Metaphysics is one of the first branches of philosophy and it originates in anchient greece. The Term itself consists of the word "meta" which means beyond and "physics" which is as it is commonly known the study of changes in nature. The term was first used by Aristotle( 384 BC- 322 BC) who is often considered the "Father of Western Philosophy".

As the name suggests it is the study of nature beyond the scope of traditional physics. It tries to answer the fundamental questions of existence itself.

What differentiates it from physics?

Apart from questions from metaphysics going deeper than the questions a physicist tries to answer there is another fundamental difference between these two fields. As metaphysics is the predecessor of physics the latter goes into much more specific detail. Another destinguishing difference is that since metaphysics is a subgenre of philosophy whereas physics is one of the traditional sciences metaphysical works do not have to follow the scientific method which is based on falsifiable statements and experiments. If you want to learn more about this defference check yout my article: "What is philosophy?". As these questions are so elementary they can usually not be proven which is why metaphysicists rely on thought experiments. This is one of the reasons sceptics of this branch of philosophy often refer to it as speculative.

Typical questions and summary

The typical questions of metaphysics are "What is there?", "What is being?" or "What is causality?".

To sum it up you can say that metaphysics is the philosphy of the very fundamental questions of being itself that is one of the oldest branches of philosophy and is often criticized especially in the modern age.

[Img.source: https://nordicmetaphysics.org/ ]

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