Understanding Metaphysics: Core Principles and Truth
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate principles of reality, encompassing all the facts considered by the so-called special sciences, but more radical, asking ultimate questions. The condition is simply to be, because it is and how it is. Being is the most universal and ultimate reality.
Aristotle’s Supreme Being
Aristotle believed that in reality one can distinguish between two supreme categories of being:
- Substance: The subject, the being that exists by itself.
- Accidents: Also called attributes, these are the qualities of the subject, that which can be said about it.
What is True Reality?
- Subject: That which things are made of, perceived by the senses, and remains despite changes. Materialistic theories defend that matter is the cause and the last element of all reality.
- Spirit: The mental, the psychic, and its products; whatever is opposed to the physical and the senses. Spiritualist and idealist theories assert that spirit, consciousness, and so on, is the true and explanatory element of reality.
Characterizing the Real
The fundamental elements that constitute reality are:
- Monism: Everything is explained from a single substance or element, material or spiritual, above others. The different beings observed are qualitative changes from that single fact (water for Thales of Miletus).
- Dualism: Reality is explained in two dimensions or different and opposing substances, one material and one spiritual (man is composed of body and soul according to Plato).
- Pluralism: Reality is composed of a plurality of principles and substances. (Everything is explained from the atoms moving in a vacuum, according to the Greek atomists).
Is Reality Static or Dynamic?
- For Plato, the true reality is ideas or intangible essences, while the material world is only a faulty imitation of the ideal world.
- According to Aristotle, reality is a changing process in constant becoming, in which things are characterized by their uniqueness.
Essence and Existence
The essence is that by which a being is what it is and therefore what defines each of us and distinguishes us from others.
The existence is the fact of being, to exist.
Necessity and Contingency
Contingent beings exist now but may cease to exist and even had a time when they did not exist (beings created by God).
A necessary being is that being which exists and has always existed, could not have been what it is not, and will not cease to exist (God).
Theoretical Rationality
Reason has two functions:
- Theoretical capacity: Human ability to gain knowledge, both concrete and particular as well as universal and abstract.
- Practical ability: The ability to know how to act.
Aristotle’s Degrees of Knowledge
According to Aristotle, there are different degrees of being, and different degrees of knowledge:
- Doxa: Equals opinion, depends on our senses, is superficial and limited knowledge, is uncritical (not analyzed or proved, is a pseudo-knowledge), and explains a limited part of reality.
- Episteme: Equals science, depends on external reality, not the way we see it, is coherently organized sound, is critical (analyzes, evaluates, and judges before saying something), and explains all of reality.
The Truth
- According to the Greeks, truth is what remains. The Romans believed truth is the accuracy and thoroughness when we think something and when we express it through language. In the medieval Christian world, the concept of eternal truth is added. After the Renaissance Revolution (16th century), it is said that truth is science.
Truth in Knowledge
Truth refers to knowledge. It is said that something is true or false in propositions as a function of how they are used to talk about reality.
- Truth as coherence: In the formal sciences, a proposition is considered true if it is not inconsistent with other propositions of the theory or set of knowledge to which it belongs.
- Truth as fitness and correspondence: Truth is when our mental representation of objects or events is consistent with the facts and objects as they are in reality. The mind simply reflects what exists in reality. This implies the individual is passive in its relationship with reality.
- Kant says the mind acts by building the object of knowledge. Truth cannot be understood as an exact correspondence between the thing and a passive knowledge that receives it. This implies that one must fall into skepticism.
- Pragmatic truth: For these thinkers, truth is all that is effective, useful, and leads to success. A proposition is true if it produces positive results when applied.
Criteria to Determine Truth
- Time, authority, psychological or moral certainty, evidence, intersubjectivity, and dialogue.