Metaphysics

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Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of being and the world. The word derives from the Greek words μετά (metá) (meaning "beyond") and φυσικά (physiká) (meaning "physical"), "physical" referring to those works on matter by Aristotle in antiquity. The prefix meta- ("beyond") was attached to the... full article at wikipedia

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Waking Life	Jan 23, 2001
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.	William James
The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.	Samuel Johnson
I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.	Woody Allen
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.	F. H. Bradley
A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.	William James
When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics.	Voltaire
A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.	H. L. Mencken
Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.	Voltaire
Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.	Gaston Bachelard
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