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polymathwannabe comments on Stupid Questions December 2014 - Less Wrong
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Can anybody give me a good description of the term "metaphysical" or "metaphysics" in a way that is likely to stick in my head and be applicable to future contemplations and conversations? I have tried to read a few definitions and descriptions, but I've never been able to really grok any of them and even when I thought I had a working definition it slipped out of my head when I tried to use it later. Right now its default function in my brain is, when uttered, to raise a flag that signifies "I can't tell if this person is speaking at a level significantly above my comprehension or is just spouting bullshit, but either way I'm not likely to make sense of what they're saying" and therefore tends to just kind of kill the mental process that that was trying to follow what somebody was saying to me / what I was reading.
Given how often it comes up, and often from people I respect, I'm pretty sure that's not the correct behavior Figured it's worth asking here. In case it wasn't obvious, I have virtually no background in philosophy (though I've been looking to change that).
Metaphysics: what's out there? Epistemology: how do I learn about it? Ethics: what should I do with it?
Basically, think of any questions that are of the form "what's there in the world", "what is the world made of", and now take away actual science. What's left is metaphysics. "Is the world real or a figment of my imagination?", "is there such a thing as a soul?", "is there such a thing as the color blue, as opposed to objects that are blue or not blue?", "is there life after death?", "are there higher beings?", "can infinity exist?", etc. etc.
Note that "metaphysical" also tends to be used as a feel-good word, meaning something like "nobly philosophical, concerned with questions of a higher nature than the everyday and the mundane".
Isn't that ontology? What's the difference?
"Ontology" is firmly dedicated to "exist or doesn't exist". Metaphysics is more broadly "what's the world like?" and includes ontology as a central subfield.
Whether there is free will is a metaphysical question, but not, I think, an ontological one (at least not necessarily). "Free will" is not a thing or a category or a property, it's a claim that in some broad aspects the world is like this and not like that.
Whether such things as desires or intentions exist or are made-up fictions is an ontological question.
Thanks! I've seen many times the statement that ontology is strictly included in metaphysics, but this is the first time I've seen an example of something that's in the set-theoretic difference.
Ontology is a subdiscipline of metaphysics.
Is the many-world hypothesis true? Might be a metaphysical question that not directly ontology.