The Meaning of Metaphysics

Introduction
• Metaphysics is one of the core branches of philosophy.

• But no branch of philosophy has suffered denial,

misinterpretation or misrepresentation like metaphysics.
 Cont.
• In spite of being ignorantly denied by non-philosophers and
some philosophers, the presence of metaphysics is ineliminable
in any academic discipline.

• In other words, an attempt to kill metaphysics will only give

birth to another form of metaphysics.
 Cont.
• Therefore, this lecture aims to shed light on the meaning of
metaphysics and to also put before you, what you stand to gain
from having a clearer understanding of the term ‘reality’ which
happens to be the subject matter of metaphysics.

• The generality and non-opacity of metaphysics’ enquiry is why

it is known as the science of all sciences.
Some images
Cont.
Cont.
A brief explanation on core Branches of Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Ethics
• Metaphysics

• Logic is the tool (instrument) of philosophy.

 Origin of the term metaphysics
• Metaphysics, as a term, was accidentally created by the
Andronicus of Rhodes, the editor of Aristotle’s works.

• While arranging the works of Aristotle in the Philosophical

School of Alexandria, Andronicus placed the work that Aristotle
called First Philosophy, after the ones on Physics and titled it
After the Physics.
 Cont.
• The etymology of After the Physics is captured in the Greek
expression Ta meta ta physica or meta ta physika.

• Meta means after, while physica or physika means physics or

nature.

• Later after the physics came to mean beyond physics and by

this is meant the study of those realities or beings that are
beyond the physical world.
 Metaphysical questions
• What is reality?
• What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause?
• Must anything that exists stand in some relation to something
else?
• Is change really possible?
• Is time real, or an illusion?
• Are there laws of nature?
 Cont.
• Does God exist?
• Who is man?
• Do phenomenal objects exist?
• Do mental states exist?
• Can there ever be justice in this world?
• Why is 2+2 = 4?
 Cont.
• It must be noted that answers to metaphysical questions are
meant to address problems.

• Thus, metaphysical questions are questions that are

unanswerable through scientific observation, analysis, or
experiment.

• They are purely a priori speculations.

 Metaphysics explained
• According to Lowe, “People who are not familiar with metaphysics
are apt to have a false, or at least somewhat distorted, conception of what
it involves. Sometimes, they think it has something to do with mysticism
and magic, which is completely mistaken. Sometimes they think that it
has something to do with physics, which is true enough in a way. But it
will be wrong to think that metaphysics is to physics as metalogic is to
logic, or as metaethics is to ethics…” (Lowe, 2002).

• Rather, metaphysics is thinking, reflection, critique, into the

inner-depth of things.
 Cont.
• Metaphysics actually began when man appeared on earth and
pondered on the mysteries of life.

• From the above, we can deduce that the starting point of

metaphysics is what we see and experience around us.
• For metaphysics springs naturally from our innate instinct for
curiosity.
 Cont.

• In the words of J. I. Omoregbe, “man has a natural curiosity to

know, he wants to understand and be able to explain what he
sees and experiences in the world around him. This natural
curiosity to understand and explain what he sees leads him
beyond what he sees, and leads him into metaphysics.” (1994).

• Simply put, metaphysics is the attempt to go beyond the facts

of immediate experience.
 Cont.
There are three senses of metaphysics in western philosophy:
• In the first sense, metaphysics is defined as a theory of reality
or the search for ultimate reality.

• In the second sense, metaphysics is used to capture the native,

rational, imaginative and intellectual capacity of man to project
beyond physical experience into the non-physical through
human power of transcendence. Here, metaphysics serves as
the seat of creativity, innovation and development.
 Cont.

• The third sense regards metaphysics as the theory of Being as

being (Being qua being). I will explain this in detail when I am
treating a topic titled ‘Phenomenology’ on the course outline.
 Branches of metaphysics
• The two main branches of metaphysics are:

✓Ontology: the study of what exists or what is; be it seen or

unseen.

✓Cosmology: the study of the origin of the universe. The Greek

word Kosmos means harmony or order.
 Cont.
• In addition to the foregoing, the two main schools of thought
in metaphysics are:
✓Idealism: it claims that reality is irreducible to matter. In other
words, it says that reality is an immaterial substance.

✓Materialism: it is the opposite of idealism. It argues that

nothing counts as a reality if it is not matter or something
physical.
 Two types of metaphysicians
1. Anthropological metaphysicians.
2. Ontological metaphysicians.

• The above could be technically referred to as metaphysical

specialis and metaphysical generalis.
 Conclusion
• Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that has paved the way
for a complete interrogation of the nature of reality.

• The more a discipline dissociates itself from metaphysics, the

more metaphysical it becomes.
Fundamental Issues in
Metaphysics
 Introduction
• Metaphysical issues are perennial since they have always been there
and they will continue to be there.

• Metaphysical questions are also perennial because they cannot be

answered dogmatically.

• Every metaphysician is bound to answer a metaphysical question

from his/her understanding of human place in material or immaterial
world or the combination of the two.
 Cont.
• This explains why metaphysical problems involve issues that are
intergenerational, they are issues in which no generation of humans
can completely resolve.

• In so doing, this lecture is devoted to the treatment of some of those

issues.

• The lecture promises to deepen and to critically shape your views on

some metaphysical issues in order to enhance your understanding on
their practical applications to everyday life.
 The problem of Being
• If metaphysics is a conscious philosophical attempt to unravel the
nature of reality, then the central issue in metaphysics is the problem
of being.

• The question, “what is being?” has remained the most fundamental

question in metaphysics.

• The problem of being is present in every culture, be it in Western,

Indian, Chinese or African culture.
 Cont.
• Parmenides holds that being is and non-being is not. That is,
whatever exists is being and being is one, not multiple.
• In agreement with Parmenides, Plato argues that being is eternal and
unchanging.
 Cont.
• Aristotle, having said that metaphysics deals with “Pure Being”,
argues that being is the foundation and unity of all things.

• He subsequently identifies being with God.

• St. Aquinas, following Aristotle’s footsteps, insists that God is being

par excellence while creatures are beings in analogical sense only.
 Cont.
• Don Scotus criticizes St. Aquinas’ attempt to define and identify being
as God. He argues that being is indefinable because it is the simplest
and the most all embracing of all concepts.

• He adds that the concept of being is univocal and not analogical given
that finite being are beings in exactly the same sense in which we say
that God is being.
 Cont.
• William of Ockham defends Don Scotus’ position by saying that if
creatures and God were not beings in the same sense, we would not
be able to form any idea of God.

• The above position of William of Ockham inspires the scholastic

philosophers to make a distinction between necessary being and
contingent being.
 Cont.
• In his book, The Mystery of Being, Gabriel Marcel adopts a mystical
approach to the treatment of being. For him, being is a mystery that
engulfs us and our very existence is involved in it.

• He explains that being is not a problem but a mystery to us. A

problem is something external to us, we can see it, study it and
understand it. On the contrary, a mystery is something that engulfs
us, something in which we are involved and we are part of. This is
what being is to us.
 Cont.

• Martin Heidegger wrote Being and Time in 1927 to investigate the

nature of being.

• While Jean Paul Sartre wrote Being and Nothingness (1943) to treat
the problem of being.
 Problem of Existence and Essence
• Can there be essence without existence, or existence without
essence?

• In other words, between essence and existence, which is more

significant; or which precedes the other?
 Cont.
• Traditional Western philosophy had given primacy to essence over
existence until Jean Paul Sartre wrote his book, Existentialism is a
Humanism in 1946.

• Sartre holds a contrary position to that of traditional Western

philosophers like Plato and Aristotle by arguing that “existence
precedes essence”.
 Cont.
• When metaphysicians talk about the essence of things, they have in
mind the very nature of a thing, that which makes it that particular
kind of thing and which distinguishes it from other things.

• In other words, essence is the "what" of a thing.

Cont.
 Cont.
• The term substance can also be substituted for the term essence if
substance is construed as that which constitutes the specific nature of
a thing.

• Metaphysicians have distinguished material substance from

immaterial substance.

• John McTaggart argues that what exists is a substance, and all

substances are united in one comprehensible substance, which is the
universe.
 Problem of Change and Permanence

• The problem of change and permanence is connected to the problem

of Being and non-Being.

• As earlier mentioned, Parmenides and Plato are of the view that

being is eternal and unchanging. This position negates any occurrence
of change in the world. Everything that exists is permanent;
indestructible; and un-changing

• Whereas Heraclitus argues that “the only thing permanent is change”.

• “Everything changes … man cannot step into the same stream twice.”
Cont.
 Appearance and Reality
• The problem of appearance and reality in metaphysics begins
with the big question: what is reality?

• The above question is relevant because we know from

experience that appearance and reality are not always the same,
for example…“not everything that glitters is gold”, or ‘never judge
a book by its cover’.
 Cont.
• It is the case that what appears cold to one man, may be hot to
another man. What appears yellow to someone suffering from
jaundice may appear black or blue to another man.

• This explains why philosophers like Democritus, Locke and Berkeley

have argued that secondary qualities like colour, taste, odour, size are
not in things that appear to have them, but only ideas in the minds of
their perceivers.
 Problem of Universal and particular
• The problem of universal and particular actually started with the
questions asked by Socrates and Plato in Western Philosophy.

• While Socrates asks: what is justice?, Plato, on his part, asks: what is
beauty?.

• They were not expecting their interlocutors or listeners to refer to

instances of just acts or pointing to a beautiful flower, a beautiful lady
or any other beautiful object as answers to their questions.
 Cont.
• For they believe that there is a distinction between justice and a just
act, between beauty and a beautiful lady, between whiteness and a
white object, between humanity and any individual man.

• Hence the problem of universal and particular in metaphysics, since

answers to such metaphysical questions must necessarily transcend
particular cases.
 Mind/Body Problem
• Rene Descartes the French philosopher is the one who brought this
problem into the open.

• The problem actually started when Descartes was trying to refute the
claim that the soul died with the body.

• This particular exercise came as a result of the papal call, which

challenged Christian philosophers to reply to skeptics who argued that
the soul is not immortal.
 Cont.
• Descartes, in line with Plato’s reasoning, argues that the body is a
material substance and the mind (soul) is an immaterial substance.

• The metaphysical problem here is in explaining how an immaterial

substance (mind) is able to interact with a material substance (body).

• Up till today, no philosopher or scholar has proffered a non-

controversial solution to mind and body problem.
Problem of Freedom and Determinism
• Is man a free being or is he determined?

• If he is determined can it be said that he is responsible for his

actions?

• Again, if man is determined how come he is rewarded or punished for

his actions?
 Cont.
• And if man is free, to what extent is he responsible for his actions?

• These are questions central to the problem of freedom and

determinism.

• Those philosophers who say that man is determined are called

determinists and those of them who argue that man is free are
referred to as libertarians.
 Conclusion

• A metaphysician is someone seeking to understand why things exist

at all, and what it means for a thing to exist in the first place.

• This explains why man is a metaphysical being since he must

necessarily ask questions regarding the world he has found himself.
Metaphysics in Ancient Greek Philosophy
 Introduction
• This lecture intends to critically discuss the views of metaphysicians in
ancient Greek society.

• Their arguments and counter arguments would form the basis for our
discussion in this lecture.

• In the end, students would be able to form independent opinions

about those claims.
Parmenides
Metaphysics
 Cont.
• Parmenides was the first notable metaphysician in ancient Greece.

• For he was the first to articulate the problem of being in his poem
entitled On Nature.

• He made a clear distinction between reason and senses as cognitive

faculties.
 Cont.
• He argued that the way of senses is the way of opinion, while the way
of reason is the way of truth.

• In his view, only through the way of reason will man be able to
investigate the true nature of Being.

• With the above claim, Parmenides also qualified as the first rationalist
in the West.
 Cont.
• According to him, the senses do mislead us to believe that there are
many beings but in reality, Being is one and is immutable.

• When we claim to see many beings, he argues that we must have

been suffering from the illusion of the senses. Being is not multiple
and it does not change, reality is one.

• Multiplicity is an illusion, changes are illusions. They are illusions of

the senses.
Heraclitus’ Metaphysics
 Cont.
• While Parmenides argues that change is an illusion of the senses,
Heraclitus, on his part, says change is the basic law of nature.

• In Heraclitus’ view, we live in a world of continuous change, an ever

changing world, a world in which everything is in flux.
 Cont.

• Change is the only permanent feature of the world as far as Heraclitus

is concerned.

• Modern science seems to have agreed with Heraclitus with the claim
that subatomic particles are in motions, not stagnant or fixed entities.
 Cont.
• Another essential part of Heraclitus’ metaphysics borders on
perpetual conflict or perpetual clash of opposites.

• He argues that without conflict, without strife, without clash of

opposite, there would be no progress in the world.

• In other words, stagnation would have been the order of the day.
 Cont.
• It should be noted that Heraclitus’ universe of perpetual conflict is
not a chaotic one.

• It is a universe of order and harmony.

• For the Logos is there to harmonize the clash of opposites and

harness them into order, harmony and progress.
 Cont.
• He then identified the Logos as the universal soul, universal
consciousness or the universal principle of intelligence.

• In so doing, Heraclitus was the first to use the notion of Logos in

Western philosophy.
Cont.
Plato’s metaphysics

428/427 BCE - 348/347 BCE

 Cont.
• His metaphysics is best understood through his theory of World of
Forms.
• He argues that the material universe is only a shadow or imperfect
reflection of the World of Forms.

• Plato’s World of Forms can also be called the world of ideas or the
Intelligible World.
 Cont.
• According to Plato, the Forms are the universal ideas of things,
essence of things or the real nature of things.

• Forms are the real nature of things existing outside the human mind
and also outside the material universe.
 Cont.
• The Forms, argues Plato, are not just ideas in the mind but they exist
in reality and they are independent of the material world.

• He believes that things in this world are imperfect copies, imperfect

reflections or shadows of the real things in the World of Forms.

• Thus, in Plato’s metaphysics, there are two worlds, namely, the

physical world and the World of forms.
 Cont.
• The World of Forms is the perfect world because things do not come
and go in that world, they remain eternally the same.

• In other words, the world of Form is the world of the most accurate
reality.

• And it can only be reached through intellectual flight, that is, only
through dialectical reasoning.
 Aristotle’s Metaphysics
384 B.C. - 335 B.C
 Cont.
• Aristotle’s metaphysics is easy to grasp from his book titled
Metaphysics.

• As was previously said, it was Andronicus of Rhodes, the editor of

Aristotle’s works who gave the book that title.

• Aristotle was more concerned about explaining motion in this world

than talking about the world of Forms.

• He claims that Plato is not precise with his world of Forms.

 Cont.
❖In his metaphysics, Aristotle postulates four causes, that is,
• The material cause
• The formal cause
• The efficient cause
• The final cause
 Cont.
• The material cause of a thing is the stuff or substance in which the
thing in question is made from. E.g. a wooden table is made out of
wood.

• The formal cause is the form or the shape of a thing which constitutes
the nature of that thing. The formal cause is what answers the
question why something is called its name. E.g. why does a cup hold
water? A cup holds water because of its shape.
 Cont.
• Efficient cause is the agent responsible for bringing a thing into
existence. E. g. A carpenter is the efficient cause of a wooden box and
a sculptor is the efficient cause of a statue.

• The final cause is the purpose for which a thing is made. E.g. the final
cause of a ceiling fan is to generate the flow of air.

• Thus, to ask for the final cause is to demand to know what a thing
exists for.
 Matter and Form
• Aristotle also identifies two elements in things, that is, matter and
form.

• In other words, he argues that all material substances have in

themselves matter and form.
 Cont.
• Matter is the potentiality that everything has and the possibility to
change which is inherent in everything.

• While the form is the shape of a thing which distinguishes it from

other things.
 Cont.
• He maintains that matter is indeterminate, it is only determined by
form.
• For instance, a table is wood plus the form of table. But the same
wood {matter) can also receive the form of a chair, a bed, a stool, a
bench, and so on, and it would become these things.

• Even wood itself is not just matter, but matter plus the form of wood.

• Aristotle’s theory of matter and form is known as hylomorphism.

 Cont.
• Aristotle’s metaphysics also talks about potentiality and actuality.

• Potentiality is the inherent possibility to change, to develop, while

actuality is what a thing becomes at the end of the process of change.
 Cont.
• For example, an embryo in the womb has the potentiality to change
and develop to a foetus, a baby, a child, an adolescent and eventually
an adult.

• This theory of Aristotle explains why abortion is seen as murder by

some scholars.
 Substance and accident
• For Aristotle, the substance of a thing is the very nature of that thing,
whereas the accident is a quality which a thing has but which is not
essential for the nature of that thing.

• The substance of a man is the fact of his being a rational animal.

• He sees skin complexion, height, size, taste and so on as accidents

because they are non-essential nature of a man.
 Conclusion
• From the foregoing, it is crystal clear that metaphysics is the aspect of
philosophy that deals with the very nature of existence and reality.

• The arguments and counter arguments of the ancient Western

metaphysicians affirm the truism of the above sentence.

• When metaphysicians probe into the nature of reality, they do so

purely to possess knowledge about the true nature of things as
demonstrated by Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle.
Idealist Metaphysics
 Introduction

• A future that you cannot see is a future that you cannot actualize.
 Cont.
• Idealism is not a metaphysical stance that is strange to any culture or
religion.

• The saying that “ideas move the world” is another way to reveal how
we are surrounded by idealist metaphysics and how ideas are
regarded as the propelling forces beneath our actions.
 Cont.
• Being one of the two major schools of thought in metaphysics, this
lecture aims to analyze and clarify the claims and meaning of idealism
in philosophy.

• In so doing, the claims of different idealist metaphysicians on what

reality is, will be unwrapped.

• The intention is to give students clearer views on the arguments of

idealist metaphysicians, especially on what they construe as reality so
that we can pinpoint the strength and weakness of their arguments.
Overview of idealist metaphysics
through the lens of some images
Cont.
Cont.
 Idealism: A Conceptual Clarification
• Idealism, as a philosophical term, and evolves from a French word
idéalisme which means the "tendency to represent things in an ideal
form”.

• Anybody who believes in high ideals and strives to actualize them

even when they seem impossible to achieve is an idealist.
 Cont.
• In philosophy, idealism is a school of thought which gives primacy to
idea or spirit in its conception of reality.

• It holds that reality, including the physical world, is ultimately

immaterial or spiritual.

• For the idealists, matter is not an independent substance existing on

its own. It is ultimately reducible to ideas or immaterial substance.
Lockean Analogy of Lukewarm Water
 Two types of Idealism
• Subjective idealism
• Objective idealism
 Subjective Idealism Explained
• This version of idealism holds that physical objects are all products of
the mind and that they do not exist independent of the mind.

• It maintains that the subject of experience (the mind) is the cause of

the objects of its experience (physical things), that the latter are
constituted and made to exist by the former.
 Cont.
• In so doing, subjective idealism rejects dualism and multiplism as
metaphysical theories.

• Its main claim is that nothing exists apart from minds and spirits and
that the existence of the outside world is dependent on the knower.

• The subsequent slides will unfold the views of some subjective

idealist metaphysicians.
George Berkeley (1685 – 1753)
 Cont.
• The first subjective idealist in Modern philosophy is Berkeley.

• He argued that everything in the physical world was an idea in the mind.

• Physical objects, like mountains, forest timbers, rivers, oceans, and so on,
are only ideas in the mind because they exist only in so far as they are
perceived.

• Since the perception takes place in the mind, it follows that physical
objects exist only in the mind.
 Cont.
• Berkeley does not mean that whenever we are not perceiving any
material object it automatically ceases to exist.

• If no human being is perceiving material objects, God is perceiving

them, thereby keeping them in existence by perceiving them.

• He is popular with the dictum “esse est percipi” (to be is to be

perceived).
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)
 Cont.
• Kant’s claim to subjective idealism is best known through his theory
of transcendental idealism.

• He developed the theory of transcendental idealism as a reaction to

Berkeley immaterialism.
 Cont.
• In his view, the human mind can only know things as they appear to
us but the human mind is incapable of knowing things as they are in
themselves.

• He refers to a thing-in-itself as the nou-me-non and a thing as it

appears to us as the phe-no-me-non.
 Objective Idealism
• This is a metaphysical position which claims that the physical universe
is the self-projection or self-manifestation of a spiritual reality.

• This spiritual reality has been called various names like “the Universal
mind”, “the Absolute Spirit” or “the Universal consciousness”.

• With the above claim, it follows that matter is a reflection of spirit.

Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel
(1770 – 1831)
 Cont.
• Hegel was the one who brought objective idealism to its climax in
German philosophical tradition.

• For he made the Absolute the centre point of his philosophy.

• He argues that the whole of reality is one single being, that is, the
Absolute which happens to be the totality of all beings.
 Cont.
• The Absolute is also a spiritual being.

• That makes it the Absolute Spirit, and it is going through a long

dialectical process of self development.
 Cont.
• The physical universe is ultimately spiritual since it is the self-
projection, self-externalization and self-manifestation of the only
reality that exists, namely, the Absolute.

• Thus, the Absolute is everything, and everything is part of the

Absolute.
Francis Herbert Bradley
(1846 – 1924)
 Cont.
• Bradley wrote Appearance and Reality (1893) to drive home his claim
to objective idealism.

• The centre theme of his philosophy is that reality is one in totality, a

unified whole.

• The distinction between the subject and object, between spirit and
matter is only in appearance, not in reality, he argues.
 Cont.
• Truth, he holds, lies beyond appearance, it can only be found in
reality itself.

• When we get to the reality itself, we then discover that reality is one,
and it is spiritual.
 Cont.
• He wants us to believe that reality reveals itself as one unfragmented
totality, as a unified whole.

• He argues that it is only metaphysics that can make us go beyond

appearance, to the reality itself.
Gorge Edward Moore’s
Refutation of Idealism
 Cont.
• The strongest attack on idealism was contained in Moore’s article
entitled “The Refutation of Idealism”.

• Moore contends that the idealists’ assertion that the world is spiritual
is based on Berkeley’s “esse est percipi”.
 Cont.
• If this thesis is proven to be false, then the major premise of idealists’
argument would be destroyed, and idealism would collapse.

• Moore says the idealists have failed to make some necessary

distinctions in the act of perception.
 Cont.
• He argues that consciousness, which is what perceives an object, is
not the same as the object that is being perceived.

• All perception or sensation has consciousness in common.

.
 Cont.
• The perception of blue and the perception of green have
consciousness in common, yet the perception of blue and that of
green is not the same.

• The idealists commit the error of identifying the two as one

 Conclusion
• Even though idealists’ arguments are philosophically illuminating,
Moore’s attack on idealism is not also a pushover either.

• However, Moore’s criticism of idealism is only a refutation of

subjective idealism given that objective idealism does not base its
claim on sensation but on metaphysical intuition.
Materialist Metaphysics
 Introduction
• Materialism is a rejection of idealism since it is also a monistic
approach to reality in metaphysics.

• In a bid to make you understand what materialism stands for in

metaphysics, this lecture will bring to the fore, through careful
elucidation, the original arguments of some materialist
metaphysicians.
 Cont.

• On the strength of the last slide, the goal of this lecture is well
defined, which is to prepare you better for a non-dogmatic
comprehension of reality in metaphysics.
Images on materialism
Cont.
Cont.
 What is materialism?
• As a term, materialism is the belief that only physical objects exist,
and the spiritual world does not.

• This means that the only thing that matters is matter.

• In other words, reality must be understood strictly as matter.

 Cont.
• Materialism also considers matter to be eternal and indestructible.

• Thus, philosophical materialism is the view that matter is the

fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental
states and consciousness are results of material interactions.
Democritus (460 – 370 BC), Leucippus (480 – 420 BC)
 Cont.
• Democritus and Leucippus were the first notable metaphysical
materialists in the history of Western philosophy.

• This does not mean that the views of philosophers like Thales and
Empedocles were less materialistic.
 Cont.
• According to Democritus and Leucippus, everything in reality is
composed of atoms.

• Because atom is the smallest material unit, it is indivisible.

 Cont.
• They argue that the difference in quality that we notice in things are
due to the quality of atoms they are made of.

• For instance, the soul is superior to the body in quality because it is

composed of very fine and smooth atoms.

• The agglomeration and disintegration of atoms are the reasons things

exist and also cease to exist.
Thomas Hobbes’ Materialism

(1588 –1679)
 Cont.
• Just like Democritus and Leucippus, Thomas Hobbes is widely known
as the first modern materialist in the history of western philosophy.

• Hobbes was the first modern philosopher to work out a materialistic

system of philosophy.

• In Leviathan (1651), Hobbes argues that human actions are

determined by the physical laws of nature.
 Cont.
• All that exists, according to him, is matter in motion, and this
accounts for everything including human decisions and actions.

• Man’s decision to act or not to act in any given situation is due to the
natural forces operating in him in the forms of appetites and
aversions.
 Cont.
• Hobbes wants us to believe that appetites and aversions represent
nothing other than matter in motion.

• He argues that the only way something can be a "spirit" is to be

outside of the universe; and since man lives within the universe, man
cannot be said to have a spirit.

• He then concludes that man has no free will or spiritual soul.

 Dialectical Materialism

Karl Marx (1818–1883) (Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895)

 Cont.
• Marx and Engel’s dialectical Materialism is based on these three
theses:

• Transformation of quantity into quality.

• Interpretation of opposites.
• Negation of the negation.

• The above should be understood against Marx and Engels’ claim

that motion is the mode of existence of matter.
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
(1709 – 1751)
 Cont.
• La Mettrie was another notable materialist in the modern period.

• He defends materialistic conception of man in his books titled Natural

History of the Soul; and Man, a Machine.

• La Mettrie reduced man to pure matter, and the human soul to

material substance in the book.
 Cont.
• He saw no essential difference between man and the animals other
than the difference in the size and structure of their brains.

• He was of the belief that an ape might be made to learn a language in

no distant future due to the similarity between apes and humans.

• As he argues, the effects of drugs, disease, food, and climate on

humans are indications that consciousness is governed by physical
causes.
 Cont.

• Generally speaking, the form and substance of the brain of

quadrupeds is about the same as that of man. The same appearance,
the same makeup in all respects; with this essential difference: that
man is, among all the animals, the one which has the largest and
most complex brain in relation to the size of his body
Baron Paul Von Holbach (1723 –
1789)
 Cont.
• Holbach was said to have developed the most challenging, the most
coherent and the most systematic organization of materialism in the
modern period.

• In his book, The System of Nature, Holbach presents man as

completely part of nature like other things in the world.

• For him, the only reality that exists is the reality of matter, and man is
a product of it like other things in nature.
 Cont.
• He contends that man’s mind, thoughts, decisions and actions are all
products of matter in motion and are controlled by the laws of nature.

• Holbach compares man to a heavy stone that is placed on a hill. When the
stone naturally rolls down the hill, the stone cannot claim to be rolling
down freely or claim to be rolling itself just because nothing can be seen
pushing it down.

• The same applies to man. Man cannot be said to be acting freely just
because no visible object is seen forcing him to act.
 Conclusion
• The views of some philosophers discussed in this lecture have actually
contributed to the growth of science today.

• Materialism is incontestably the methodological approach in science.

• Thus, philosophy remains the foundation and the roof of science;

even so science deals only with an aspect of metaphysics-
materialism.
Space and Time: Newtonian Argument
Against Void Space
 Introduction
• The problem of space and time in philosophy was not created by
Isaac Newton.

• Newton only attempted to offer a scientific solution to the problem.

• While I will explore both the metaphysical and scientific positions on

space and time, my overall aim is to make explicit the metaphysical
grounding of ‘science of space and time’.
 Some images

Space Space
Cont.
Aristotle as a Precursor to Isaac Newton’s
Classical Mechanics

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

 Cont.
• Aristotle’s influence on modern physics comes with his claim that it is
only through acquaintance with the objects of an inquiry can their
knowledge of first principles be known.

• The natural way of doing this is to start from the things which are
more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which
are clearer and more knowable by nature.
 Cont.
• He argues that the first principle(s) underlying our objects of an
inquiry can be one or more than one.

• By first principle, Aristotle means “the first basis for which a thing is
known”.
What Philosophy says about Space and Time
• Philosophy, from its inception, has questioned the ideas of space and
time.

• The issues of whether space and time exist independently of the

mind or whether they can exist independently of each other and the
unidirectional conception of time have been greatly debated in
philosophy.
 Cont.
• Rivers, football matches, the university of the West Indies, Jamaica,
mountain, distant stars do exist in what I like to call space.

• We can also talk about a cyberspace, parking space, room space and
so on.

• The question now is this, what is space? Is it real or imagined?

 Cont.
• The concept of time is a controversial one too in philosophy.

• The difference between past, present, and future, is to be drawn in

terms of what exists.

• However, some scholars argue that what we call time is just an

emotional attitude of taking ‘tense’ seriously.
 Cont.
• A philosopher like St. Augustine has argued that time exists only in
the human mind.

• As he stated, “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want

to explain it to a questioner, I do not know” (Augustine 2006, p. 242).
 Cont.
• Reducing time to a subjective experience has a great implication on
the whole idea of death.

• The implication is this, “if the future is not real, perhaps we should
not be afraid of our future deaths, since they are not real. If the past
is not real, perhaps death cannot be bad for us, since once we die and
are purely past, we will in no way exist to be the subject of harm”.
(Bradley, Feldman and Johansson, 2013: 2)
Three basic philosophical arguments on Time
• Presentism – it says past and future are illusions because only the
present is real.

• Growing past theory- it embraces both the past and present as

determinant of time but rejects the future because it is merely a
potentiality.

• Eternalism is the third argument. It argues that there are no objective

ontological differences among past, present and future times as we
always like to believe.
 On Material Plenum
• The universe is composed of material plenum.

• What this connotes is that there is no space anywhere because the

universe is full of matter.
Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727)
 Newton’s Classical mechanics
• By clarification, mechanics simply means an aspect of applied
mathematics dealing with motion and forces that are responsible for
motion.

• Isaac Newton’s formulation of classical mechanics is based on the

idea that the existence of space and time is neither dependent on any
body nor is dependent on the occurrence of any event in the world.

• Basically, classical mechanics is the study of macroscopic bodies. And

it is what Newton relies on to prove the existence of absolute space
and time.
 Cont.
• As he argues, you and I cannot perceive absolute time, but we are
capable of perceiving relative time through a measurement of
perceivable objects in motion.

• Whereas, absolute motion is the translation of a body from one

absolute place into another: and relative motion, the translation from
one relative place into another.
 Cont.
• Newton explains further that every object has an absolute state of
motion relative to absolute space, so that an object must be either in
a state of absolute rest, or moving at some absolute speed.

• Consequently, absolute space and absolute time are the reasons for
the existence of relative space and relative time. That is, without
absolute space and absolute time (even if we cannot see them), there
would not have been relative space and relative time that we often
claim to know.
 Newton on Void Space
• A void is generally understood as a place devoid of any substance
including air.

• Newton agrees with Aristotle that such a place (void) does not exist
due to his conception of absolute space and absolute time.

• It should be noted that if void space exists, then Newton’s claim

about relative space and relative time will become problematic.
 Conclusion
• Newton’s argument in defense of absolute space and absolute time
reveals nothing other than the connection between metaphysics and
science.

• For Newton consistently maintains that even the invisible can be

made visible through the help of mathematics.

• In other words, it is only through mathematics that we can really

understand the existence of absolute space and absolute time.
Metaphysics as the Foundation
of other Disciplines
 Introduction
• Metaphysics, as a branch of philosophy, deals with the study of Being
qua being, that is, the search for the totality of reality.

• Even though metaphysics is peculiar to philosophy, its presence in

other disciplines is difficult to deny.
 Cont.

• In so doing, this lecture shall bring to the open, the connection

between metaphysics and some disciplines since there can never be
enough space to discuss the metaphysical foundation of all disciplines
here.
History and Metaphysics
 Cont.
• History is not just a mere narrative of sequence of events.

• A historian does not simply inform us that certain events have taken
place.
 Cont.
• Rather s/he goes further to tell us the causes of such events, and
their significance.

• That there is no event without a cause is a principle that is not only

central to physics but also to history.
 Cont.

• In so doing, when a historian talks about the cause of an event, she is

indirectly employing the principle of causation to make meaning of
past events.

• That is where metaphysics gives strength to history.

 Cont.
• As David Hume argues, the concept of cause implies the concept of
“necessary connection” and necessary connection is not part of
empirical experience, it is purely metaphysical.

• In other words, the principle of causality itself is a metaphysical

concept.
Robin George Collingwood
(1889 – 1943)
 Cont.
• For him, causality as it is used by historians does not exclude human
freedom because historians deal with events that were brought about
by human agents and not by nature.

• Like Aristotle, he distinguishes between efficient cause and final

cause.
 Cont.
• He explains efficient cause as a state of things believed by the agent
in question to exist, while the final cause is a purpose or state of thing
to be brought about.

• What historians look out for in causation is not necessary connection

but necessary condition.
 Cont.

• In contrast to Collingwood’s claim, when a historian tells us that the

event B was caused by event A, he is using the word ‘cause’ in the
strict sense, the metaphysical sense.
 Cont.
• Another way in which metaphysics is presupposed by history is the
claim of rationality of nature by historians.

• It is with this metaphysical assumption that nature is rational, that a

historian is not content with just knowing that a certain event took
place.
 Cont.
• She wants to find out why it took place, she wants to explain it. This is
what gives rise to meta-history or speculative philosophy of history.

• That is the realm of the metaphysics of history.

Religion and Metaphysics
 Cont.
• According to Immanuel Kant, man has a natural tendency towards
metaphysics.

• For it is part of human nature to seek to know or to understand

reality beyond what we perceive with our senses.
 Cont.
• Metaphysics is based on the premise that there is more to reality
than is perceived by the senses.

• It is with the above in mind that man is described “incurably

religious” because he has, as part of his being, a natural tendency
towards religion.
 Cont.
• It is because religion presupposes metaphysics and is based on a
metaphysical foundation that theologians generally employ
metaphysical concepts and terms in their exposition of religious
tenets or doctrines.

• While religious beliefs and practices are ‘first order’ activities,

theology is a ‘second order’ activity.

• Only at the level of the ‘second order’ activity can the metaphysical
foundation of the ‘first order’ activities be uncovered.
Law and Metaphysics
 Cont.
• Natural law and legal positivism are two prominent schools of
thought in law.

• While the former promotes always the spirit of law, the latter’s
emphasis is on the letter of law.

• I dare say that the concept of natural law and natural justice are
grounded in metaphysics.
Science and Metaphysics
Cont.
 Cont.
• If modern science is based on induction, then the metaphysical
foundation of science is to be understood from the problem of
induction.

• Induction is the method of inferring general theories or laws from

particular instances that have been observed.
 Cont.
• For instance, it has been observed after several experiments that
water boils when heated up to one hundred degree centigrade.

• The conclusion is then drawn that all water boils at one hundred
degree centigrade.
 Cont.
• However, there are some problems involved in this method of
drawing general conclusions from particular instances.

• How can we conclude from what we have observed to what we have

not observed?
 Cont.
• How can we logically conclude from some cases to all cases?

• Is it not a case of moving from the known to the unknown?

• This explains why metaphysics remains the foundation of modern

science.
 Conclusion
• No discipline can dissociate itself from metaphysics successfully.

• As long as every discipline deals with an aspect of reality, then

metaphysics is definitely the foundation of all disciplines.
Phenomenology
 Introduction
• Phenomenology is not only a field of philosophy, but also a method of
philosophy.

• This lecture aims to unfold how phenomenology is both a field and a

method of philosophy.

• The distinction between natural attitude and phenomenological

attitude will be made as well.
 Phenomenology Explained
• The conflict between rationalism and empiricism in philosophy paved
way for the coming on stage of phenomenology.

• According to D. W. Smith, “phenomenology studies the structure of

various types of experience ranging from perception, thought,
memory, imagination, emotion, desire, and volition to bodily
awareness, embodied action, and social activity, including linguistic
activity” (2018).
 Cont.
• There are different versions of phenomenology.

• In the UK, for instance, what is popular is analytic-epistemological

phenomenology.
 Cont.

• To properly drive home the explanation on phenomenology, let us

turn our attention to the thoughts of some earliest
phenomenologists.
Edmund Husserl
(1859 – 1938)
 Cont.
• Edmund Husserl introduced the concept of intentionality in
philosophy even though Husserl’s teacher, Franz Brentano had used
“intentional” in his work.

• Husserl regards intentionality as the “fundamental property of

consciousness” and the “principle theme of phenomenology”
(McIntyre and Smith, 1989: 147)
 Cont.
• In this connection, intentionality is the quality of mental states (e.g.
thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) which consists in their being
directed towards some object or state of affairs.

• Intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to

represent, or to stand for things, properties and states of affairs.
 Cont.
• To say of an individual’s mental states that they have intentionality is
to say that they have mental representations or that they have
contents.

• Intentionality is typically expressed in the claim that “all

consciousness is consciousness of something”.
 Cont.

• Husserl talks about intentionality from three senses, namely,

1. Intentional act
2. Intentional object
3. Intentional content
Martin Heidegger
(1889 – 1976)
 Cont.
• In order to understand Heidegger’s phenomenology, one must first
comprehend his conception of Being.

• The notion of Being is also inseparable from the term Dasein in his
phenomenology.

• Dasein means “being there” or existence” in German

 Cont.
• Heidegger queries why metaphysics has long preoccupied itself with
the question: "What is the Being of beings?", rather than asking the
question: “what is Being as such”?

• For him, the latter question lies at the heart of his phenomenology.

• By asking “what is Being as such”, Heidegger means the conditions

needed for Beings "to be“.
 Cont.
• He however seeks access to Being by analysing the Being of human,
Dasein.

• He reveals that Being is the most elusive and mysterious concept, yet
its pursuit is highly illuminating and rewarding.

• In his view, if Being is that which can be thought about, nothing or

non-Being is the unthought of thought.
 Phenomenon and Logos
• Heidegger defines phenomenon as "that which shows itself in itself,
the manifest.“

• While he interprets logos as ‘discourse’.

• Without proper discourse, true nature of Being will continue to be

hidden, he argues.
 On Nothingness
• For Heidegger, nothing is the foundation of all things.

• The entire universe floats on nothing and this explains why there can
be no end to life or existence.

• Being will always rise from nothing and collapse back into nothing.
Jean Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980)
 Cont.
• He published Being and Nothingness (1943) to defend his take on the
problem of Being.

• In the introduction of the book, Sartre criticizes Immanuel Kant’s idea

of noumenon.

• As he argues, if the noumenon is not accessible as Kant wants us to

believe, it is because it does not exist anywhere.
 Cont.
• The appearance of a phenomenon is pure and absolute because it is
the only reality.

• He therefore makes a distinction between unconscious being which

he refers to as being in-itself and the conscious being which he calls
being for-itself.
 Cont.
• Sartre argues that only through the perpetual foray into the unknown
will being-for-itself make meaning of his existence.

• In other words, since being for itself lacks predetermined essence, it

is often forced to create and recreate itself from nothingness.
 Cont.
• In fact, Sartre sees nothingness as the defining characteristic of being
for-itself.

• Therefore, man, for Sartre, is being for-itself.

 Neosis and Neoma
• Neosis is the act of apprehending or experiencing, while the object of
experience is the neoma.
 Natural attitude vs Phenomenological
attitude
• Natural attitude is here understood as the subjective experience and
ego.

• Presupposition, inelasticity, bias, prejudice, fanaticism,

fundamentalism, racism, and so on are manifestations of natural
attitude.
 Cont.
• It is a type of attitude that makes one to hold on to a particular
knowledge as finality.

• As Husserl argues, natural attitude forces us to see everything at face

value.
 Cont.
• On the contrary, phenomenological attitude is about objective
experience and transcendental ego as Edmund Husserl puts it.

• The Greek word epoche which means bracketing or cessation or

suspension of judgement is adopted as a pre-condition for
phenomenological attitude.
 Cont.

• Natural attitude always blinds us to see only

this cat, this tree, this house and makes us to accept their facticity as
self-evidently present. It hinders us to inquire further into our
perceptions and our intuitions.
 Cont.
• Open-mindedness, detachment, disinterestedness, dispassion etc. are
central to phenomenological attitude in philosophy

• The main goal for phenomenological attitude, as Heidegger argues, is

to disclose Being.

• Therefore, adopting a phenomenological attitude means taking a

reflective point of view with respect to what is given to us in
perception.
 Conclusion
• The message of phenomenology, if I may summarise it here, is that
the world is not fundamentally separated from you and it does not
pre-exist you.

• In other words, the world and your ego or your consciousness are
inextricably interwoven.

• This explains why phenomenology remains the field of philosophy

that analyses and understands the structures of human experience
and consciousness.
Metaphysics in African Philosophy
 Introduction
• This lecture is an attempt to bring to the limelight the elements of
metaphysics that are unique to African people.

• My attempt is meant to debunk the claim that Africa does not have
metaphysics that strictly is.
 Cont.

• Thus, elements of African metaphysics can be best understood from

standpoints of causality, human person, phenomenon of existence
and problem of evil.
 Causality in African Philosophy
• Causal explanation in African philosophy is religious and
metaphysical.

• For an African mind believes that the actions of Gods and spiritual
agents do have influence upon human expectation.
 Cont.
• African causal explanations hold sway because science is incapable of
providing explanations to some occurrences.

• This explains why African metaphysics deals with why questions

instead of how questions.
 African Conception of Human Person
• In most traditions in Africa, the human person is believed to consist of
both material and immaterial elements.

• Despite this unity of belief, explanations given, varies from one

tradition to another.

• This African thought on human person predates the period of slavery

in Africa.
 Cont.
• A person in Yorubaland, according to Hallen and Sodipo, is made up
of three important elements: ara (body), emi (life giving element)
and ori (Spiritual head, which is thought to be responsible for human
destiny).

• Emi is the life giving entity, it is an immaterial element that provides

the animating force or energy without which a person cannot be said
to be living at all, let alone of being conscious.
 Cont.
• Emi, according to Bolaji Idowu, is closely associated
with the breath and the whole mechanism of breathing which is its
most expressive manifestation.

• In other words, emi (the life giving entity) is regarded by the Yoruba as
the life-force of a person, its presence or absence in a person makes
the difference between life and death.
 Cont.
• The third element, Ori represents the individuality in a person.

• Ori, an immaterial entity, otherwise called inner-head is intractably

connected with human destiny.
 Cont.
• Ori is equally responsible for the actuality and worth of man in the
material world.

• For the Yoruba, ori is believed to be not only the bearer of destiny
but also the essence of human personality which rules, controls and
guides the life and activities of a person.
 Cont.
• Kola Abimbola in his account of the nature of a person in Yorubaland,
added a fourth element, ese.

• Literally translated, ese means leg, but within the context of human
personality, it means strife, hard work, or struggle.
 Cont.
• According to Abimbola, ese introduces the principle of individual
effort, strife or struggle before the potentialities encapsulated in
one’s ori can be actualized.

• As a symbol of power, mobility and activity, ese is a vital part of

human personality both in the physical and spiritual senses.
 Cont.

• Okan (heart) is a physical aspect of a human body, has also the

immaterial outlook in Yoruba thought system.
 Yoruba on something

• Nkan be ninu nkan, ti nje nkan which means there is something inside
something that is called something.
Images depicting the Interface between Visible and the Invisible Worlds
in Africa
Cont.
Cont.
 Ritual in Africa
• Ritual is a means of communication between the spirit world and that
of the physical.

• Any traditional festival in Africa (Yorubaland) always goes with ritual

which must be carried out by selected people or the initiated.
 Cont.

• In other words, the chief priest or herbalist of the community where

the festival is being observed always spearheads ritual activities in the
community.
Cont.
Esu in Yoruba
Philosophy
 Cont.
• In Yoruba traditional religion, Esu is conceived as the inspector of
rituals, sacrifice and worship.

• And it has the will and power to approve or disapprove all worship
and rituals directed to Olodumare and divinities.
 The Egyptian Conception of Immortality
• For the Egyptians, universe was created by the supreme God.

• Everything is believed to be in eternal movement in the universe:

gods and goddesses, human beings, nature, and the world.
 Cont.
• Supreme God only draws the attention of humans to the kingdom of
the dead and the region of eternal life in order to instill in their minds
the knowledge of immortality.

• God therefore instructs humans of the type of rituals befitting to Him

for them to make the region of the eternal life.
 Metaphysical Problem of Evil
• From the Egyptian worldview, the Supreme Being never created evil
because in the beginning, everything was at the state of neferu
(perfection, beauty or goodness).

• The existence of evil is therefore traced to the concept of ka by the

ancient Egyptians.

• Ka simply means either individual soul, spirit or essence. Thus, when

an organism comes into existence, a certain ka is inherent in such an
organism.
 Cont.
• This ka makes a being what it is, talking about its nature or
personality.

• Human nature, for the Egyptians, reveals the ka of humanity that is

inherent in each individual.

• ka is considered to be a person’s god.

• Therefore, evil emanates from individual mind, and not a divine

creation.
 Maat in Egyptian Philosophy
• The concept of maat was at the heart of Egyptian philosophy which
lasted for over 35 centuries.

• Maat basically means ‘‘the real,’’ ‘‘reality,’’ that is, that which is
genuine and authentic as opposed to artificial or spurious.

• In other words, maat is in everything and everything is in maat.

 Cont.
• Maat is reality as a whole, that is, the totality of all things possessing
actuality, existence, or essence.

• Maat is pertinent to all the spheres of reality, the divine or sacred, the
cosmic, the physical, the political, and the familial.
 Conclusion
• Just like any strand of metaphysics, African metaphysics is a response
to many fundamental questions regarding reality in general.

• Responses to metaphysical questions often captured both the visible

and invisible aspects of reality.

• And African Metaphysics is not an exception to this.

Metaphysics and Religion
 Introduction
• I must begin by saying that religion means different things to different
people.

• Therefore, I will discuss “Metaphysics and Religion” with you by

looking at some theories of religion in order to tease out their
metaphysical elements.

• The aim is to show that what we call religion may be nothing other
than metaphysical awareness of man.
 Anthropological Theory of
Religion

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804 -1872)

 Cont.
• In his book, The Essence of Christianity, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach
claims to have known the real nature of religion.

• He argues that religion is nothing other than the worship of human

nature.
 Cont.
• According to him, when man thinks that he is worshipping God, he is
only worshipping himself, that is, he only worships his nature which
he projects outside himself as God.

• Feuerbach insists that religion is man’s self-alienation: it is the means

by which man strips himself of his own essence, his best qualities and
reduces himself to nothing.
 Cont.
• In his view, a finite being cannot have the knowledge of a being
higher than his own being because the nature of a being is also the
limit of his knowledge.

• He concludes that what we call infinite being is man’s collective

nature.
 Psychological
theory of religion

Sigmund Freud 1856 - 1939

 Cont.
• Freud is notable for his psychoanalysis of religion and the idea of God.

• In Totem and Taboo and The Future of Illusion, Freud argues that
religion is a continuation of a child’s attitude towards his father into
adulthood
 Cont.
• Realizing his weakness, a child naturally seeks the protection of his
father whom he sees as very powerful, and able to protect him.

• According to him, God is not only an imaginary being but also an

imaginary father.
 Cont.
• In fact, God is a projection of the child’s image of his father.

• This childhood neurosis can only be overcome through intellectual

sophistication and scientific knowledge, he argues.
Sociological Theory of
Religion

Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857)

 Cont.
• Comte is generally known as the father of sociology.

• He understands the development of human mind in three stages,

namely:
• Religious stage
• Metaphysical stage
• Positive stage.
 Cont.
• According to him, the religious stage is the primitive and the earliest
stage in the development of the human mind.

• It is the stage at which men invent gods and give religious explanation
to natural phenomena.

• This means that religion is practiced by people whose minds are yet
to fully develop.
 Cont.
• The metaphysical stage is a stage that men ask metaphysical
questions and give metaphysical explanations to the universe in their
search for the ultimate cause of things.

• Eventually, the human mind also goes beyond this stage to the
positive stage.
 Cont.
• Comte wants us to believe that the positive stage is the highest stage
of human development because it is the stage of positive science.

• In other words, the positive stage is when men come to have a

scientific explanation to things and events in the universe.
 Cont.

• He concludes that religious mentality is a primitive, childish mentality

which belongs to the earliest phase in the development of the human
mind.
Marxist theory of religion

Karl Marx (1777–1838)

 Cont.
• Karl Marx attributes the origin and continuing existence of religion to
the economic exploitation of the masses in the capitalist system.

• He agrees with Feuerbach that God is nothing other than the

projection of the best qualities in man, and that religion is self-
alienation.
 Cont.
• However, he accuses Feuerbach of indulging in metaphysical
abstraction in his conception of the human essence.

• Marx argues that the essence of man is not something abstract but
rather, man’s essence is the totality of social relations.

• He submits that because Feuerbach fails to see man as essentially a

social being, he also fails to see that religious feeling itself is a social
product.
 Language and Religion
• Religious language is about a statement made in reference to God or
gods.

• Some of the religious statements or utterances entail prayer, praise,

petition, thanks, confession and exhortation of a supernatural being.
 Cont.
• But can man make a religious statement without going metaphysical?

• For instance, Ludwig Wittgenstein has argued that religious

propositions are meaningless because they are metaphysical.

• He holds the belief that language pictures the world. That is, for every
proposition to be meaningful, it must picture something in the
physical world.
 Conclusion
• Metaphysics is inescapable by any man.

• The more we attempt to dissociate ourselves from metaphysics, the

more metaphysical we become. Thus the reason any religious
follower must go metaphysical in order to make sense of his religious
practices.