EDF 821-02/14

HISTORY OF METAPHYSICAL THINKING

A. Aristotle 3^rd century BCE

Metaphysics traces itself back to the Philosophical works of Aristotle. Aristotles works include Logic, Rational psychology, Works on Physics, works on Natural history and Philosophical works

B. Metaphysiscs under Andronicus of Rhodes(1BCE)

i. 1st-century BCE head of Aristotle's Peripatetic school.

ii. Ordering of  Aristotle's works:  Gave the name Metaphysics (τα μετα τα φυσικα βιβλια), literally "the books beyond the physics," //books to be read after reading Aristotle's books on nature, which he called the Physics.

iii. Etymomology: Phusis//Meta//Biblia// Natura.

iv. Metaphysics// First Philosophy" — ontology (the science of being), cosmology (the fundamental processes and original causes of physical things), and theodicy (is a god required as "first cause?").

C. Metaphysics under the Medieval Roman Catholic Church(5c AD-15c AD)
i.From "First Philosophy" consideration of  God as among the possible causes of the fundamental things in the universe to a more theological conception of Metaphyiscs. 

ii.Latins limited Aristotle’s Tracing of the regress of causes back in time as an infinite chain, which led him to postulate the  first cause or "uncaused cause. Or "unmoved first mover." (These postulates became a major element of theology down to modern times.)

iii.Key Figures:

            Albertus Magnus: called it science beyond the physical.

            Thomas Aquinas narrowed it to the cognition of God.

            John Duns Scotus:  Disagreed, arguing that only study of the world can yield        knowledge of God

iv. Later Scholastic philosophers:

Returned metaphysics to the study of being in itself, that is, ontology, which again today is the core area of metaphysical arguments.

 D. Renaissance: 14^th-17^th century Europe

i)        Christian Wolff: (Renaissance Germany):  Broadened metaphysics to include psychology, along with ontology, cosmology, and natural or rational theology.

ii)      Francis Bacon (renaissance England): Narrowed metaphysics to the Aristotelian study of formal and final causes, separating it from natural philosophy which he saw as the study of efficient and material causes.

iii)    Descartes(French Rationalism/French Epistemological era) ; made a turn from what exists to knowledge of what exists. He changed the emphasis from a study of being to a study of the conditions of knowledge or epistemology.

iv John Locke and David Hume( English Empiricists): Metaphysics includes the "primary" things beyond psychology and "secondary" sensory experiences. They denied that any knowledge was possible apart from experimental and mathematical reasoning. Hume thought the metaphysics of the Scholastics is sophistry and illusion.

v. Immmanuel Kant's(German) :  Critiques of Reason claimed a transcendental, non-empirical realm he called noumena, for pure, or a priori, reason beyond or behind the phenomena. Kant's phenomenal realm is deterministic, matter governed by Newton's laws of motion.

            Kant's immaterial noumena: are in the metaphysical non-empirical realm of the       "things themselves" along with freedom, God, and immortality. Kant identified     ontology not with the things themselves but, influenced by Descartes, what we can          think - and reason - about the things themselves. In either case, Kant thought   metaphysical knowledge might be impossible for finite minds.

E. Mordern era -16^th-18^th century

i. Modern metaphysics: the study of the fundamental structure of reality, and as such foundational not only to philosophy but for logic, mathematics, and all the sciences.

ii. First causes, new beginnings or genesis, might depend on the existence of God//Appeal to Aristotle’s theology in First Philosophy.

F. The positivist era-19^th   century-20^th century

Denial of the notion that metaphysics transcends experience and the material world. No Possibility of metaphysical knowledge.

Positivism[3] is the claim that the only valid source of knowledge is sensory experience, reinforced by logic and mathematics. Together these provide the empirical evidence for science.

Key figures:

            Rudolf Carnap metaphysical statements are meaningless

            Moritz Schlick

            Ernst Mach: He rejected theories about unobservable things

            August Comte- metaphysics and theology are obsolete primitive phases in the        development of knowledge.

G. Logical positivist era: 20^th century

i)        All valid knowledge is scientific knowledge[4]

ii)      Only asserted that all knowledge is scientific knowledge derived from experience, i.e., from verifiable observations, they also added the logical analysis of language as the principal tool for solving philosophical problems.

iii)    Identified ontology not with the things themselves but what we can say - using concepts and language - about the things themselves.

Key Persons: Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Viena circle:They divided statements into those that are reducible to simpler statements about experience and those with no empirical basis. These latter they called "metaphysics" and "meaningless.

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[1] Physical works. (describes the four "causes" or "explanations" (aitia) : 1.Formal vs 2.Final causes, 3.Efficient vs  4.Material Causes)

[2] In his Philosophical works (Metaphysics// Aristotle called it First Philosophy//Protov Philosophia/Philosophia Prima…. Explanations for existence itself. What exists? What is it to be? What processes can bring things into (or out of) existence? Is there a cause or explanation for the universe as a whole? 

[3]Related Concept: Naturalism is the anti-metaphysical claim that there is nothing in the world beyond the material (including energy), that everything follows "laws of nature," and that these laws are both causal and deterministic.

[4] Science is often criticized for "reducing" all phenomena to physical or chemical events.