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Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/1
There are two distinct views on the meaning of time. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence, and time itself is something that can be measured. This is the realist's view, to which Sir Isaac Newton subscribed, and hence is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.[1]
A contrasting view is that time is part of the fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number). Within this structure, humans sequence events, quantify the duration of events and the intervals between them, and compare the motions of objects. In this second view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows", that objects "move through", or that is a "container" for events. This view is in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz[2] and Immanuel Kant,[3][4] in which time, rather than being an objective thing to be measured, is part of the mental measuring system.
Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/2 Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.
The concept of experience generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience "empirical knowledge" or "a posteriori knowledge".
The interrogation of experience has a long tradition in continental philosophy. Experience is an important aspect of the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. The German term Erfahrung, often translated into English as "experience" has a slightly different implication, connoting the coherency of life's experiences.
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Causality denotes a necessary relationship between one event (called cause) and another event (called effect) which is the direct consequence of the first.[5]
While this informal understanding suffices in everyday use, the philosophical analysis of how best to characterize causality extends over millennia. In the Western philosophical tradition, discussion stretches back at least as far as Aristotle, and the topic remains a staple in contemporary philosophy journals.
Though cause and effect are typically related to events, candidates include objects, processes, properties, variables, facts, and states of affairs; which of these make up the causal relata, and how best to characterize the relationship between them, remains under discussion.
Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/4 The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not — determinism versus indeterminism — and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not — compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, 'hard determinists' argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.
The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality. The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical thought.
Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/5 A quality (from Lat. qualitas[6]) is an attribute or a property. Attributes are ascribable, by a subject, whereas properties are possessible[7]. Some philosophers assert that a quality cannot be defined[8]. In contemporary philosophy, the idea of qualities and especially how to distinguish certain kinds of qualities from one another remains controversial.[7]
Aristotle presented his idea of qualities in his Categories. According to him, qualities may be attributed to things and persons or be possessed by them. There are four Aristotelian qualities: habits and dispositions, natural capabilities and incapabilities, affective qualities and affections, and shape.[9]
Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/6 Self is broadly defined as the essential qualities that make a person distinct from all others. The task in philosophy is defining what these qualities are, and there have been a number of different approaches. The "self" is the idea of a unified being which is the source of an idiosyncratic consciousness.[citation needed] Moreover, this self is the agent responsible for the thoughts and actions of an individual to which they are ascribed. It is a substance, which therefore endures through time; thus, the thoughts and actions at different moments of time may pertain to the same self. As the notion of subject, the "self" has been harshly criticized by Nietzsche at the end of the 19th century, on behalf of what Gilles Deleuze would call a "becoming-other".
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In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images.[10] Many philosophers consider ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being.
The capacity to create and understand the meaning of ideas is considered to be an essential and defining feature of human beings. In a popular sense, an idea arises in a reflex, spontaneous manner, even without thinking or serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place.
Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/8
The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of human existence. This concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as Why are we here?, What's life all about? and What is the meaning of it all? It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history. There have been a large number of answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. Albert Camus observed, we humans are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves
that our existence is not absurd. [11]
The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the existence of God, the soul and the afterlife. Scientific contributions are more indirect; by describing the empirical facts about the universe, science provides some context and sets parameters for conversations on related topics. An alternative, human-centric, and not a cosmic/religious approach is the question "What is the meaning of my life?" The value of the question pertaining to the purpose of life may be considered to be coincidal with the achievement of ultimate reality, if that is believed by one to exist.
Portal:Metaphysics/Selected article/9 In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression to ti ên einai, literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase to ti esti, literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word essentia to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (horismos) [12]
In the history of western thought, essence has often served as a vehicle for doctrines that tend to individuate different forms of existence as well as different identity conditions for objects and properties; in this eminently logical meaning, the concept has given a strong theoretical and common-sense basis to the whole family of logical theories based on the "possible worlds" analogy set up by Leibniz and developed in the intensional logic from Carnap to Kripke, which was later challenged by "extensionalist" philosophers such as Quine.
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- ↑ Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion - Stanford University http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/
- ↑ Leibniz on Space, Time, and Indiscernibles - Against the Absolute Theory -- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/leib-met.htm#H7
- ↑ Critique of Pure Reason - Lecture notes of G. J. Mattey, UC Davis http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/kant/TIMELEC.HTM
- ↑ Kant's Transcendental Idealism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/k/kantmeta.htm#H4
- ↑ Random House Unabridged Dictionary
- ↑ Morwood, 1995
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cargile, 1995
- ↑ Metaphysics of Quality
- ↑ Studtmann, 2007
- ↑ Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- ↑ Mistakes Were made (but not by me) Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson, Harcourt, Inc, 2007, pages 13 and 14
- ↑ S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 20 April 2008.
