'Metaphysics' definitions:
Definition of 'metaphysics'
From: WordNet
noun
The philosophical study of being and knowing
Definition of 'Metaphysics'
From: 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]
Synonyms of 'metaphysics'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- 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