Metaphysics and Science: Foundational Concepts

Understanding Metaphysics

Reason faces issues it is incapable of solving, themes that have emerged for humanity and have never received a response. These unresolved questions form the core of metaphysical thought. Metaphysics rationally and conceptually provides the essence of what exists beyond the information gained through the senses, that is, a priori.

Reason itself provides basic knowledge and decides which ones are true. Its purpose is to achieve perfect knowledge of everything.

Metaphysics is also responsible for any mental speculation that goes beyond sensory and spiritual reality. It deals with essences, first and final causes, and the necessary relationships in all that exists. It also influences moral issues dogmatically.

Different Interpretations of Metaphysics

1. Traditional or Dogmatic Metaphysics

   Traditional systems of philosophy that do not consider criticism of their own capabilities.

2. Spontaneous Tendency in Metaphysics

   The inherent human inclination to question and seek absolute knowledge.

3. Critical Methods: Kantian Philosophy

   Kantian philosophy, which critiques the power of reason to develop systems from its own principles.

4. Moral Metaphysics

   The development of a speculative world of values beyond empirical experience.

Defining Science

Science is experimental and true knowledge. It is the distinction between fact and the reflection of thought on these phenomena, with the intent to understand, explain, and establish laws. It is also the set of statements about the workings of nature.

Science sets out principles or axioms from which to develop. Without the belief that there is a necessary link between events, there is no science.

Universality and necessity are two sound, essential features in our understanding of science. These features, which experience alone cannot provide, constitute the logic of science.

Science is a combination of what nature provides and what humans seek within it.

The development of a science involves the deduction of consequences from first principles and the testing of new findings. Science is the knowledge of the causes of phenomena.

Rationalism & Empiricism: Insufficient for Science

The Kantian Perspective on Science

Kant proposed that the principles or axioms of science, which solve the problem of metaphysics, are an elaboration of the mind. In this view, reason is combined with experience to form what is best for reason, or synthetic a priori judgments.

Science cannot exist without the requirement of experience, but it also needs rationality. Human rationality demands that science be logical. Furthermore, nature imposes a priori conditions that lead to universal and necessary truths, making science also transcendental.