Metaphysics is a difficult branch of Philosophy, but is rather easy to define: It is the study of the most fundamental concepts and beliefs about them. Examples of metaphysical concepts are Being, Existence, Purpose, Universals, Property, Relation, Causality, Space, Time, Event, and many others.

Metaphysics is a major branch of philosophy. It concerns existence and the nature of things that exist. The metaphysical idea that reality exists independently of one’s mind and yet can be known is called realism. The metaphysical idea that no mind-independent reality exists or can be known is idealism.

The Big Metaphysical Questions

• What is the meaning of life?
• What is our place in the universe?
• What is consciousness?
• Does the world really exist?
• Why is there something, rather than nothing?
• Do we have free will?
• Does God exist?
• Does any of this – even my act of questioning – actually matter?

Metaphysics is cardinal in the history and philosophy of education. It helps us understand man in all aspects of life. In the learning environment, the educator will be able to have an understanding of the learner’s strengths and weaknesses, understand the circumstances and changes that take place in the school.

Metaphysics provides a base for educational thought by establishing knowledge, truths and values, as ontological realities whose nature must be understood to understand its place in educational matters.

Why epistemology in teaching and learning is important The teacher operates knowledge by many means. A teacher creates new knowledge. They will understand our reasons for offering him a view into epistemology, the science of knowledge or cognition. Epistemology does not only concern itself with knowledge as such.

1a : the practice of forming ideals or living under their influence. b : something that is idealized. 2a(1) : a theory that ultimate reality lies in a realm transcending phenomena. (2) : a theory that the essential nature of reality lies in consciousness or reason.

Ontology – a central branch of metaphysics. Ontology is the study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and how they relate to each other. Meta-ontology – investigates what we are asking when we ask what there is.

Edmund Husserl

According to a certain, familiar way of dividing up the business of philosophy, made popular by Quine, ontology is concerned with the question of what entities exist (a task that is often identified with that of drafting a “complete inventory” of the universe) whereas metaphysics seeks to explain, of those entities.

Physics is all about nature, natural phenomenon, and our understanding of all relationships while metaphysics also tries to answer why part of all things. Why do we or universe exists or where have we come from and what is the cause of our existence are some of the questions that are tackled by metaphysics.

Ontology is the inquiry into what “is”, what exists. Metaphysics is the study of what “is” outside of the physical world – Ideas (in the Platonic sense), Forms (in the Aristotelian sense) and theological concepts such as souls, angels and gods.

The correspondence theory of truth is at its core an ontological thesis: a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity – a fact – to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief is false. Facts, for the neo-classical correspondence theory, are entities in their own right.

Chamila, Ontology is the system of belief or being about what constitutes a fact and the procedure of how this established fact (knowledge) is obtained is called Epistemology.

An example of ontology is when a physicist establishes different categories to divide existing things into in order to better understand those things and how they fit together in the broader world. Whereas the World Wide Web links Web pages together, the Semantic Web links the data on the Web that are related.

Metaphysics is a very broad field, and metaphysicians attempt to answer questions about how the world is. Ontology is a related sub-field, partially within metaphysics, that answers questions of what things exist in the world. An ontology posits which entities exist in the world.

There are those who would argue that the ontological argument can certainly justify belief in God, as Anselm offers an a priori deductive argument based on the logical impossibility of a contradiction, thus proving God’s existence from his definition as the GCB.

Much of the discussion has focused on Kant’s “big three” arguments: ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and teleological arguments.

Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. St. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists—can be conceived.

Fides quaerens intellectum means “faith seeking understanding” or “faith seeking intelligence”. It is the theological method stressed by Augustine (354–430) and Anselm of Canterbury ( c.

Saint Anselm was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the eleventh century. He is most famous in philosophy for having discovered and articulated the so-called “ontological argument;” and in theology for his doctrine of the atonement.

Gödel’s ontological proof is a formal argument by the mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) for the existence of God. Anselm’s ontological argument, in its most succinct form, is as follows: “God, by definition, is that for which no greater can be conceived. God exists in the understanding.