- Metaphysics
- Metaphysics Met`a*phys"ics, n. [Gr. ? ? ? after those things
which relate to external nature, after physics, fr. ? beyond,
after + ? relating to external nature, natural, physical, fr.
? nature: cf. F. m['e]taphysique. See {Physics}. The term was
first used by the followers of Aristotle as a name for that
part of his writings which came after, or followed, the part
which treated of physics.]
1. The science of real as distinguished from phenomenal
being; ontology; also, the science of being, with
reference to its abstract and universal conditions, as
distinguished from the science of determined or concrete
being; the science of the conceptions and relations which
are necessarily implied as true of every kind of being;
philosophy in general; first principles, or the science of
first principles.
[1913 Webster]
Note: Metaphysics is distinguished as general and special. {General metaphysics} is the science of all being as being. {Special metaphysics} is the science of one kind of being; as, the metaphysics of chemistry, of morals, or of politics. According to Kant, a systematic exposition of those notions and truths, the knowledge of which is altogether independent of experience, would constitute the science of metaphysics. [1913 Webster]
Commonly, in the schools, called metaphysics, as being part of the philosophy of Aristotle, which hath that for title; but it is in another sense: for there it signifieth as much as ``books written or placed after his natural philosophy.'' But the schools take them for ``books of supernatural philosophy;'' for the word metaphysic will bear both these senses. --Hobbes. [1913 Webster]
Now the science conversant about all such inferences of unknown being from its known manifestations, is called ontology, or metaphysics proper. --Sir W. Hamilton. [1913 Webster]
Metaphysics are [is] the science which determines what can and what can not be known of being, and the laws of being, a priori. --Coleridge. [1913 Webster]
2. Hence: The scientific knowledge of mental phenomena; mental philosophy; psychology. [1913 Webster]
Metaphysics, in whatever latitude the term be taken, is a science or complement of sciences exclusively occupied with mind. --Sir W. Hamilton. [1913 Webster]
Whether, after all, A larger metaphysics might not help Our physics. --Mrs. Browning. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
