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The changes of metaphysics in western history

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The changes of metaphysics in western history

VoidP
Thinking from the Origin

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Joined: Oct 11, 2005
Location: Kedumim, Israel
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Posted 06/18/07 - 10:54 AM: Subject: The changes of metaphysics in western history	#1
Metaphysics, in the meaning I will discus here, is perceptions that human-beings have on the systems that control their world. Metaphysics, In this sense creates a paradox, because almost everyone has some belief in some form of metaphysics, be it supreme divine entities or materialistic systems of laws, or systems with no laws at all, yet we don't have a reliable source which indicates that someone has ever seen these metaphysics. The different kinds of metaphysical systems; People believe in, have changed and are still changing. In the ancient empires of Greece, Egypt and Rome people believed in a complex set of divine entities that controlled their life. In Madai or as it is called today, Iran, the Zoroastrianism has emerged. This religion believes in a single god, whose name is Ahura Mazda, who was the creator of all the good things in this world, and he had fought against the evil in this world. Another religion which believes in a single god, is Judaism. It seems that we do not have a good picture of who is the Jewish god. The Jewish god is described in different views in different books in the Bible (the Old Testament). In Genesis it has an impression of man-like god surrounded by angels. As the Bible proceeds the god looks more like an abstracted god how has messengers on earth. In the books of the prophets, god has almost no picture and he has became much more a god of justice, fury and grace. In the book of Ezekiel the god appears more like the Babylonian gods with wings and claws. In the ancient Greek world, a new metaphysical view emerged in about 600 BC. Thales, who is believed to be the first philosopher, proposed a new metaphysical view that is not controlled by a divine entity. . From then onward, philosophers have been developing different views about that entity-less metaphysics (or idea-matter metaphysics). Plato, in the 4th century BC, proposed a view view that metaphysics is controlled by forms. These forms are derived from single formof frms. Plato explained that in order to see these ideas in their true manner, one has to pass through a mystical experience. Aristotle proposed that these forms can be recognized in our world, through meticulous investigation that he devised. In the late middle ages, the nominalistic school suggested that the universals (which is another word for forms) are not to be found. The conceptualists suggested that the forms are the product of the mind. This debate seems to have vanished towards the end of the middle ages. When Science was born in the late 16th century and 17th century, the two main philosophers of science, Bacon and Descartes, maintained that forms or laws (as Bacon called them ) actually exist. It was David Hume in his book "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", who suggested that such laws and their causes are the yields of some human instinct, and they cannot be found in our perceptual investigation of nature. Despite Hume's findings, the main branch of science kept a realistic-mechanistic metaphysic as it base metaphysic. But in philosophy the metaphysicl view began to change. In an effort to settle Hume's problem Immanuel Kant conceived a new metaphysical system, in which he says that the brain is made to grasp nature, as the complex of all phenomena, by it’s inner laws. But that these laws are compatible to the laws the thing by which the thing in itself is controlled (Thing in it self is the thing that interacts with our sense and induces the patterns in the phenomena). Husserl in the beginning of the 20th century further proposed that we cannot know if there is something in itself that interacts with our senses. And therefore some of Husserl's commentators proposed that there is no metaphysic at all, and therefore advanced the post-modern thinking. Today in the western society we can observe a lot of metaphysical systems. The New-age brings with it a tremendous amount of different metaphysical systems. Science itself has a lot of metaphysical systems (realistic-mechanistic, in the natural sciences, and many others in the humanities and social sciences) and also non-metaphysical science in the positivistic modern physics. This begs the following questions: Can we see the above description as a legitimate and full enough description of the changes of metaphysical views through the ages? Are there are any criterions to select one metaphysical view over another metaphysical view? Is the long term philosophical search has yield any progress at all, and the post-modern thinkers had brought us to a dead end? Tal

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