A Brief Introduction to Metaphysics

Great things have been achieved in the name of science and technology. The average person is richer, healthier, and lives longer than ever before.

Matter of fact, it's been going so well that many people nowadays believe that science has all the answers.

Across academia and popular thought, physicalism has become the dominant worldview. It assumes that everything that exists is physical, and that all phenomena can be explained by physical processes.

Historically, the debate regarding physicalism has largely been seen as an abstract, meaningless quarrel between philosophers.

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, however, the question became very real, which required true, practical responses.

Can AI be conscious? Should it have rights? Can it be ethically objective? Can it create art?

These questions show the limitations of a purely physicalist worldview.

To answer them, we have to reintroduce metaphysics, which physicalists have tried to dismiss for centuries.

1. What is Metaphysics?

Metaphysics bears an interesting name.

Interestingly, metaphysics literally means "after physics." The term comes from how the Ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle's works were arranged. His book on these topics appeared right after Physics. Aristotle himself, however, called it first philosophy or covering these topics was first described in the second book after Physics in the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's works. Aristotle himself, however, called it first philosophy or theology.

Now, Aristotle saw the world as unified, ordered, and purposeful. He didn't view it as neither purely material nor purely abstract, but as a combination of both.

An acorn naturally grows into an oak. Not by chance, but by its inner purpose. The whole universe moves toward fulfillment of its purpose.

You'll understand what that means after reading this introduction.

In simple terms, metaphysics is the study of reality and being. It asks what things are, why they are, and what makes them be.

These questions require philosophical thinking, as they go beyond the empirical data that science relies on.

As you'll see, metaphysics provides an entire framework for understanding the world. Therefore, it may be difficult to grasp at first, as one's worldview is affected by the modern age's physicalism. Once understood, however, metaphysics has the ability to explain any phenomenon in the world, in contrast to the limited scope of more modern philosophies.

2. Metaphysics vs. Science

While science is the study of how things work, metaphysics is the study of what things are and why they exist.

You may think that knowing how things work is great, and you'd be right! We need science to model the world in the means of technological development.

However, science assumes that nature is orderly and intelligible. Without this assumption, scientific inquiry would be impossible. We wouldn't be able to form hypotheses, conduct experiments, or make predictions.

This assumption is metaphysical in nature. It goes beyond the empirical data that science relies on. It relies on logic, truth, and causality to be able to function. These things aren't proven by science itself, but the metaphysics that encapsulates it, providing the foundations science depends on.

Therefore, to do good science, we need good metaphysics. We'll begin with act and potency.

3. Act and Potency

Act and potency are the first metaphysical concepts we need to understand. They were first introduced by Aristotle and later developed by St. Thomas Aquinas (as much of metaphysics was).

Everything that exists has two sides: what it is now and what it could become.

Act is what something is actually doing or being right now. As in, a hot coffee mug is on the table, being hot and made of ceramic. This is its actuality, its reality at this moment in time.

Potency is what something can possibly do or become, given its nature. The hot coffee mug has the potential to cool down, to be filled with more coffee, or even to break if dropped. These are its potentialities, what it could be in the future, within the limits of what it is.

An entity moving from one state into another means that the entity is actualizing its potential. It can potentially shift states, and when it does, it actualizes that potential.

This is how movement happens in the world. In terms of positionality, moving the coffee mug from point A to point B actualizes the potential of being at point B. A change in quality would actualize the potential of being hot or cold. A change in substance would actualize the potential of being a coffee mug or a broken mug. And so on.

Let's apply this to the mind-body problem. This is a famously difficult problem in modern philosophy, which asks how the mind (consciousness) relates to the body (the physical brain and nervous system).

In other worldviews, the mind may be seen as simply computations performed by the brain. But using our new understanding of act and potency, we can explain that the mind actualizes the potential of the body to perform actions.

You pick something up. Your brain sends signals to your muscles to initiate the movement. In terms of act and potency, the neuromotors actualize the potential of your arm's movement. But what actualizes the potential of the neuromotors? The brain's signals. And what actualizes the potential of the brain's signals? The non-physical intention to pick something up: consciousness.

In a metaphysical framework, consciousness is not reducible to physical processes. Instead, it is the first cause that actualizes the potentials of the body. This means that consciousness is fundamental to reality, not a byproduct of physical interactions. It happens prior to and enables physical processes.

4. The Four Causes

With our newly acquired understanding of act and potency, we can now move on to the four causes, another fundamental metaphysical concept introduced by Aristotle.

Take a look at the following drawing of a red rubber ball and try to describe it. What makes the red rubber ball be the way it is? Why is it that and not something else?

You may describe the red rubber ball as being made of rubber, red in color, round in shape, and bouncy in texture. These descriptions are to be explained by the four causes.

Material Cause: This is what the ball is made of. In this case, it's made of red rubber. It may be made of other materials as well, such as leather or metal.
Formal Cause: This is the shape and structure of the ball. The ball is round and smooth. The formal cause gives the ball its identity as a ball, distinguishing it from other objects. We call this its essence.

The material cause (red rubber) can change, and the thing can still be a ball. You could have a leather ball or a metal ball. The formal cause, however, (its round, smooth shape) cannot change without it ceasing to be a ball.

In metaphysics, every physical thing is made of matter (hyle) and form (morphe). This notion is called hylemorphism.

Matter gives a thing potential to exist, while form actualizes that potential to determine what the thing is. Understanding that, let's move on to the remaining two causes.

Efficient Cause: The agent that actualizes a thing's potential to be. Here, the efficient cause is the factory that turned raw rubber into a red rubber ball. The efficient cause is what brings the ball into existence.
Final Cause: The purpose of a thing. The purpose of the red rubber ball is to be played with. It is its reason for being.

5. Goodness

You may have heard of Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia, often translated as "happiness" or "flourishing."

Eudaimonia is often discussed in ethics, but it requires metaphysics to be properly understood.

In metaphysics, as we've seen from the final cause, everything that exists has a purpose or end goal (telos). This purpose is what defines its goodness.

In other words, classically, 'goodness' wasn't a subjective feeling, but the degree to which something fulfills its purpose.

A knife is good if it cuts well, a tree is good if it grows tall and strong, and a human is good if they live virtuously and fulfill their potential according to their humanity.

Therefore, when we talk about eudaimonia, we're not simply referring to a feel-good state of mind.

Instead, we're talking about living in accordance with our nature and purpose as human beings. In accordance to God, as Aristotle, Aquinas, and other metaphysicians say, who is defined as the ultimate source of being and goodness.

In this way, metaphysics provides a foundation for any sort of thought. Science, ethics, arts, and the like, all rely on metaphysical principles to function.

Without metaphysics, we wouldn't be able to explain the fundamental nature of reality, and our understanding of the world would be severely limited.

Much like the modern worldview.