Page:An introduction to philosophy (IA Introductiontoph00brig 0).pdf/115

Philosophy seeks to describe reality. The first three chapters of this book have dealt with necessary preliminaries, but have not contributed directly to an account of reality. After the introductory description of the philosophical spirit, some of the fundamental problems of logic and epistemology were taken up. Logic and epistemology together do not, however, tell us anything specific about the structure of reality. They presuppose, it is true, that reality is orderly, rational, knowable.^[1] Beyond this they do not venture.
The direct and explicit attempt to solve the problem of reality is called metaphysics. The word is from the Greek and was first used by Andronicus of Rhodes, who called Aristotle’s treatise on the subject, “The Things that come after Physics” (τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά), hence, Metaphysics.
Metaphysics is a word of strange and forbidding sound; it smacks of the mysterious and transcendental (whatever the transcendental may be). When a modern writer wishes to condemn an idea as abstruse or impractical, he casts about for a term of reproach, and nothing suits him better for the purpose than metaphysical. It is unfortunate that the word

1. ↑ Note Hegel’s famous saying, “Was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich, und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig.” (What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational.)