Western Today Q&A: What is metaphysics?

Periodically, Western Today is reaching out to Western Washington University faculty and staff to get their expertise on topics of interest to the community.

Today, we've reached out to Ryan Wasserman, a professor of philosophy at Western and chair of the department:

Western Today: You teach a number of classes in Metaphysics, a subject that many people have a hard trouble wrapping their heads around, as it deals with the very nature of existence. How would you explain what metaphysics is to someone, and why it is important to study?

Ryan Wasserman: Metaphysics is a difficult subject to define. One idea is to begin with the word itself. "Meta" means "after" or "beyond," so you might think that metaphysics simply studies the same topics as physics, but at a higher or more abstract level.

This would certainly characterize some of what goes on in metaphysics. For example, a physicist might ask "What causes the rotation of the Earth?" or "What causes the collapse of the wave function?". The metaphysician asks the more general question: "What is causation?" What does it mean, in general, to say that one event is the cause of another? Is it just that the one kind of event regularly follows after the other? Or perhaps that the one event wouldn't have happened without the other? Or perhaps that the one raises the probability of the other? These are some of the questions that metaphysicians ask. But these aren't the only questions that metaphysicians ask. Take, for example, the question of whether or not there is a God. That's one of the most important questions in metaphysics, but it's not about a topic from physics. So, metaphysics isn't just concerned with topics from physics. 

A second definition of metaphysics is suggested by etymology. The word "metaphysics" was first introduced by an early editor of Aristotle's works. That editor had already collected one set of Aristotle's writings under the title "Physics," so he decided to call the next collection "Metaphysics" -- literally, "the one after the Physics." This suggests that metaphysics is just concerned with whatever topics are addressed in that particular book.

This would certainly capture much of what goes on in metaphysics today. For example, the Metaphysics contains discussions of causation, substance, essence, and God (the "unmoved mover"), and all of these topics are still discussed by metaphysicians today. But these aren't the only topics discussed by metaphysicians today. Take, for example, the topic of free will, and the question of whether or not human freedom is compatible with a deterministic view of the world. This is one of the most popular topics in contemporary metaphysics, but it's not discussed in Aristotle's Metaphysics. So, metaphysics isn't just concerned with the topics of that book.

Metaphysics may be difficult to define, but that doesn't mean it's unimportant. In fact, I think that questions about human freedom and the existence of God are some of the most important questions in life. The same thing is true for questions about causation, and about related topics like probability, explanation, and the laws of nature -- these concepts are central not just to science, but to our everyday thinking about the world.