Reality and metaphysics

[Arodinme6]

Can you explain the metaphysics of your sexiness?

[otonanoC]

Roasting complete.

[wonderist]

There's a confounding factor: Many lay-people use the word 'metaphysics' incorrectly to mean something to the effect of 'beyond physics', or basically 'supernatural'.

For instance, my friend who believed in 'spiritual healing' kept asking me if I 'believed in metaphysics'. What he meant was "Do you believe in a spirit world?"

I believe Pyrrho is carrying some of this baggage, probably from his discussions with such mystics and woo woos. That is why he says things like 'metaphysics is false'.

[wonderist]

"something to the effect of 'beyond physics'"

Oops, I should have said, 'beyond the physical'. People who use the word this way tend not to care much about Physics, per se.

[CarlRobertStevens]

I get this weird feeling when you define 'apriori' as 'true solely in virtue of definition or through the application of logic'. I thought 'apriori' meant 'knowable or justifiable without recourse to empirical facts' and 'true by definition' was meant to characterise analytic statements (as they were understood by the logical positivists). That is, it seems to me that in your definition you're confusing epistemological with semantic notions.

[LordImmolation]

No confusion here sire, most people accept that all analytic statements are a priori.

[CarlRobertStevens]

Be that as it may, I still find it confusing that you would apply the definition for 'analytic' to the term 'a priori'. But you probably had your reasons and it's no biggy. I probably missed something as unfortunately I haven't had the time to watch your videos all the way through recently.

[LordImmolation]

Not a problem. I was trying to cash out a definition of the a priori distinction so that it would be impossible for pyhrro to misconstrue use of the term "experience". This is why the definition I gave also included things that could be derived from logical inference (which is of course not the case for analytic truths).

[soultorment27]

@LordImmolation Hi LordImmolation! About the denial of the Law of Excluded Middle, don't anti-realists, those who reject classical logic and accept perhaps Intuitionistic Logic instead disallow bivalence and therefore LEM?

[GodMechanism]

simply put, I would say that practicing Metaphysics is is to attempt to Understand What Existence is & Why Existence is, which by definition is not reducible to Existence(Materialism)

[MCTMD1]

Kind of like, how the best definition or explanation of a concept is best done concretely and not in a smorgusborg of metaphor and analogy?

The only three possible starting points and the base of all cognition :

There is (existence exists)

something (with identity)

I am aware of (consciousness exists)

Perception of reality leads to concept formation and all subsequent knowledge. The knowledge that

existence has primacy over consciousness. And that causality is universal.

[MCTMD1]

SP-smorgasbord

[ThePointlessPoint]

Metaphysics is called the "first philosophy" by Aristotle.The editor of his works, Andronicus of Rhodes, is thought to have placed the books on first philosophy right after another work, Physics, and called them τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ βιβλία (ta meta ta physika biblia) or "the books that come after the [books on] physics". This was misread by Latin scholiasts, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical"

(from wiki)

[MCTMD1]

I thought metaphysics was contemplation of reality and everything in it. Like, a Christian's metaphysics includes heaven and proper metaphysics does not. The river is a metaphysical entity that changes. All entities change. I really don't see what the issue is.

[LordImmolation]

Yup metaphysics is contemplation of reality and everything in it. But the best explainations are ones that rely on as few starting assumptions as is possible.

[wjkaiser65]

Thanks - he will never hear you but you explained some things to me