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Metaphysics is that portion of philosophy which treats of the most general and fundamental principles underlying all reality and all knowledge. As Bradley writes;
 (Bradley, 1846-1924) We may agree, perhaps, to understand by Metaphysics an attempt to know reality as against mere appearance, or the study of first principles or ultimate truths, or again the effort to comprehend the universe, not simply piecemeal or by fragments, but somehow as a whole.
The word metaphysics is formed from the Greek meta ta phusika, a title which, about the year A.D. 70, was related by Andronicus of Rhodes to that collection of Aristotelean treatises which since then goes by the name of the "Metaphysics". Aristotle himself had referred to that portion of philosophy as "the theological science" (theologikê), because it culminated in the consideration of the nature of God, and as "first philosophy" (prôtê philosophia), both because it considered the first causes of things, and because, in his estimation, it is first in importance. The editor, however, overlooked both these titles, and, because he believed that that part of the Aristotelean corpus came naturally after the physical treatises, he entitled it "after the physics". This is the historical origin of the term. However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find intrinsic reasons for its appropriateness. For instance, it was understood to mean "the science of the world beyond nature", that is, the science of the immaterial. Again, it was understood to refer to the chronological or pedagogical order among our philosophical studies, so that the "metaphysical sciences would mean, those which we study after having mastered the sciences which deal with the physical world" (St. Thomas, "In Lib, Boeth. de Trin.", V, 1). In the widespread, though erroneous, use of the term in current popular literature, there is a remnant of the notion that metaphysical means ultraphysical: thus, "metaphysical healing" means healing by means of remedies which are not physical.
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It is common knowledge that the sciences (including physics) are founded on two sources of truth;
i) Logic from principles. i.e. Theories. (a priori knowledge)
ii) Empirical knowledge from our senses. i.e. observation and experiment. (a posteriori knowledge)
The aim of Science is to unite these two sources of truth with the most simple principles.
The problem for Metaphysics (science, physics) is twofold.
Firstly, although logic from principles is necessary and certain, it does not mean that the things we assume to exist (as stated by our principles) actually exist in reality. An example of this is the assumption that light is a 'particle' (photon). While it is true that light energy is emitted and absorbed in discrete amounts, it is a further theoretical assumption that light is a 'particle'.
As Einstein writes;
The skeptic will say: "It may well be true that this system of equations is reasonable from a logical standpoint. But this does not prove that it corresponds to nature." You are right, dear skeptic. Experience alone can decide on truth. ... Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world: all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
Secondly, (and frustratingly) our senses also deceive us. Philosophers have known for thousands of years that our mind represents our senses, thus the world we see and taste and touch is different (naive real) to the real world which causes our senses. Our sense of color is an obvious example of how our mind represents a certain frequency of light. Thus if we are to describe Reality then it must be founded on real things which exist and cause our senses, not on the naive real representation of our senses. And so Science (without Metaphysics), by being empirically founded, is not well suited to describing Reality itself. As Aristotle wrote; Rather, they start this, displaying it to the senses, .... and go on to offer more or less rigorous demonstrations of the per se attributes of their proprietary genera. This sort of procedure is inductive (empirical) and it is as plain as a pikestaff that it does not amount to a demonstration of essence or of what it is to be a thing. (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
But also philosophy is not about perceptible substances (they, you see, are prone to destruction) (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
Thus Science / Physics is inclined to be misled because both of its truths are deceptive. 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). And for many thousands of years the great philosophers / metaphysicists have known that for matter to be interconnected throughout the universe, then there must be one thing that connects the many things (matter) together. That a complete description of reality must be founded on one thing / substance. Leibniz writes this most simply;
Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. (Leibniz, 1670)
Hence metaphysics is beyond our senses because it realises that though we don't see an obvious connection between matter, reason tells us there is (e.g. earth orbiting sun, that we can see stars across the universe). Further, since the time of Kant, it has become increasingly clear that we cannot describe reality correctly (i.e. from one metaphysical foundation), while we have theories founded on many separate / discrete things. Thus Space and Time cannot both exist, nor can particles and forces (the current paradigm). This explains why we now live in a post-modern relative culture of no absolute truths, because our theories are founded on many things, and these are merely human constructions, ideas approximating reality, but not absolutely true.
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Aristotle Metaphysics.
It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge? (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of unprovable starting-points (concepts and truth) and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them. (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
Metaphysics is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has. (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest. And to seek for this is to seek for the second kind of principle, that from which comes the beginning of the change. (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity.
... it is impossible that the primary existent, being eternal, should be destroyed.
... that among entities there must be some cause which moves and combines things.
..about its coming into being and its doings and about all its alterations we think that we have knowledge when we know the source of its movement. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 340BC)
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Leibniz Metaphysics - On Leibniz's Monads and Monadology
Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.
I do not conceive of any reality at all as without genuine unity. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
It follows from what we have just said, that the natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, and that change is continual in each one. … Now this connection of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, each created monad represents the whole universe. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is, by resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached. .... I hold that the mark of a genuine idea is that its possibility can be proved, either a priori by conceiving its cause or reason, or a posteriori when experience teaches us that it is in fact in nature. ... It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions. This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
I agree with you that it is important to examine our presuppositions, thoroughly and once for all, in order to establish something solid. For I hold that it is only when we can prove all that we bring forward that we perfectly understand the thing under consideration. I know that the common herd takes little pleasure in these researches, but I know also that the common herd take little pains thoroughly to understand things. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
...a distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man's imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection. ... Indeed in general I hold that there is nothing truer than happiness, and nothing happier and sweeter than truth. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
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Metaphysics: David Hume: Hume's Problem of Causation and Necessary Connection (now known as Hume's Problem of Induction).
The Philosopher David Hume is famous for making us realize that until we know the Necessary Connection / Cause of things then all human knowledge is uncertain, merely a habit of thinking based upon repeated observation (induction), and which depends upon the future being like the past.
It appears that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating the operations of mind on body- where we observe the motion of the latter to follow upon the volition of the former, but are not able to observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect. The authority of the will over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seemed conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or force at all, and that these words are absolutely without meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life. (Hume, 1737)
Hume's Problem of Causation has remained unsolved for 250 years (Neither Kant nor Popper positively solved it) and this lack of certainty, at the very heart of Human Scientific Knowledge, has greatly prejudiced our belief in the possibility of Metaphysics and the certainty of Science, and has ultimately led to the extreme skepticism (Postmodernism) of our currently troubled and confused times. It is a delight to read David Hume, who writes brilliantly - beautifully blending clarity, content and style.
It must certainly be allowed, that nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects; while she conceals from us those powers and principles on which the influence of those objects entirely depends. (Hume, 1737)
When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. (Hume, 1737)
... experience only teaches us, how one event constantly follows another; without instructing us in the secret connexion, which binds them together, and renders them inseparable. (Hume, 1737)
We then call the one object, Cause; the other, Effect. We suppose that there is some connexion between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity. (Hume, 1737)
I say then, that, even after we have experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from that experience are not founded on (a priori) reasoning, or any process of the understanding.(Hume, 1737)
It is allowed on all hands that there is no known connexion between the sensible qualities and the secret powers; and consequently, that the mind is not led to form such a conclusion concerning their constant and regular conjunction, by anything which it knows of their nature.(Hume, 1737)
Hume correctly explains that Humans do not know the 'Necessary Connexion' between objects and thus do not know the relationship between Cause and Effect. This quite simply is the Problem of Causation - that until we know 'what exists' and the 'necessary connexions' between these things that exist, then it is impossible for Humanity to have certainty of knowledge.
This then leads to the further Problem of Induction, for if we do not know the a priori cause of events then we have no Principles from which to logically deduce our conclusions. We are left simply observing that one event follows another and seems connected, but we do not know how or why, thus we must depend upon repeated observation (Induction) to determine the Laws of Nature (the current state of Modern Physics) and hence tacitly assuming (without reason) that the future is like the past. (It is simply a habit of thinking to connect two events which seem to occur in conjunction and necessarily assumes that the future will be like the past). As Hume writes;
..all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. .... Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. (Hume, 1737)
I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other. (Hume, 1737)
It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that, for the future, it will continue so. (Hume, 1737)
In ending these quotes from David Hume it is important to realise that Hume did not prove that we could not know reality and that Metaphysics was ultimately doomed to failure (as is now commonly argued), he simply pointed out the problems that Metaphysics faced due to this lack of knowledge of what exists, and thus of the necessary connection between things. He writes;
I cannot find, I cannot imagine any such reasoning. But I keep my mind still open to instruction, if any one will vouchsafe to bestow it upon me. (David Hume, 1737)
I must confess that a man is guilty of unpardonable arrogance who concludes, because an argument has escaped his own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I must also confess that, though all the learned, for several ages, should have employed themselves in fruitless search upon any subject, it may still, perhaps, be rash to conclude positively that the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension. (David Hume, 1737)
We should respect Hume's open mind (which is central to Philosophy), as this is necessary if we are to ever consider new ideas and thus advance Human knowledge.
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Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics
Immanuel Kant is the most famous metaphysicist throughout the history of philosophy, and there is no doubt that his 'Critique of Pure Reason' is the most comprehensive analysis of Metaphysics since Aristotle's pioneering work which founded this subject. He writes grandly and profoundly on the subject of Metaphysics;
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. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba .. her empire gradually broke up, and intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves into civil communities. But their number was, very happily, small; and thus they could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who persisted in raising new edifices, although on no settled or uniform plan. (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
This can never become popular, and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for fine-spun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes the manifest duty of the schools to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of speculative reason, and thus to prevent the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses. (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
Natural science (physics) contains in itself synthetical judgments a priori, as principles. Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. ... There are two pure forms of sensible intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori, namely space and time. (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
And from this he concludes that because Space and Time cannot be united, they must both be merely ideas.
If we take away the subject (Humans), or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as appearances, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. .... not only are the raindrops mere appearances, but even their circular (spherical) form, nay, the space itself through which they fall (motion), is nothing in itself, but both are mere modifications or fundamental dispositions of our sensible intuition, whilst the transcendental object remains for us utterly unknown. (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
While Kant is correct that Space is a priori, or first necessary for us to have senses (which are a posteriori) his further argument, that Time is also a priori or necessary for us to sense the motion of matter in Space is more open to criticism. He writes;
... even that of motion, which unites in itself both elements (Space and Time), presuppose something empirical. Motion, for example, presupposes the perception of something movable. But space considered in itself contains nothing movable; consequently motion must be something which is found in space only through experience -in other words, is an empirical datum.
However the Wave Structure of Matter suggests that it is incorrect to write that 'space considered in itself contains nothing movable'. For if we reject the metaphysics of particles and forces in Space and Time, and replace this with matter existing as the spherical wave motions of Space, then we realise that Space itself can contain motion - matter existing as the spherical wave motion of Space (where the wave-center causes the particle effect of matter, and the wave motion of Space causes matter's activity and our ideas of Time). However at Kant's time the Wave Structure of Matter was unknown and the particle conceptions of matter led Kant to conclude that both Space and Time must be merely ideas (representations of the mind), and thus we could never know the 'thing in itself' that caused our ideas of matter and its interconnected motions in Space (Kantian Idealism).
..in respect to the form of appearances, much may be said a priori, whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these appearances, it is impossible to say anything.
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Albert Einstein on Metaphysics (Remarks on Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge)
In the evolution of philosophical thought through the centuries the following question has played a major role: what knowledge is pure thought able to supply independently of sense perception? Is there any such knowledge? If not, what precisely is the relation between our knowledge and the raw material furnished by sense impressions?
There has been an increasing skepticism concerning every attempt by means of pure thought to learn something about the 'objective world', about the world of 'things' in contrast to the world of 'concepts and ideas'. During philosophy's childhood it was rather generally believed that it is possible to find everything which can be known by means of mere reflection. It was an illusion which anyone can easily understand if, for a moment, he dismisses what he has learned from later philosophy and from natural science; he will not be surprised to find that Plato ascribed a higher reality to 'ideas' than to empirically experienceable things. Even in Spinoza and as late as in Hegel this prejudice was the vitalising force which seems still to have played the major role.
The more aristocratic illusion concerning the unlimited penetrative power of thought has as its counterpart the more plebeian illusion of naive realism, according to which things 'are' as they are perceived by us through our senses. This illusion dominates the daily life of men and of animals; it is also the point of departure in all of the sciences, especially of the natural sciences.
As Russell wrote;
'We all start from naive realism, i.e., the doctrine that things are what they seem. We think that grass is green, that stones are hard, and that snow is cold. But physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and the coldness of snow are not the greenness, hardness, and coldness that we know in our own experience, but something very different. The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.'
Gradually the conviction gained recognition that all knowledge about things is exclusively a working-over of the raw material furnished by the senses. Galileo and Hume first upheld this principle with full clarity and decisiveness. Hume saw that concepts which we must regard as essential, such as, for example, causal connection, cannot be gained from material given to us by the senses. This insight led him to a skeptical attitude as concerns knowledge of any kind. Man has an intense desire for assured knowledge. That is why Hume's clear message seemed crushing: the sensory raw material, the only source of our knowledge,through habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge and still less to the understanding of lawful relations.
Then Kant took the stage with an idea which, though certainly untenable in the form in which he put it, signified a step towards the solution of Hume's dilemma: whatever in knowledge is of empirical origin is never certain. If, therefore, we have definitely assured knowledge,it must be grounded in reason itself. This is held to be the case, for example, in the propositions of geometry and the principles of causality. These and certain other types of knowledge are, so to speak, a part of the implements of thinking and therefore do not previously have to be gained from sense data (i.e. they are a priori knowledge).
Today everyone knows, of course, that the mentioned concepts contain nothing of the certainty, of the inherent necessity, which Kant had attributed to them. The following, however, appears to me to be correct in Kant's statement of the problem: in thinking we use with a certain "right", concepts to which there is no access from the materials of sensory experience, if the situation is viewed from the logical point of view. As a matter of fact, I am convinced that even much more is to be asserted: the concepts which arise in our thought and in our linguistic expressions are all- when viewed logically- the free creations of thought which cannot inductively be gained from sense experiences. This is not so easily noticed only because we have the habit of combining certain concepts and conceptual relations (propositions) so definitely with certain sense experiences that we do not become conscious of the gulf- logically unbridgeable- which separates the world of sensory experiences from the world of concepts and propositions. Thus, for example, the series of integers is obviously an invention of the human mind, a self-created tool which simplifies the ordering of certain sensory experiences. But there is no way in which this concept could be made to grow, as it were, directly out of sense experiences.
As soon as one is at home in Hume's critique one is easily led to believe that all those concepts and propositions which cannot be deduced from the sensory raw material are, on account of their 'metaphysical' character, to be removed from thinking. For all thought acquires material content only through its relationship with that sensory material. This latter proposition I take to be entirely true; but I hold the prescription for thinking which is grounded on this proposition to be false. For this claim- if only carried through consistently- absolutely excludes thinking of any kind as 'metaphysical'.
In order that thinking might not degenerate into 'metaphysics', or into empty talk, it is only necessary that enough propositions of the conceptual system be firmly enough connected with sensory experiences and that the conceptual system, in view of its task of ordering and surveying sense experience, should show as much unity and parsimony as possible. Beyond that, however, the 'system' is (as regards logic) a free play with symbols according to (logically) arbitrarily given rules of the game. All this applies as much (and in the same manner) to the thinking in daily life as to the more consciously and systematically constructed thinking in the sciences.
By his clear critique Hume did not only advance philosophy in a decisive way but also - though through no fault of his - created a danger for philosophy in that, following his critique, a fateful 'fear of metaphysics' arose which has come to be a malady of contemporary empiricist philosophising; this malady is the counterpart to that earlier philosophising in the clouds, which thought it could neglect and dispense with what was given by the senses. ... It finally turns out that one can, after all, not get along without metaphysics.
(Albert Einstein, Remarks on Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge, Ideas and Opinions, 1954)
Editor: Haselhurst
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1. http://www.SpaceandMotion.com/metaphysics.htm - On Metaphysics, the Dynamic Unity of Reality and the correct Principles for the foundations of Physics. Discussion of Metaphysics quotes by Philosophers Aristotle, Gottfried Leibniz, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Albert Einstein. A proposed solution to the Problems of Metaphysics. On the Metaphysics of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure Matter (WSM), rather than the current paradigm of the Metaphysics of Space and Time (which also requires particles and fields).
2. The Catholic Encyclopedia: Metaphysics, 1908
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