Metaphysics is a process of searching for the original nature of reality, the world, and existence. Aristotle was the first to use metaphysics to answer the cause of beginnings and the becoming of the world. In the Middle Ages, the content of metaphysics was replaced by finite: Thomas Aquinas thinks of it as something complete and having a given meaning. Then metaphysics becomes a way of understanding the world that focuses on existing statements about the world. Kant criticizes the origin of knowledge and distinguishes it into parts. In the 19th century, Hegel and Nietzsche denoted notions of beginnings. In the Modern era, questions of overcoming metaphysics are raised, and the problem of truthfulness is removed. It has much to do with human nature and the search for an answer to existence and formation.
Among the philosophers who capture a tangible share of attention is René Descartes, the founder of rationalist metaphysics. Descartes defines substance as a thing that exists only for itself. The world is divided into spiritual and material substances that differ in how they are divided. The main attributes of substances are thinking and extension; the others are only derived from the former (Lawrence). Properties of substances are secondary because no good distinct idea can be born about them. Dualism allows the creation of materialistic physics as an extended substance and idealistic psychology as a doctrine of a thinking substance. These substances are connected through God, who is the actual image of the perfect, who can regulate the world’s laws. Descartes separates organisms from the autonomous life essence because he is convinced that one can show one’s soul through words (Statale et al. 225). The soul is an inseparable thought from the physical order and, therefore, cannot be considered separately.
Unlike Descartes, Heidegger interprets metaphysics as the science of truth and the universal basis for the world’s existence. Metaphysics does not refer to being itself, so it remains unexplored and hidden. Heidegger ignores the distinction between the two definitions of cogito and ignores the problem of delusion (Statile et al. 250). The question of subjectivism is rejected, and Heidegger’s method is skeptical of attempts to overcome it. It can be judged that for him, the original question is being (Lawrence). Descartes tries to explain the relationship between the structurally-formed whole, while Heidegger overlooks it and interprets essence as a totality of things.
Heidegger defines existentialism as the concreteness of human existence. In this case, man exists because there are things that belong to him, and through them, he can assert his significance. Heidegger refers to existentialism as a matter of presence and existence, which does not require searching for a hidden truth. Despite the similarities, Descartes defined existentialism as the passing through of fixed points of being, the placing of moral aspects in life.
Modern metaphysics repeatedly turns to the theme of God’s death, which is seen as a crisis of humanity’s morality and marks the end of everything. Theology is interpreted as a search for the possibility of thinking of God “after metaphysics,” as a transition from onto theology to event theology (Osko 57). One can appeal to the metaphysics of modernity can be justified because, in the consciousness of one’s being, one has direct access to the reality of God. God’s existence is a consequence of the self-evidentness of the consciousness of the substantive subject. Metaphysical personalism, using rational metaphysics, justifies the presence of God through the structures and direct experience of the subject’s consciousness. Metaphysical laws apply to all beings due to Descartes’ separability and Heidegger’s truthfulness.
The philosophical idea that applies to my life is making sense of the world. It seems to me that metaphysics addresses the question of self-determination and the establishment of the truth of the individual. The idea of the indivisibility of the extension of thought has, in a way, struck me because previously, I had not treated thought as something abstract. Now, however, I think of thought as a substance that structures the world as a whole, which has changed my attitude toward life considerably.
Works Cited
Lawrence, Nolan. “Descartes’s Metaphysics” The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Osko, Krzysztof. “The Metaphysical Argument for God’s Existence.” Annals of Philosophy, vol. 67, no. 4, 2019, pp. 53-70.
Statile, Glen, et al. The Journey of Metaphysics. 6th edition. Pearson Learning Solutions, 2016.