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Middlemarch vocabulary
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metaphysics
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► definition
Definition:the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle’s works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (ta meta ta phusika, 'after the Physics ', another of Aristotle's works).Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions:What is there?What is it like?Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
► uses
Uses:
The metaphysical God is fit only to produce confusion, reveries, follies, and disputes.
Baron D'Holbach. Good Sense (1772)
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“Who has decked the heavenly firmament with its lights? Who has clothed the earth in its beauty? How explain it without the Creator?” he said, looking inquiringly at Levin.
Levin felt that it would be improper to enter upon a metaphysical discussion with the priest, and so he said in reply merely what was a direct answer to the question.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (1878)
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The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind—surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O’Brien’s mouth as he looked down at him.
‘I told you, Winston,’ he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism.
George Orwell. 1984 (1949)
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a satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics.
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman
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They were describing the earth as the centre of the universe, while the scientists were discovering America and probing space for the stars and the laws of the stars. In short, the metaphysicians have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for mankind.
Jack London. The Iron Heel
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