(Originally written July 21, 2006 in Book 6)
Metaphysics
By: Peter van Inwagen
Chapter 1 - Introduction
If there was no ultimate reality, metaphysics would be a study without subject matter. To state that there is no ultimate reality is to state an ultimate reality maxim. It refutes itself. Thus, metaphysics tells us that ultimate reality exists, but "perhaps nothing can be discovered about ultimate reality except that it exist" (van Inwagen, 3).
Metaphysics aims to get behind the appearances to the ultimate reality. Metaphysics attempts to tell the ultimate truth about everything.
There are three questions that the answers will provide the ultimate truth of everything if answered:
"1) What are the most General features of the world (the world is everything, including God), and what sorts of things does it contain? What is the World like?
2) Why does a World exist - and, more specifically, why is there a World having the features and the content described in the answer to question 1?
3) What is our place in the World? How do we human beings fit into it?" (van Inwagen, 4).
The answers to these questions varies from the Middle Ages' answers and the 19th century answers.
The Middle Ages:
Answer to question 1:
-The World consists of God and all that He made
-God is infinite and immaterial
-All things created (material and immaterial) are finite
-God has and always will exist
-God's creation has not always existed
Answer to question 2:
-God necessarily exists
-nothing else necessarily exists
-God caused all other things to exist through an act of free-will
-In addition to causing all other things to exist, God sustains all things' existences
-Nothing other than God has the power to create or sustain existence
Answer to question 3:
-Human beings were created to love and serve God forever
-Every individual has a purpose/function
-However, a human being can choose not to serve his purpose
-Human history is the consequence of man's choice not to serve his purpose
The 19th Century:
Answer to question 1:
-The World consists of matter in motion
-There are only material things, nothing immaterial or spirit
-Matter operates according to strict laws of physics
-Everything is matter and operates according to these laws
Answer to question 2:
-Matter has always existed in the same quantity
-Matter cannot be created or destroyed
-There is no 'why' to the world's existence
-Since the World is matter and matter is infinite, there was no beginning to the World
-This renders the question, "why does the world exist" meaningless.
Answer to question 3:
-Humans are complex configurations of matter
-Humans have no purpose
-Human lives are meaningless except for the purely subjective meaning we give them
-There is no soul, thus death is the end of every individual's existence
Metaphysics is a practice of answering these three questions and choosing the right ones from countless sets of answers to them.
Metaphysics can also be defined negatively (what it is not).
1. Metaphysics is not cosmology. Cosmology is the part of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.
2. Metaphysics is not the physics of elementary particles. The physics of elementary particles is the study of the building blocks of the physical universe and the laws by which they interact.
Physical cosmology is the combination of these two sciences. It's research has produced interesting results to be used in metaphysics. "Physical cosmology seems to show that the physical universe had a beginning in time" (van Inwagen, 6). If this is true, then metaphysical systems based on an infinite universe are drastically flawed. But, physical cosmology is not metaphysics; it can only aid to help answer some or parts of the questions of metaphysics.
Metaphysics is not theology. Theology is the study of God. Theology overlaps metaphysics, but is not metaphysics. The common strand between theology and metaphysics is labeled philosophical theology or natural theology.
Metaphysicians must treat physical cosmology and divine revelation (theology) differently.
In addition there are countless other types of philosophy: philosophy of mind, of science, of mathematics, of politics, of language, of religion, of history, of law, etc., etc., ad infinitum. Metaphysics is distinguished from all other branches of philosophy, but each branch raises metaphysical questions. Metaphysics differs from all other subjects in that there is no information and no established facts to be learned in its subject matter. There are only facts about what certain individuals have believed in metaphysical contexts. Metaphysics and philosophy in general have failed to produce facts in more than 2500 years. When they did provide facts that specific area of philosophy (i.e. astronomy and mathematics) the subject ceased to be philosophy. There have been two main answers given when asked why:
1. Philosophical questions are defective questions. They have no answers.
2. The human mind is unfit for investigating philosophical questions.
Logical positivism believed the former. They said that all metaphysical statements were meaningless. Logical positivists stated that metaphysical questions might not be useless to people or may have some concern with reality, but they said that asking such questions was like asking, how high is up? or where does your lap go when you stand up? Metaphysical questions to logical positivists were not answerable because they were meaningless. Thus, any metaphysical theory is suitable to man if it fits their psychological mainframe. Like all other metaphysical systems, logical positivism presented material in the same way they condemned it and fell to become a part of philosophical history.
Immanuel Kant is the most famous philosopher who believed that metaphysical questions have remained unanswered because man is unfit to answer them. (Linehan - another reason I love Kant!)
Kant held that metaphysical questions were meaningful, but humans do not possess the faculty to answer them. He also believed that if they insisted on trying they only doomed themselves to contradiction. If Kant is right, only God could know the answer to any metaphysical question.
Samuel Johns once described an entirely different matter, but it fits the subject well. "The human metaphysician... is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not done well... but you are surprised to find it done at all" (van Inwagen, 13).
Both the view of metaphysical questions being meaningless questions and metaphysical questions being meaningful, but unanswerable on account of human feeble minds has produced no facts, no answers and only more philosophy.
Since metaphysics does not produce facts one should always take a person's or even an expert's views on metaphysics as their personal beliefs, not facts.
F.H. Bradley (a 19th century English metaphysician) once said that, "metaphysics was an attempt to find bad reasons for what one was going to believe anyway" (van Inwagen, 15).
One thing I find interesting is that van Inwagen holds to a metaphysical view of the world that is similar to the Medieval view and believes in divine revelation, but does not believe in an immortal soul. I am curios to see how this is reconciled.
The Way the World is:
A conception of the world usually correlates with the reason's religion, but it does not have to. Catholics and atheists have a profound disagreement on their conceptions of the world (especially concerning origin and purpose) but would agree on points that a hindu (or most eastern religions) would disagree with them on.
There exists a common Western metaphysic, which most westerners adhere to, though not all. Most westerners will believe that this metaphysic is obviously true; but, does the common Western metaphysic describe things as they really are, or only as they appear?
To save time, van Inwagen will focus on only three topics in dealing with the question of reality and appearance: Individuality, Externality, and Objectivity.
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