● YISEYON DANIEL ADOMAVO (C.E.

O solution hub academy)

● RASHIDAT OLAMIDAYO AJAKAYE (STRIDA)
● OLUWATOBI (Tobising)
● BIRISOWO ABDULAHI (just Chelsea )

PRESENT TO YOU

METAPHYSICS

Important terms

1. Origination of metaphysics
2. The concern of metaphysics
3. Meaning of metaphysics
4. The question of metaphysics
5. Response to the metaphysical question
6. Idealism
7. Materialism
8. Realism with idealism and materialism
9. Meaning of knowledge acquisition
10. Sub-schools of metaphysics- Rationalism and Empiricism, with Realism
11. Cause and effect
12. Freedom and determination
13. Determination and its implication
14. Libertarianism
15. Universals and particulars
16. Aristotle's theory of abstraction
17. Nominalism
18. Proof of the existence of God
19. Popular arguments
20. Cosmological proofs
21. Ontological arguments
22. Relevance of metaphysics

FACTS
1. Metaphysics is one of the branches of philosophy- the others are: ethics, epistemology,
and logic.
2. Aristotle did not originate the name, 'metaphysics', but he originated the organization of
what constitutes metaphysics.
3. Aristotle previously addressed the subject matter of metaphysics, as 'his first
philosophy'.
4. The name 'metaphysics'was by mere accident (70BC in Rome, Andronicus of Rhodes).
5. Andronicus edited the 'first philosophy' of Aristotle after the treatises of physics.
6. The subjects of metaphysics were then called the 'treatise after the physical treatises'
with the indepth meaning of 'metaphysics'.
7. Metaphysics means 'over and beyond the physical'
8. The concern of metaphysics is with abstract qualities rather than scientific observation
and analysis of factual matters.
9. Metaphysics was seen by earlier and later thinkers to deal with 'supernatural entities'.
10. Metaphysics can be considered as the 'science' of causes.
11. Metaphysics is vividly the systematic study of the fundamental problems related to the
ultimate nature of reality and human knowledge.
12. Some of the questions asked in metaphysics are, 'what is reality?'(first question),
what is the nature of man?', etc.
13. The first question can be answered with two major schools of thought, they are:
Idealism and Materialism.
14. Idealism believes that reality is mental or immaterial substance. Some of these
philosophers are: Plato, Leibniz, Descartes and George Berkeley.
15. Plato sticks that the true nature of things is eternal, immutable, immaterial and invisible.
He adds that things in the physical world are not real.
16. Leibniz delares that the constitutive elements of the world are the immatery, spiritual
souls or monads.
17. Rene Descartes (French philosopher and mathematician) maintains that that reality
consist of material and immaterial substances, but soul is superior to matter. He
doubted existence, even himself but because he thought without contradicting his
personal self; he concluded with a dictum: cogito argo sum- 'i think, therefore, I exist.'
18. In the idealism of George Berkeley, the existence of anything depends on it being
perceived. This led to the dictum: Esse est percipi (to be or to exist, is to be perceived).

19. Materialism is a doctrine that reduces all reality to matter. Some of its philosophers are:
Democritus of Ancient Greece and Gilbert Rhyle of modern times, Aristotle, the mild
materialist, A.J. Ayer and D.M. Armstrong.
20. To Democritus, reality is all about matter, and atom is the smallest indivisible matter.
21. Realism is a newly position that has not developed to a school yet. It is an inseparable
mixture of mind and matter. Immanuel Kent is a thinker to the realistic view.
22. Knowledge acquisition attempts to identify the important tools needed for the
acquisition of indubitable knowledge about reality.
23. These tools of knowledge acquisition to metaphysics are: Rationalism and Empiricism

24. Rationalism belives in the use of only reasoning to capture reality. Some examples of
rationalist philosophers are: Plato, Rene Descartes and St. Augustine.
25. Plato believes that knowledge is aquired when the intellect contemplates the eternal
truths in the world of forms.
26. Empiricism holds that all knowledge begins from sense experience. This school
perceives that we can acquire knowledge of a subject through our senses- sight, hear,
smell, touch and taste.
27. Realism aims at mediating between rationalism and empiricism. Realism holds that
knowledge can either depend on reason, sense experience, personal experience or
extra-sensory perceptions.
28. Immanuel Kant is also a prominent scholar to the realistic perception of knowledge
acquisition.
29. Cause and effect (casuality) entails the external connection between phenomena. It
declares that when on exists, the other must necessarily follow.
30. Cause should not be seen as Occassion. Occassion denotes an events after another,
and makes it possible, but does not necessarily determine it.
31. Freedom in metaphysics seeks to confirm if man is responsible for his actions or his
actions are dictated by sources external to him.
32. Freedom observes that man is capable of choosing between alternatives, since he
abandons one action for another.
33. These opposing features of man's freedom formulates two diametrically opposed
theories.

34. These formulated theories are Determinism and Indeterminism.

35. Determinism says to be caused is to be determined. It says human actions are not free,
and no man should be held responsible for his actions.
36. The implication of determinism are: the determinist taking of refuge in universal
ignorance, with the imbalance of approval and disapproval of man's notions and action.
37. Indeterminism views human actions as being free; without causes. Libertarians argue
that determinists question their children for their wrong doings.
38. The recurrent problem of metaphysics are Universals and Particulars.
39. Philosophers have no problem with particulars because we see particular things all over
in the world.
40. The problem is, 'how do we determine the universals?' and 'how is it that these concrete,
individual things have general names or terms demoting them?'
41. The three concepts that argue upon the universals and particulars are: Aristotle's
theory of Abstraction, Platonism and Nominalism.
42. Abstraction to Aristotle means the process by which we acquire general ideas of things
by divesting them of all their individual features.
43. The abstraction perceive things from the senses, then to the images which are devoid
of the particularities of things.
44. These images build up our general or universal idea of things.
45. Universal is a class name like animal, woman while particular denotes individual things
like Ajayi, Akomolafe,etc.

46. To the Platonists, universals have separate and independent existence while particulars
are participation of the essences in the universals.
47. Platonists believe that universals exist independently and have objective existence
outside the human mind.
48. Nominalism rejects the Platonist and hold universals to be nothing than labels to things
of common attributes.
49. Till date, the exact nature of universals has not been resolved.
50. The proof of the existence of God is another metaphysical problem.
51. Over ninety-nine percent of humanity has different religions-relate to God.
52. In 1948, Bertrand Russell and Fr. Fredrick Copleston went on US television to debate
on the existence of God. Both (one theist, and the other, agonistic) agreed on one
definition of God as a Supreme Being, distinct from the world and creator of the world.
53. The proofs of God's existence has three approaches.
54. The three approaches are popular arguments, cosmological proofs and ontological
arguments.
55. Popular arguments can be divided into 5, which are: common consent, religious
experience, arguments from the sciences, the moral arguments and argument
from teleology or design.
56. The common consent relates that almost all people in the world believe in God's
existence, either in one way or the other. Some of the people that put forward this
argument are: Gasendi, Critis, Seneca, etc.
57. Religious experience emantes from miraculous encounters with God on the distinct
religious records. For instance: the force that overwhelmed Saul on his way to persecute
the church in Damascus, with the prophetic experience of Prophet Mohammed as Allah's
spokesman.
58. Arguments from the sciences also prove the existence of God by saying, man can
understand the intelligibility of nature, only if we imagine the author of the laws (God). It
was put forward by D.E. Trueblood.
59. The moral arguments rests on Immanuel Kant's view, who says every human being
witnesses a consciousness of moral duty. This is because an absolute moral being
(God) has put the conscience in man's heart.
60. Argument from Teleology or Design discovers an embedded order, design and
purposefulness in the universe. Teleogist believe that the order of the universe explains
God as an ordering-mind.
61. Yet, David Hume rejects all metaphysical reality because God itself needs
explanation.
62. Cosmological proofs is birthed from our experiential facts of the universe. Thes
involves our consideration of origin and movement of things in the universe. This proof
can be branched into three.
63. The three cosmological proofs of God's existence are: motion, efficient cause with
contingent and necessary being.
64. From motion, Aristotle sees the first move as the starting point of all movements. This
first move accounts for all series of subsequent movements, this is God.
65. From efficient cause, sees God as the first efficient cause of all things,products, etc.
because nothing can be prior to itself.
66. From Contingent and necessary being, sees God has the necessary Being, whose
existence has a necessity that gives existence to all other realities that have only
possible or contingent existence.
67. Ontological arguments believe that God exists because we believe in only Him and we
think of no other perfect or greatest being that we can see physically.
68. The realization of the relevance of metaphysics is mandatory to human beings.
Metaphysics promotes essential human thinking and helps people out of their empty
dreams and illusions.
69. Metaphysics reinforces assertions, and its method is logical.
70. Metaphysics frees us from dogmatism, indoctrination and authoritarianism through the
encouragement of deep thinking.