Metaphysics

The forbidding word 'metaphysics' had a very down-to-earth origin. Aristotle's works began as lectures, and then were published by specific topic. The compilers had difficulty coming up with a name for the subject matter covered in the work following 'The Physics', so they settled on 'The Metaphysics', with 'meta' meaning 'beyond', simply denoting 'Beyond The Physics'. But this rubric wasn't entirely inappropriate, since the content concerned the aspect of reality that Aristotle conceived as not describable by 'physics'. The latter pertained, for him, to the changeable aspect of existence, hence its focus on a theory of Causality. In contrast, the later topic studies the unchanging dimension of reality, so 'beyond Physics' does apply, but not in the sense of most of the current-day connotations of 'metaphysics', e. g. paranormal or mystical phenomena. For Aristotle, the main question of Metaphysics is the problem of 'the one and the many', i. e. how Unity and Multiplicity are related. His view is that everything is both One and Many, as can be easily seen in any object, insofar as it is both a whole and consisting of parts, as well as in the Universe as a whole, which likewise consists of a plurality of items. While that analysis might seem to be so commonsensical as to be inarguable, where a God is regarded as separate from the created world, the One and the Many are Metaphysically distinct. Likewise, in a cosmos entailing an original Nothing and a plurality of illusions of individuality, for Nothing and One are both undifferentiated samenesses. So, 'metaphysics', in the common current sense of paranormal or mystical, is actually a watered-down version of a Metaphysical theory that disagrees with Aristotle's, not the fundamental meaning of the word.