Talk:Metaphysics

Changes to the article

I was thinking about implementing changes to this article with the hope of moving it in the direction of GA status. There is still a lot to do since many passages and several full subsections lack sources and the article has various maintenance tags (1x More citations needed section, 2x Unreferenced section, 4x citation needed, 2x page needed). The section "Epistemological foundation" has a WP:NPOV problem since there are many metaphysical methodologies and the deductive approach is not the only one. It could also be expanded to cover the methodology of metaphysics more generally rather than just focusing on epistemological foundations.

The section "History" is very long and encompasses a total of 17 subsections. Since we don't have an article "History of metaphysics", this section could be split off into its own article and replaced with a concise summary of the most important points with a main-template pointing to the main article, see WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. The discussion of the main topics in metaphysics is split into two sections: "Central questions" and "Peripheral questions". As far as I'm aware, this division is not found in the reliable sources and it might be better to have a common section by rearranging the topics. An important omission from this selection of topics is the problem of universals (and possibly also mereology). I was also thinking about having a short explanation somewhere of how metaphysics has been divided into branches, such as the old contrast between general metaphysics and special/specific metaphysics, and things like applied metaphysics and metametaphysics. This discussion should probably be brief to avoid having too much overlap with the section(s) discussing the topics. Some of these branches are already discussed individually so they could be rearranged to a common place.

Various smaller adjustments would be needed but they can be addressed later since the ones mentioned so far would already involve a lot of work to implement. I was hoping to get some feedback on these ideas and possibly other suggestions. I still have to do some research to work out the details. After that, I would start implementing them one at a time but it will probably take a while to address all the points. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:01, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

As a general remark I think the article is looking better than a lot of our philosophy articles. I am wondering if something should be added to the lede concerning the problems/criticisms in modern science, and even modern philosophy, which are discussed in the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:33, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster: Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the lead needs some work since it currently does not summarize several parts of the article. I usually try to fix the body of the article first before moving on to the lead. This might be another week or two before I get to it but hopefully not too long. I'll make sure to include something about the criticisms as well. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

On the rationalists

Several of these articles are well done and I'd like to invite these editors to edit the analytic philosophy page as well. That said, it seems to me Leibniz especially so, but Descartes also, follow a kind of idealism in their metaphysics. Thomas Reid calls Descartes to Kant i. e. modern philosophy "the way of ideas" for that reason, or for a representationalism entailing idealism. John Searle has the same attitude. The Cogito very much ushers in the age of idealism, by saying we are ultimately mind rather than our bodies. In other words, Cartesianism is a kind of idealism. It's not called "French idealism", but it could be, just as there is German idealism and British idealism after it. There are also idealists who happen to be German or British, but who fit more with the tradition of Leibniz, and so like him aren't classed with their countrymen, such as George Boole. More over, it's just a fact that the rationalism/empiricism dispute is an epistemological one, not a metaphysical one. Berkeley shows quite clearly how empiricism doesn't entail materialism, nor does rationalism entail idealism. "A rationalist system of metaphysics" sounds like a category error, and it certainly isn't wrong to say modern period = idealist metaphysics. Maybe replace "rationalist" with "Cartesian"? Then again, those like Berkeley aren't Cartesian or Hegelian, but certainly an idealist. And the lede might not want to explain "Cartesian". Cake (talk) 06:55, 28 April 2024 (UTC)