Object and definition of Philosophy. Philosophy as metaphysics. /part 5/

Metaphysics can be defined as a science of the integrity of being; it examines the most recent general questions about being, serving as a prerequisite of special sciences, and seeks to know the origin, essence, meaning, and ultimate fate of being. Metaphysics is a science fundamental, common, unifying for all scientific experience, and seeks to provide a comprehensive worldview that equally satisfies the quests of the mind and the heart. It is the main part of philosophy. For his part, metaphysics at Christian Wolfe (17th c.) is divided into common metaphysics (Methaphysica generalis), also called ontological metaphysics, and special theological metaphysics (Methaphysic specialis), which covers:

a / naturophilosophy as cosmology,
b) the philosophy of the spirit as rational psychology
c / natural theology.

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The last division is based on the three objects of study in reality: God, soul and material world. The word "ontology" derives from the actual true communion of the Greek verb and according to this is the science of the lasting, enduring essence of being, the constant and unchanging in the variables and the transient. The ontological problem is expressed in the question: what is the essence of the actual as such? Depending on the answers, we have here materialism, spiritualism, dualism, agnosticism, and a doctrine of identity. According to materialism, the essence of reality is material; according to Spiritualism / from the Latin spiritus/ it is spiritual. Dualism is a view that asserts that reality consists of two very different substances - bodily and spiritual, existing independently of each other and equally basic. The doctrine of identity is such a doctrine that stretching and thinking, soul and body are equally inherent and necessary definitions of a single basic substance. On the other hand, agnosticism is a doctrine, according to which we can not at all achieve the essence of things. Cosmology explores the question: what idea do we draw for the connection of all things in the universe? What is the form of reality in general? Different issues, such as theism, pantheism, deism, monism, dualism, and pluralism, are different.

Theism and deism see in the world the action of a supernatural Reason, of God, only that theism accepts the eternal action of God in the world, whereas deism limits it only to the moment of the creation of the world. In turn, pantheism identifies God with the world, considering them to be the only substance in which division is secondary. Monism accepts a single basic principle of being - God or matter, or a single substance. Along with them they can there is acceptance of two equally fundamental primalism, or of many similar principles - pluralism. In a profound and multifaceted critique metaphysics is subjected by Immanuel Kant to "Critique of the Pure Reason" (1781). Here he explores all the main statements of the metaphysics of the past, and points to their contradictions (antinomy) and unattainability to reason. When reason tries to prove the existence of the soul as an indivisible and immortal substance, it falls into contradiction. The same is in the field of cosmology. Any other statement with equal force may be opposed to another antithesis. For example, it is equally acceptable to reason, but it is equally unattainable for him to assume that the world is infinite and that the world is limited; that the world is infinitely divisible and indivisible; that there is freedom in the world and that there is no freedom in the world. The work in the field of natural theology is not better.

All attempts to prove rationally the existence of God through cosmological, teleological, historical and ontological evidence are, according to Kant, devoid of convincing. They all go beyond the possibilities of reason, and therefore, in the then sense of uncriticality, of dogmatic creation, ripped from experience rational speculation, metaphysics is no longer possible. However, this does not mean that metaphysics is impossible and unnecessary.

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part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4