NancyLebovitz comments on A reply to Mark Linsenmayer about philosophy - Less Wrong

19 Post author: lukeprog 05 January 2013 11:25AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 January 2013 11:44:34PM 3 points [-]

One might just as well argue that burden is on metaphysicists,

Metaphysicicians.

Metaphysicians.

That being said, I don't know whether 'metaphysicists' or 'metaphysicians' would be better.

Comment author: Alicorn 06 January 2013 07:21:22AM 6 points [-]

It should be metaphysicist. They don't practice metamedicine.

Comment author: pragmatist 06 January 2013 05:57:31PM *  5 points [-]

"Metaphysics" shouldn't really be thought of as a description of the discipline the way, say, metamathematics is a description of a discipline. The name "metaphysics" is basically a historical accident. Aristotle's Metaphysics was called that because it was published after his Physics, not because of any relationship between the content of physics and metaphysics. So while it's true they're not practicing meta-medicine, they're not practicing meta-physics either.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia, both "metaphysicist" and "metaphysician" are correct.

Comment author: Peterdjones 07 January 2013 10:13:58PM -2 points [-]

"Metaphysician" is in Merria-m-Websete, "Metaphysicist" is not.