Questions metaphysicians answer

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Questions metaphysicians answer

• What is the nature of reality?
• What is the place of humans in the universe?
• Do we have free will?
• Does God exist?
• What is the nature of the self?

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Metaphysics

• Etymology
• the books after the books of nature
• Definition
• study of the nature of reality
• subject matter is especially God, the self, and
  the real nature of the world
• Relationship to Epistemology

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Classic Problems

• Permanence vs. Change
• Appearance vs. Reality

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Nature of Ultimate Reality

• Commonsense World
• Scientific World of Theoretical Physics
• Worlds of other Species

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Nature of Human Reality

• The Mind-Body Problem
• Freedom and Determinism

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Fundamental Reality

• It underlies everything else
• It is permanent

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Sorting Out Potential Existents

• Three categories
• Eliminativism
• Santa Claus
• Reductionism
• WaterH2O
• Heatvibration of molecules
• Religionpsychological phenomenon
• Fundamental Ontology
• Things Persons

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Categories of Reality

• Monism
• Physicalism
• Idealism
• Dualism

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• Ockhams Razor
• Law of Parsimony
• Examples
• Religious Arguments
• Nature of Mind Arguments
• Science and Metaphysics
• Science is concerned only with the physical part
  of reality.
• Metaphysics Integrates our View of the World