Metaphysics — Literally “what comes after physics”: the title tà metà tà physiká was given by Andronicus of Rhodes, the first-century BCE editor of Aristotle, to the treatises arranged after the writings on nature (the Physics). Aristotle himself called this inquiry “first philosophy” (prōtē philosophia) and defined it as the study of “being as being” (tò òn hêi ón) — that is, of what holds for everything that exists, not merely for some particular region of reality, along with first causes and the most fundamental principles. Metaphysics investigates questions such as: what truly exists? What is substance (ousía)? What are time, space, and causality? Is there a necessary being or a prime mover? In the modern tradition, Christian Wolff systematized the field by distinguishing metaphysica generalis (ontology, the science of being in general) from metaphysica specialis (cosmology, rational psychology, and natural theology). In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant indicts dogmatic metaphysics: when pure reason tries to know what transcends all possible experience — the soul, the world as a totality, God — it falls into illusions and antinomies. In the twentieth century, Heidegger proposes a “destruction” (Destruktion) of the history of metaphysics in order to reopen the forgotten question of the meaning of being. Closely related concepts are ontology (the study of being and the modes of existing) and the notion of substance.
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