Quote:
Originally Posted by Brutha  I haven't said that humans are a subset of logic but that Being human is.
Then a question what it means to be a car is also metaphysical.
Then you have questions in metaphysics like: "Do unicorns have one horn?" which are about what it means to be a unicorn.
And do cars have the attribute of Being in a way that results in unicorns having one horn?
That question isn't really about cars but about metaphysics. |
Ok, I can see how metaphysics deals with the philosophical question of being (as opposed to the mechanistic or materialistic question, i.e., what is a car? Answer: A chassis, engine, wheels, etc.)
But I don't see how it follows that logic is a field of metaphysics. In the example you gave you showed that logic can be used to analyse metaphysics, but it doesn't show that logic
is metaphysics. Likewise, what it means to be human is studied in metaphysics, and logic is used as a tool in that study, but I don't see how it follows that the study of being human is therefore a superset of logic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brutha Metaphysics is about first principles.
You begin with something like their is an reality. Then you go on to say that their are things you can say about reality that are true and that their are also things about reality that are false (logic).
You need to do a bit of work before you can do interesting stuff like proofs of God's existence. |
Right. But again that's using logic as a tool. Which seems to make it as much a subfield of metaphysics as all of philosophy. And yet wikipedia says logic is traditionally studied as one of the branches of philosophy.
So, at least according to wikipedia, metaphysics and logic are both branches of philosophy. And the study of first principles within metaphysics shows that part of logic is studied in metaphysics, but not all. So wouldn't it be more accurate to say that metaphysics contains
part of logic, but not necessarily the whole set. I.e., if you're studying logic on its own, you're not necessarily studying metaphysics, as would be implied if the whole of logic was a subfield of metaphysics (which is what I think you're saying).
A diagram would be useful here. Imagine two ovals, one labeled logic, another labeled metaphysics. They overlap in the middle, and that middle is labeled first principles, but there are separate sections in both logic and metaphysics too.
Does that sound right? (ultimately it's not that important, I just want to get the definition right)