Philosophical Foundations: Core Problems and Metaphysics

The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy

Since the inception of philosophical writings, a recurring concern has been to determine the principles that make reality intelligible, and to question whether reality is ultimately reducible to something fundamental.

Metaphysical Perspectives on Reality

Spiritualism

Spiritualist metaphysics claims that the ultimate nature of reality is spiritual. This assertion is primarily motivated by the defense of the thesis that spiritual phenomena are irreducible to material explanations based on mechanical or organic laws governing natural events.

Sensationalism

A peculiar form of spiritualism is sensationalism, which reduces reality to so-called "sense data." It posits that perceptions are psychic reality and do not allow for the inference of a transcendent and eternal matter that would cause them.

Physicalism

At the opposite extreme are metaphysical physicalists, who assert that physical objects are the key to ultimate reality and that everything else can be reduced to them.

Idealism

Idealism posits that ideas are the explanatory principles of reality. It must be distinguished:

• Static Idealism (Plato)

  This form suggests unchangeable archetypes and ideals as keys to understanding experience.

• Dynamic Idealism

  This holds that ideas take shape and are realized both in the developmental processes of nature and in the course of history, processes that give them meaning.

Materialism

Materialism opposes these idealist metaphysics, arguing that material reality produces and explains ideas.

• Natural Materialism (Ancient Atomism)

  This sought to explain both physical and psychological processes through the aggregation and division of indivisible material elements.

• Social and Historical Materialism (Karl Marx)

  This defended the causal priority of economic structures and the social organization of production over the ways of thinking that humans use to understand the material reality of their historical existence.