It depends on who you ask. Personally, I have never been a big fan of Metaphysics. I think Metaphysics is OK...but I like other branches of Philosophy better. Alot of Metaphysics is mere speculation...however, alot of it is a legitimate field of study.

What Metaphysics tries to go "beyond" what science tells us, to see what it can infer. For instance, take the Philosophy of Time and the Philosophy of Causation.

There is actually a sub-branch of metaphysics that deals with time. Some think time is an illusion, while others, don't. A man by the name of Mctaggart argued that times wasn't real.

There are also many conceptions when it comes to causation. Some Philosophers like David Hume and Bishop Berkeley thought nothing caused anything else. Rather, things just followed one another. For instance: When I throw a ball in the air, gravity doesn't CAUSE the ball to fall toward the earth, but it is simply a fact that throwing a ball into the air is followed by the ball falling to the earth. Hence, events merely follow one another, there is no causation.

Leibniz had an even stranger view of causation...which I will not get into.

You will notice, that Physicists USE time and talk about causation, but, they don't really know the ontology (ontology means "the nature of" time or causation. This is outside of the realm of Physics (for now).

Take the Philosophy of Mathematics. Mathematicians don't investigate whether a number actually exists or not (atleast not while doing mathematics), however, the Philosophy of Mathematics does this.

Yes, you take the position of the Logical Positivists. Metaphysics is viewed as meaningless, because there is no way to varify metaphysical claims. Since the Logical Positivist view of meaning rests on the ability to verify a given proposition, Metaphysics is meaningless.

To a degree I am sympothetic to this view........to a degree.

Well, lets not be to hard on the ancients

Well, besides the other fields mentioned, the Philosophy Of Mind presents insights.

And what would make you think this? There have been and still are rigorious arguments on pretty much all sides of a given issue.

There is no faith involved. Philosophy in general, is perhaps the biggest supporter of reason. Philosophers, generally speaking, do not take things on faith (that is, if they are even half-way decient). Most Philosophers are atheists, btw,

1. Its not at the core of atheism. One can be an atheist but not a logical positivist.

2. The logical positivist position on meaning is that ANY proposition that can not be verified, is meaningless. This applies to ALL propositions, not just propositions which assert extraordinary claims.

agreed. However, we are not talking about science. We are talking about Philosophy.

Some issues in Metaphysics, yes. However, others are important. Like any field of study, you have to sift through some bullshit to get to the good stuff.

And I should care why...?

... Heh. Nice signature. Matches the poster...

Asshat's first post in the philosophy forum is an Ad Hominem AND Poisoning the well. Good start.

You're very right Chaoslord, we may be getting more intelligent but our common sense leaves a lot to be desired, we all do stupid things every day.

I didn't know God was bipedal, I swear he doesn't have anything to walk on.
Even more evidence for the FSM.

Well I sure as hell don't need to defend myself, you did it for me like a good Theist.

Please, define civil.

What if I know I am acting civil, and you know I am not? Then can we resource back to the definition of civil? Or can we ... guess that a definition would be too vague unless we spent an unconsiderable ammount of time on it (which I doubt we do), just to get to a consensus about something that could be seen as common sense? Or would me asking ridiculous questions under a different name suddenly make them plausible ones- thus solving our dilemna here?

Ah, but what am I if not a man in disguise or a man on a tightrope? The third option, may of course be your favorite, that I be quiet, or in turn, quieted. I choose to put my cards on the table, in the face of what may or may not be biased- I never knew I was such a gambler!

Be not fooled, though, that I cannot see your furrowed brows and blushing faces from up here.

Why the metaphors, Gravity? Because the art of misinterpretation is, after-all, a great contribution to conciousness. That I become your enemy, that I become your asshat, that what I say is that which you first think about, which is that on the surface of your mind.

The same place his purpose is everywhere... to piss off people intellectual enough to realize there isn't any evidence for a God, as his feeble brain can't handle reality.

:smt098

Science is a philosophy it just has a new name now.

I wrote a very good bit showing how time does not exist. That is it is a human concept but has no existence in the actual.

alas if my websites were not deleted I would still have it.

Here is the jist of it. Nothingness has no time. That is no one seems to ask wher enothingness comes from. It comes from prior nothingness. Yet does it reall have to "come from" nothingness? Isn't already nothing and it just ramians as such ans will remain as such forever? If it is nothing then it can not become something. (unless it is a dynamic zero, that something else unlocks but then it would not really have been nothing it would have been potential sopmethingness)

People would say where did matter come from. And I say all somethingness not just matter, is eternal. The only difference is that we can see changes in the somethingness and call it time.

People would ask me "what was before the big bang?" and I would tell them, matter. They keep saying "before that, and before that" and I say matter.

Time does not exist before matter. Time is the measure of change within the matter not OF the matter. Time is hindged on there being being. It is were nothing then there is no time. It would be a place where forever and never were the same thing.

Does yesterday exist? No/and yes. Only the now actually exist (in terms of human specifics) but yesterday is the now, that is all the stuff of yesterday is still here regarless of its movements, its existenceness is the same.

Time is a human concept and it does not apply to the all. Nothingness is also an assumption. There may be no nothing. And space is not nothing.
The old Zen Buddhist saying goes "Fish don't know they are in the water."

because it is all around them and its what they use as their base of comparison, but we know there is water.

I can clear that up in one mintue.

Math does not exist (as actuals) (only as concepts)

Existence... We are talking about nouns. Math is not objects it is a quality of them. A meter an inch ect does not exist as a noun it is just a discriptoin OF a noun. It is one meter tall. There are two of them. It is 5 years old.

all discriptions not extentions.

Done.

I have a degree in Philosophy from W&M. I will tell you what I think the best philosophy schools are: the philosophy of science, the philosophy of language, pragmatism and ethics. The biggest waste of time are religious philosophy (because it works on a false premise), any intro to philosophy (because the class will be polluted with idiots and the utmost arrogance), and meta-physics (I agree partly with B.R. It is not a total waste of time, but most of it is.

Read Thomas Kune on paradigm shifts, it will wreck realism and empiricism (to a degee) And pretty much gave science a big kick in the ass, at a time when science was trying to offere explanations for everything.

History is always larger. And science is wrong many times. HOwever religion is wrong every time.

You meant Thomas Kuhn. Have you read any of his work?