What is Metaphysics?

What is a person? If parts of you were to begin to vanish, at what point would you no longer be considered a person? If we know a person is fundamentally made up of individual atoms, is the concept of a person really an illusion? Is there a fundamental structure to reality? What exactly is time, and how does it fit in? These questions are just a few that one might find in metaphysics. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies what reality is, answering questions like ‘what is there?’ and ‘what is it like?’.

However, what metaphysics is precisely is controversial and difficult to define. The reason being that this branch of philosophy and what it attempts to solve has changed throughout the centuries.

This video will serve as a brief introduction to metaphysics. We’ll differentiate between ‘old’ metaphysics and ‘new’ metaphysics, examine whether metaphysics is even possible, how science today relates to metaphysics, and exciting problems metaphysics hopes to solve.

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0:00 Introduction
0:23 Metaphysics Defined
0:56 Where the Term Comes From
1:41 'Old ' Metaphysics
3:12 ‘New’ Metaphysics
4:36 Can Metaphysics Be Done?
7:43 Metaphysics & Methodology
8:36 Science & Metaphysics
10:14 Ontology
10:56 Philosophy of Mind
11:46 Causation, Determinism, & Free Will
12:30 Space & Time
13:27 Conclusion Metaphysics Reborn