Some Facts About Metaphysics

Metaphysics (Greek μετά (meta) = "beyond", φυσικά (phisiká) = "things from nature") is a domain of philosophy whose study object is explaining the nature of the world. It is the study of the being and of the act of being, therefore of reality.

Metaphysics addresses to the thought questions like: " Which is the nature of reality?", "Does God exist? or "Which is the place of man in the universe?"

An essential branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation of the category of things which exist in the world and the relationship between them. The metaphysician tries to explain notions through which people understand world, including its existence, the notion of object, property, space, time, causality, interconnections and possibility.

Much more recently the term metaphysics was used to characterize subjects which are "over" or "out of" this physical world, and it does not have an ontologic, academic conotation. The term metaphysics can also be used quite ironically, to denominate something sensational, supernatural, and it is associated with false sciences like spiritism, divination in crystal runes or tarot, predicting the future, ocultism, etc., is not recognized by academic philosophy, as the false sciences previously mentioned have nothing to do with real metaphysics. All these domains are ways of using illusions to feed an unhappy or frustrated soul most of the times.

Metaphysics is more than it.

The history of the concept

Complex notion, and the object of many disputes, like its own essennce, metaphysics was firstly explained by Andronicus from Rhode, the publisher of Aristote's works.

Fred Sommers and Bertrand Russell, who are closer to the contemporary world, in time, of course, considered that metaphysics is a domain of philosophy which includes ontology and cosmology as well. Moreover, according to C. I. Lewis, metaphysics would include ontology and epistemology too, "as philosophic subjects ... concerning the nature of everything real as long as this problem is specific to reflexive method."

In its ontological sense, in the twetieth century, the concept of metaphysics signifies what is beyond physics, beyond the physical aspect of the world around us, therefore beyond everyting real or which can be experimented.

To conclude, people may have never ending discussions on this topic. There are many misunderstandings and many shortcuts of what real metaphysics is. Pure metaphysics may be universal, and all the other meanings may derive from it. Metaphysics is not oriental, nor occidental, but universal. Some people believe it is the dimension in which human beings and God may communicate, others say that it is the oriental domain which include religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, which are based on metaphysical practices like yoga. A person who practices yoga or a wise Hinduist are able to overcome physical limits. Some of them can concentrate to be cold when the temperature is high or to be hot when the temperature is low, to swallow swords without hurting their throats. Such practices, when they are performed by people with real capacities belong to the metaphysical domain.