Metaphysics refers to the study of the nature of the world, that is, the study of all existence, the causes and origins of all phenomena (especially abstract concepts). It was first constructed by Aristotle and called "the first philosophy" and "the first science".

Metaphysics is a category of primitive philosophy. It was originally an ontological system to study "existence", and its theoretical principle was Plato's "duality of the world". Since 13 century, it has been used as a philosophical term to refer to the study of transcendental things (soul, freedom of will, etc.). ).

From the epistemological point of view, metaphysics is similar to basic mathematics, and it is also non-empirical. For questions that can't be answered directly by perception, it is based on the assumption of prior conditions (similar to mathematical axioms), and the answer is deduced through rational analysis and meticulous logical thinking, so there can be no contradiction. Therefore, basic mathematics is often regarded as a special case of metaphysics applied to the existence of numbers.

Metaphysical position

Metaphysics is an ancient speculative philosophy and the foundation of idealism. After the beginning of modern philosophy with Hegel as the starting point, the West began to generally question metaphysics, began to open up new roads, carried out a revolution against tradition, and generally improved the philosophy of science, so metaphysics gradually declined in the West in the19th century.

In 1980s, Taiwan Province Province published the book Drinking Sacrifice in Modern Metaphysics: Whitehead, which introduced alfred north whitehead and his philosophical thoughts. The book points out that "metaphysics" has gradually declined in the west in the 20th century.

Recently, many related studies in the English-speaking world further show that although "metaphysics" cannot be said to have been ignored, on the whole, it should be exaggerated to say that it is in a state of relative decline compared with its previous importance in the western philosophical tradition.