Metaphysics is a worldview that sees things as isolated and static. It is the opposite of dialectics. Metaphysicists believe that everything in the universe has been the same as long as it has existed. The feudal aristocracy promoted idealist metaphysics and the early bourgeoisie promoted mechanical materialism, a metaphysical form of materialism distinct from dialectical materialism.[1]
Etymology
The word meta is a Greek word that essentially means beyond, and is today usually used to mean something on something. Physics originally referred to the study of nature in Ancient Greece, which can be understood as the natural world, i.e. the physical, material world in which we live.
Metaphysics, therefore, would refer to "nature of nature" or "beyond nature". Therefore, metaphysics is the study of everything which is found beyond nature. While nature is always in movement and never twice the same (see dialectics), it follows that anything beyond nature would be immutable and static. It can also be called the supernatural world (super meaning above in Latin: above the natural world).
Historically, especially in Aristotle, metaphysics was the study of of the being which is found beyond nature.
References
- ↑ Mao Zedong (1937). On Contradiction: 'The Two World Outlooks'. [MIA]