Now UTOKing: Metaphysics
In this blog and video series, we present you with a curated set of definitions to better understand our place in today’s world through the lens of the UTOK system. In the previous blog and video, we offered UTOK’s frame for central concepts in its transcendent naturalistic worldview: energy, matter, and life. Today, we define yet another foundational concept for the system of knowledge offered by UTOK: metaphysics.
Metaphysics. It is one of the “heaviest” words in philosophy, carrying many different implications and meanings. It used to be regarded by many as the single most important concept in philosophy. Then, it became a word that was scorned. Indeed, many who are inclined toward scientific-naturalistic perspectives may dismiss it. For those, metaphysics is a concept that is divorced from the tangible, empirical world.
When we look broadly at the word, two main categories of definitions tend to show up: 1) metaphysics as a subfield of philosophy concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and our knowledge of it, and 2) metaphysics as abstract philosophical analyses of topics that may lie outside empirical knowledge. The latter definition is responsible for the skepticism about the practicality of metaphysics, which, under this conception, could open doors to unscientific, speculative, or supernatural concerns.
Within its system of understanding, UTOK introduces two qualifiers, pure and descriptive, that help situate metaphysics within a coherent naturalistic system. This video and blog will delve into these qualifiers, unraveling how UTOK navigates the intersection of metaphysics and empiricism.
Pure Metaphysics: What is Beyond the Natural World
UTOK conserves the conceptual space associated with the second definition of metaphysics by introducing the qualifier “pure”. In this context, pure metaphysics refers to aspects beyond our direct experience or empirical observations. For instance, consider the question of whether there is a God that exists outside the natural world. Given that this question lies outside the bounds of our direct experience and of empirical scientific observation, it can be considered “purely metaphysical.”
Pure metaphysics can raise important questions. For example, thought experiments of fanciful worlds can be described as pure metaphysics, and can clearly be helpful. However, to the extent that the ideas are disconnected from the natural world, they are rightfully questioned by those who have a scientific orientation. Science, almost by definition, is tied to the empirical natural world. This is where “descriptive metaphysics” becomes important.
Descriptive Metaphysics: The Concepts and Categories that Frame our Knowledge of Reality.
The most basic definition of metaphysics is that it refers to the concepts and categories that we use to map our world. When framed this way, we can see that metaphysical questions are essential for philosophical inquiries in general, and for the construction of a coherent scientific worldview, specifically. To articulate this function of metaphysics, UTOK adds the qualifier “descriptive”. Descriptive metaphysics is the exercise of defining core concepts and categories to form a cohesive system of understanding.
In contrast to pure metaphysics, descriptive metaphysics grapple with empirical referents in nature — processes and phenomena that can be directly experienced or objectively observed through scientific methods. Consider this recent blog by a psychiatrist talking about the confusion and overlap between behavioral health and mental health. He describes how some people use the terms to refer to different things, whereas others use the terms synonymously and that there is “no consensus” among the experts or organizations.
Now consider that the mainstream defines psychology as the science of behavior and mental processes. And yet, there is no consensus about what the terms mental and behavioral refer to in the world. Thus, when we consider the question of how to define behavior and mental processes we are being confronted with questions of descriptive metaphysics.
Of course, how one defines behavior will likely relate to how one defines mental processes. Thus, these two concepts exist in relationship to one another. This means that questions of descriptive metaphysics often involve questions about systems of concepts and categories. Descriptive systematic metaphysics explores how those concepts interrelate, contributing to a structured cosmology (or worldview). This broader system of interrelated concepts ideally includes a well-defined ontology (i.e., a framing on reality) and epistemology (i.e., a framing on how we know about things).
Finding Synergy Between Metaphysical and Empirical Knowledge.
The central objective of UTOK is to offer a coherent descriptive systematic metaphysical system for our empirical worlds. On an individual level, each of us holds subjective, metaphysical maps of reality shaped by our personal, direct experiences, which contribute to our understanding of the world. Our first-person empirical world is framed by UTOK’s iQuad Coin.
Simultaneously, there are large-scale systems of metaphysical empirical understanding that are shared in the intersubjective world. UTOK’s Tree of Knowledge System is a descriptive metaphysical system from a third person perspective. It works to define key concepts like matter, life, mind, culture, and science, and define how they exist in relationship to each other.
UTOK’s MEme flower, positioned at the center of the Tree of Life, is a visual representation of the dynamic relationship between the ‘small me’ — an individual’s metaphysical-empirical system of understanding — and the ‘big ME’ — the large systems of justification that guide and coordinate actions in the world. This dynamic interaction captures the potential synergy between personal metaphysical empirical perspectives and broader, shared frameworks that influence our collective understanding and actions.
The MEme flower carries several meanings embedded within it. One refers to what UTOK calls the “Metaphysical-Empirical Continuum and Dialectic”, which is represented below. This was spelled out in Henriques’ A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap. It refers to the layers of analysis that move from: 1) empirical data, to 2) hypotheses that describe that data, to 3) theories that place it in a causal framework, to 4) paradigms or schools of thought that frame the theories, to 5) metatheories that frame the schools of thought, to 6) metaphysical worldviews that frame the metatheories.
This updated framing on metaphysics allows us to reintegrate the concept into an understanding of the world that is grounded in natural philosophy and aligned with a scientific perspective. The map of philosophy below depicts the interconnected relationship between metaphysical and empirical knowledge. Weaved together, they form the conceptual fabric that ought to frame our foundational philosophical networks of understanding as part of a naturalistic worldview.
In sum, metaphysics is, arguably, the central concept in philosophy. At its broadest level, it refers to the concepts and categories one uses to map one’s worldview. Although pure metaphysical questions might be important, they are separate from science. Science deals with the natural, empirical world. However, there are many descriptive and systematic metaphysical questions pertaining to the proper concepts and categories and their interrelations. UTOK gives us a new descriptive metaphysical system that can effectively map the world, both from the subjective, first person and the objective, third person empirical perspectives.
This blog was authored by Marcia Gralha.
