so because of the metaphysics of various universals.

[sinisterminister]

Unfortunately, many misuse the term “metaphysics” or “metaphysical” to mean “mystical”, “magical”, or “new age”.

[kallianpublico]

If illusion is sensing things that cannot be physically corroborated: color; and delusion is thinking things that cannot be sensed: atoms, time; then how can we agree on what's what or what's real?
Is reality a social construct or an individual ability?

[jonathanharris]

Thanks for this. Is it possible for you to make notation references of your quotes and key concepts in some way? - this would help our studies.

[mysticallavish]

New subbie, I'm here to learn and interested where this takes me, thank you!

[JasonObsidian]

There is no science without metaphysics and no metaphysics without science.

[ruzya]

Could you recommend me books to start with? I hope I can find them over here in Argentina. Love your channel by the way, it's like going back to knowledge speed through speech.

[sancigonz]

Great content! I like the pace of the video.

[clarkedavis]

Thanks, well done. Do you know about the new metaphysics of Ontological Mathematics?

[havenbastion]

A mention of mereology was warranted and world have helped people understand the origins of metaphysicsa lot better.

[lisayuan]

Hey, could you do a vid on New Age ideas like law of attraction, thoughts equal matter, and how they use language from quantum physics to make their point?

[EarthPEMF]

Is Disclosure of UAPs an evolution of metaphysics in philosophy??
THINKING DEEPLY IS FOR PhDs.
SOUL SEARCHING IS FOR FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY.
But can a PhD in philosophy can study the branch of philosophy of metaphysics without soul searching?

[evenesteven]

True substance indicates something very fundamental in the order of being and the Greeks call this something ousia. Subsequently, many misunderstandings arose from the fact that ousia was translated as substance, which, if we stick to the etymology, no longer means ousia at all, the word substance coming from the Latin substare, in other words what lies below. From there some concluded that substance was the subject...

Your soul is your substance but substance is not soul.

[godfreydebouillon]

Well, decent summary i think, but philosophers before Descartes absolutely did not take the world "as it is" or appears. Pre Socratics such as Parminades for example, believed that all of the changes we think we perceive or experience is all an illusion. Xeno, one of his students, particularly focused on the paradoxes of motion (Xenos Paradox) to demonstrate that reason proves that our senses are illusory and change (such as motion) isn't real. Thus it was said, human reason can be trusted, but not our senses. This is exactly the opposite of Heraclitus who sought to demonstrate that all notions of permanence is an illusion and change is the only real feature of reality.
You'll find modern day "scientists" utterly ignorant about the subject making annunciations on both sides of the issue, sometimes even contradicting themselves. Unverifiable beliefs like "all of reality is nothing more than eternal quantum fluctuations" or "the universe is static, eternal, multi dimensional and unchanging, even though individual observers may have perceptions of change".
Aristotle became famous for addressing those vastly disparite metaphysics, as well of course creating the subject of propositional logic.
It absolutely was not meant to read it comes "after" physics, because metaphysics is *more* fundamental to reality than physics, and to even attempt to do physics, you first must have a correct metaphysical framework or you'll become irrational really fast.

[ZoiusGM]

7:29 It is verifiable. I don't see how it is not. We can test the statement with our experience.