Metaphysics The Study of the Nature of Existence

Metaphysics: The Study of the Nature of Existence or Reality I Materialism: all reality is material/physical; only bodies in motion are real • Eastern (Charvaka) materialism: since we can know only that which we experience by sense, only that which is sensible/physical can be understood as real. There are no spiritual realities and no afterlife

Metaphysics: The Study of the Nature of Existence or Reality II • Western materialism: only physical things are real, either as atoms in motion (Democritus) or moving bodies (Hobbes) – In principle, everything is completely predictable (Laplace): there is no real freedom or afterlife

Objections to Materialism • Mental activity (e. g. , consciousness) does not have physical properties (e. g. , location). Even if mental activity is correlated with physical activity, that does not prove they are identical • Consciousness can be “of” or “about” things that don’t exist; physical objects lack such intentionality • Sub-atomic particle physics shows how matter itself lacks physical properties

Metaphysical Idealism: All reality is comprised of minds and ideas Western Idealism: • Physical objects are real only insofar as they are intelligible as the kind of thing they are. What makes a thing be that kind of thing is its unchanging essence, “form, ” or “idea” (Plato) • For something to be real means that it is experienced (or “perceived”) by some mind (including God): its existence consists in its being perceived (George Berkeley)

Idealism (continued) • Eastern Idealism: things we perceive are only sensations in the mind (as in a dream), not real objects outside our minds. Meditation and an ethical life wake us from the dream (Vasubandhu) Objections to Idealism: 1. Anthropomorphism: just because we think of reality in terms of mind does not mean that it is a product of mind: the objects we perceive are not limited simply to objects as we perceive them 2. Minds and ideas occur only in material systems