Metaphysics

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  metaphysics
       n : the philosophical study of being and knowing

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  30 Moby Thesaurus words for "metaphysics":
     aesthetics, axiology, casuistry, cosmology, epistemology, ethics,
     existentialism, first philosophy, gnosiology, hyperphysics, logic,
     mental philosophy, moral philosophy, ontology, phenomenology,
     philosophastry, philosophic doctrine, philosophic system,
     philosophic theory, philosophical inquiry,
     philosophical speculation, philosophy, school of philosophy,
     school of thought, science of being, sophistry,
     the first philosophy, theory of beauty, theory of knowledge,
     value theory