Metaphysics: Determinism, Freedom, and the Nature of Reality

Metaphysics: An Introduction

The term *metaphysics* was coined by students of Aristotle. The literal meaning was "after the physics." Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that addresses basic questions about the nature of reality.

Determinism and Freedom

According to determinism, everything that happens is determined by prior causes. The state of the universe at any moment could not be otherwise. One implication of this view is that all future states of the universe are, in principle at least, completely predictable. The principle that every event is caused is known as the *causal principle*. It is presupposed in science in everyday life. Most of the astonishing progress that science has made over the past four centuries has been made on the basis of a mechanistic and deterministic view of the world, a view that treats the universe as a system of objects moving and interacting, rather like balls on a pool table. If determinism is right, then human decisions and actions must, like all other events, be the necessary effect of prior causes, and therefore perfectly predictable.

Hard Determinism

According to this, freedom is an illusion. One reason for holding that freedom is real and not illusory is simply that this is how it feels. This argument is essentially an appeal to our intuition, and it has the merit of being supremely simple and extremely persuasive. But to some people, it can be too simple, even simplistic. What kind of argument consists of nothing more than an appeal to the way things seem?

Indeterminism

According to this view, freedom is real. An act of will is free simply in virtue of being uncaused. For example, when faced with a choice between Coke and Pepsi, the volition is the mental act through which I choose one or the other.

Does the Spiritual Really Exist?

Or is the universe a purely physical entity?

Monistic Materialism

Monism is the way of thinking that some philosophers have asserted that all reality belongs to a single category, and materialism is the most popular form of monism in the history of Western philosophy.