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119-439: Light has always been associated with a religious and philosophical symbolic meaning, considered a source of not only physical but metaphysical illumination , as a metaphor for the revelation of a truth hidden in the shadows. The value of light often recurs in history of philosophy , especially Neoplatonic , in the course of which it is understood both as a structural component of every being, including physical ones, and as

238-745: A system of 12 categories , divided into the four classes: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. More recent theories of categories were proposed by C. S. Peirce , Edmund Husserl , Samuel Alexander , Roderick Chisholm , and E. J. Lowe . Many philosophers rely on the contrast between concrete and abstract objects . According to a common view, concrete objects, like rocks, trees, and human beings, exist in space and time, undergo changes, and impact each other as cause and effect. They contrast with abstract objects, like numbers and sets , which do not exist in space and time, are immutable, and do not engage in causal relations. Particulars are individual entities and include both concrete objects, like Aristotle,

357-487: A Father of Light who would conquer the demons of darkness and remake the earth through shards of light found in human souls. Manichaeism also co-opted other religions, including Buddhist teachings in its scripture and worshiping Jesus the Luminous who was crucified on a cross of pure light. Among the many followers of Manichaeism was the young Augustine , who later wrote, "I thought that you, Lord God and Truth, were like

476-618: A detailed description of Mani's looks. Mani’s names became the object of uplifting transformation (Greek, Coptic Mannichaios, Latin Mannichaeus, i.e., Mannam fundens "pouring out Manna"). Alternatively, due to Mani's possible origins in an Elchasai community, "Mani" could be a Hypocorism of the Hebrew name Menahem ("the consoler" or "comforter"). In 1969 in Upper Egypt a Greek parchment codex dating to c.  AD 400

595-572: A discourse to the people his history of "this Manes", very much to the effect of the recapitulation in Socrates. Among the further details are these: that Scythianus lived "in the time of the Apostles", that Terebinthus said the name of Buddas had been imposed on him, that in the mountains he had been brought up by an angel, that he had been convicted of imposture by a Persian prophet named Parcus, and by Labdacus, son of Mithra . Furthermore, that in

714-400: A fire, is always followed by another phenomenon, like a feeling of pain. According to nomic regularity theories, regularities manifest as laws of nature studied by science. Counterfactual theories focus not on regularities but on how effects depend on their causes. They state that effects owe their existence to the cause and would not occur without them. According to primitivism, causation

833-414: A gradual continuum. The word metaphysics has its origin in the ancient Greek words metá ( μετά , meaning ' after ' , ' above ' , and ' beyond' ' ) and phusiká ( φυσικά ), as a short form of ta metá ta phusiká , meaning ' what comes after the physics ' . This is often interpreted to mean that metaphysics discusses topics that, due to their generality and comprehensiveness, lie beyond

952-422: A higher degree of existence than matter, which can only imperfectly reflect Platonic forms. Another key concern in metaphysics is the division of entities into distinct groups based on underlying features they share. Theories of categories provide a system of the most fundamental kinds or the highest genera of being by establishing a comprehensive inventory of everything. One of the earliest theories of categories

1071-471: A historian writing in the 5th century. According to this account, one Scythianos , a Saracen, husband of an Egyptian woman, "introduced the doctrine of Empedocles and Pythagoras into Christianity"; that he had a disciple, "Buddas, formerly named Terebinthus ", who travelled in Persia, where he alleged that he had been born of a virgin , and afterwards wrote four books, one of Mysteries, a second The Gospel,

1190-568: A key role in ethics regarding the moral responsibility people have for what they do. Identity is a relation that every entity has to itself as a form of sameness. It refers to numerical identity when the very same entity is involved, as in the statement "the morning star is the evening star " (both are the planet Venus ). In a slightly different sense, it encompasses qualitative identity, also called exact similarity and indiscernibility , which occurs when two distinct entities are exactly alike, such as perfect identical twins. The principle of

1309-702: A large amount of material in Middle Persian, Coptic, and numerous other languages. Examples of surviving portions of his works include: the Shabuhragan (Middle Persian), the Book of Giants (numerous fragments in many languages), the Fundamental Epistle (quoted in length by Saint Augustine), a number of fragments of his Living Gospel (or Great Gospel ), a Syriac excerpt quoted by Theodore Bar Konai , and his Letter to Edessa contained in

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1428-475: A long history in metaphysics, meta-metaphysics has only recently developed into a systematic field of inquiry. Metaphysicians often regard existence or being as one of the most basic and general concepts. To exist means to form part of reality , distinguishing real entities from imaginary ones. According to the orthodox view, existence is a property of properties: if an entity exists then its properties are instantiated. A different position states that existence

1547-456: A luminous body of immense size, and myself a bit of that body." When he converted to Christianity in 386 CE, Augustine denounced Manichaeism. By then, Manichaeism had been supplanted by ascendant Christianity. Manichaeism's legacy is the word Manichaean—relating to a dualistic view of the world, dividing things into either good or evil, light or dark, black or white. In On the Mysteries of

1666-465: A metaphor of spiritual light. The term "light" has been widely used in spirituality and religion, such as: Buddhist scripture speaks of numerous Buddhas of light, including a Buddha of Boundless Light, a Buddha of Unimpeded Light, and the Buddhas of Unopposed Light, of Pure Light, of Incomparable Light, and of Unceasing Light. In the book of 1 John 1:5, it says "God is light" which means that God

1785-479: A priori methods have been the dominant approach. They rely on rational intuition and abstract reasoning from general principles rather than sensory experience . A posteriori approaches, by contrast, ground metaphysical theories in empirical observations and scientific theories. Some metaphysicians incorporate perspectives from fields such as physics , psychology , linguistics , and history into their inquiry. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive: it

1904-475: A priori reasoning and view metaphysics as a practice continuous with the empirical sciences that generalizes their insights while making their underlying assumptions explicit. This approach is known as naturalized metaphysics and is closely associated with the work of Willard Van Orman Quine . He relies on the idea that true sentences from the sciences and other fields have ontological commitments , that is, they imply that certain entities exist. For example, if

2023-572: A revelation: "Quakers need to be open to 'a new light', i.e. continuing revelation". Friends often focus on feeling the presence of God. As Isaac Penington wrote in 1670, "It is not enough to hear of Christ, or read of Christ, but this is the thing – to feel him to be my root, my life, and my foundation..." Quakers reject the idea of priests , believing in the priesthood of all believers . Some express their concept of God using phrases such as "the inner light", "inward light of Christ", or "Holy Spirit". A core belief of Quakers is, "all can be saved, through

2142-600: A second journey. Returning in 242, Mani presented himself to Shapur I , to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan . Shapur was not converted to Manichaeism and remained Zoroastrian , but he favored Mani's teachings, which mixed Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, and took him into his court. Mani is said to have performed miracles , including levitation , teleporting and healing , which helped him to gain converts in

2261-465: A single cloud is an overlay of countless clouds, one for each cloud-like collection of water droplets. Mereological moderatists hold that certain conditions must be met for a group of entities to compose a whole, for example, that the entities touch one another. Mereological nihilists reject the idea of wholes altogether, claiming that there are no clouds or tables but only particles that are arranged cloud-wise or table-wise. A related mereological problem

2380-402: A statement is possibly true if it is true in at least one possible world, whereas it is necessarily true if it is true in all possible worlds. Modal realists argue that possible worlds exist as concrete entities in the same sense as the actual world, with the main difference being that the actual world is the world we live in while other possible worlds are inhabited by counterparts . This view

2499-464: A substratum, also called bare particular , together with various properties. The substratum confers individuality to the particular while the properties express its qualitative features or what it is like. This approach is rejected by bundle theorists , who state that particulars are only bundles of properties without an underlying substratum. Some bundle theorists include in the bundle an individual essence, called haecceity , to ensure that each bundle

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2618-461: A term from German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 's theodicy , many metaphysicians use the concept of possible worlds to analyze the meaning and ontological ramifications of modal statements. A possible world is a complete and consistent way the totality of things could have been. For example, the dinosaurs were wiped out in the actual world but there are possible worlds in which they are still alive. According to possible world semantics,

2737-425: A third The Treasure, and a fourth Heads. While performing some mystic rites, he was hurled down a precipice by a daimon , and killed. A woman at whose house he lodged buried him, took over his property, and bought a boy of seven, named Cubricus. This boy she freed and educated, leaving him the property and books of Buddas-Terebinthus. Cubricus then travelled into Persia, where he took the name of Manes and gave forth

2856-401: A truthmaker for the statement "a tomato is red". Based on this observation, it is possible to pursue metaphysical research by asking what the truthmakers of statements are, with different areas of metaphysics being dedicated to different types of statements. According to this view, modal metaphysics asks what makes statements about what is possible and necessary true while the metaphysics of time

2975-621: A unified dimension rather than as independent dimensions. Empirically focused metaphysicians often rely on scientific theories to ground their theories about the nature of reality in empirical observations. Similar issues arise in the social sciences where metaphysicians investigate their basic concepts and analyze their metaphysical implications. This includes questions like whether social facts emerge from non-social facts, whether social groups and institutions have mind-independent existence, and how they persist through time. Metaphysical assumptions and topics in psychology and psychiatry include

3094-419: A warrior, on the other like a magician. In some later texts he was described as lame, a characteristic possibly attributed to him by his opponents. Mani then travelled to India ( Sakas in present day Afghanistan ), where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies, as well as Buddhism . Al-Biruni says Mani only traveled to India after being banished from Persia, but this might be an error or

3213-523: A wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence , the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being . An influential division is between particulars and universals . Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color red . Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore

3332-399: Is a basic concept that cannot be analyzed in terms of non-causal concepts, such as regularities or dependence relations. One form of primitivism identifies causal powers inherent in entities as the underlying mechanism. Eliminativists reject the above theories by holding that there is no causation. Mind encompasses phenomena like thinking , perceiving , feeling , and desiring as well as

3451-435: Is a fundamental aspect of reality, meaning that besides facts about what is the case, there are additional facts about what could or must be the case. A different view argues that modal truths are not about an independent aspect of reality but can be reduced to non-modal characteristics, for example, to facts about what properties or linguistic descriptions are compatible with each other or to fictional statements . Borrowing

3570-521: Is a property of individuals, meaning that it is similar to other properties, such as shape or size. It is controversial whether all entities have this property. According to Alexius Meinong , there are nonexistent objects , including merely possible objects like Santa Claus and Pegasus . A related question is whether existence is the same for all entities or whether there are different modes or degrees of existence. For instance, Plato held that Platonic forms , which are perfect and immutable ideas, have

3689-442: Is a well-known principle that gives preference to simple theories, in particular, those that assume that few entities exist. Other principles consider explanatory power , theoretical usefulness, and proximity to established beliefs. Despite its status as one of the main branches of philosophy, metaphysics has received numerous criticisms questioning its legitimacy as a field of inquiry. One criticism argues that metaphysical inquiry

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3808-478: Is based on a rigid dualism of good and evil , locked in eternal struggle, which was a "familiar mytholog[ical]" element of the time in many spiritual traditions that Mani deliberately borrowed. In his mid-twenties, Mani decided that salvation was possible through education, self-denial, fasting and chastity. According to Al-Biruni , a 10th-century Iranian scholar, Mani claimed to be the Paraclete promised in

3927-440: Is controversial and various alternatives have been suggested, for example, that possible worlds only exist as abstract objects or are similar to stories told in works of fiction . Space and time are dimensions that entities occupy. Spacetime realists state that space and time are fundamental aspects of reality and exist independently of the human mind. Spacetime idealists, by contrast, hold that space and time are constructs of

4046-401: Is determined. Hard determinists infer from this that there is no free will, whereas libertarians conclude that determinism must be false. Compatibilists offer a third perspective, arguing that determinism and free will do not exclude each other, for instance, because a person can still act in tune with their motivation and choices even if they are determined by other forces. Free will plays

4165-400: Is divided into subdisciplines based on the perspective they take. Metaphysical cosmology examines changeable things and investigates how they are connected to form a world as a totality extending through space and time. Rational psychology focuses on metaphysical foundations and problems concerning the mind, such as its relation to matter and the freedom of the will. Natural theology studies

4284-436: Is fundamentally neither material nor mental and suggest that matter and mind are both derivative phenomena. A key aspect of the mind–body problem is the hard problem of consciousness or how to explain that physical systems like brains can produce phenomenal consciousness. The status of free will as the ability of a person to choose their actions is a central aspect of the mind–body problem. Metaphysicians are interested in

4403-420: Is impossible because humans lack the cognitive capacities needed to access the ultimate nature of reality. This line of thought leads to skepticism about the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Empiricists often follow this idea, like Hume, who argued that there is no good source of metaphysical knowledge since metaphysics lies outside the field of empirical knowledge and relies on dubious intuitions about

4522-434: Is interested in the truthmakers of temporal statements about the past, present, and future. A closely related topic concerns the nature of truth. Theories of truth aim to determine this nature and include correspondence , coherence , pragmatic , semantic , and deflationary theories . Metaphysicians employ a variety of methods to develop metaphysical theories and formulate arguments for and against them. Traditionally,

4641-468: Is made up of only one kind. According to idealism , everything is mental, including physical objects, which may be understood as ideas or perceptions of conscious minds. Materialists, by contrast, state that all reality is at its core material. Some deny that mind exists but the more common approach is to explain mind in terms of certain aspects of matter, such as brain states, behavioral dispositions , or functional roles. Neutral monists argue that reality

4760-612: Is more plausible that his body was mutilated via post-mortem decapitation, and his head put on display, which may be the original source of the embellishment. The canon of Mani includes six works originally written in Syriac, and one in Persian , the Shapuragan . While none of his books have survived in complete form, there are numerous fragments and quotations of them, including a long Syriac quotation from one of his works, as well as

4879-419: Is no consensus about the validity of these criticisms and whether they affect metaphysics as a whole or only certain issues or approaches in it. For example, it could be the case that certain metaphysical disputes are merely verbal while others are substantive. Metaphysics is related to many fields of inquiry by investigating their basic concepts and relation to the fundamental structure of reality. For example,

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4998-411: Is one of the oldest branches of philosophy . The precise nature of metaphysics is disputed and its characterization has changed in the course of history. Some approaches see metaphysics as a unified field and give a wide-sweeping definition by understanding it as the study of "fundamental questions about the nature of reality" or as an inquiry into the essences of things. Another approach doubts that

5117-408: Is opposed by so-called serious metaphysicians , who contend that metaphysical disputes are about substantial features of the underlying structure of reality. A closely related debate between ontological realists and anti-realists concerns the question of whether there are any objective facts that determine which metaphysical theories are true. A different criticism, formulated by pragmatists , sees

5236-531: Is part of the system that provides light to the whole universe. God created light, Genesis 1:3 and is light. Bible commentators such as John W. Ritenbaugh see the presence of light as a metaphor of truth , good and evil , knowledge , and ignorance . In the first Chapter of the Bible, Elohim is described as creating light by fiat and seeing the light to be good. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition,

5355-457: Is possible to combine elements from both. The method a metaphysician chooses often depends on their understanding of the nature of metaphysics, for example, whether they see it as an inquiry into the mind-independent structure of reality, as metaphysical realists claim, or the principles underlying thought and experience, as some metaphysical anti-realists contend. A priori approaches often rely on intuitions—non-inferential impressions about

5474-448: Is rejected by probabilistic theories , which claim that the cause merely increases the probability that the effect occurs. This view can explain that smoking causes cancer even though this does not happen in every single case. The regularity theory of causation , inspired by David Hume 's philosophy, states that causation is nothing but a constant conjunction in which the mind apprehends that one phenomenon, like putting one's hand in

5593-418: Is studied by mereology . The problem of the many is a philosophical question about the conditions under which several individual things compose a larger whole. For example, a cloud is made up of many droplets without a clear boundary, raising the question of which droplets form part of the cloud. According to mereological universalists, every collection of entities forms a whole. This means that what seems to be

5712-406: Is the cause and the spill is the effect. Besides the single-case causation between particulars in this example, there is also general-case causation expressed in statements such as "smoking causes cancer". The term agent causation is used when people and their actions cause something. Causation is usually interpreted deterministically, meaning that a cause always brings about its effect. This view

5831-417: Is the most basic inquiry upon which all other branches of philosophy depend in some way. Metaphysics is traditionally understood as a study of mind-independent features of reality. Starting with Immanuel Kant 's critical philosophy , an alternative conception gained prominence that focuses on conceptual schemes rather than external reality. Kant distinguishes transcendent metaphysics, which aims to describe

5950-401: Is unique. Another proposal for concrete particulars is that they are individuated by their space-time location. Concrete particulars encountered in everyday life, like rocks, tables, and organisms, are complex entities composed of various parts. For example, a table is made up of a tabletop and legs, each of which is itself made up of countless particles. The relation between parts and wholes

6069-465: Is whether there are simple entities that have no parts, as atomists claim, or whether everything can be endlessly subdivided into smaller parts, as continuum theorists contend. Universals are general entities, encompassing both properties and relations , that express what particulars are like and how they resemble one another. They are repeatable, meaning that they are not limited to a unique existent but can be instantiated by different particulars at

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6188-629: The Cologne Mani-Codex . Mani also wrote the book Arzhang , a holy book of Manichaeism unique in that it contained many drawings and paintings to express and explain the Manichaeist creation and history of the world. Mani's teaching was intended to "combine", succeed, and surpass the teachings of Christianity , Zoroastrianism , Buddhism , Marcionism , Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism , Gnostic movements , Babylonian and other Mesopotamian religions , and mystery cults . It

6307-705: The New Testament , and the Last Prophet . However according to Lodewijk J. R. Ort, the term last prophet may "in all probability derived from the Quran by Al-Buruni in order to formulate Mani's pretensions and religious claims". Therefore Lodewijk J. R. Ort concludes that a definitive pronouncement about the final character of Mani's appearance is not mentioned in Manichaeistic scriptures. According to Christian eschatology, Jesus, not Mani, will perform

6426-510: The Upanishads in ancient India , Daoism in ancient China , and pre-Socratic philosophy in ancient Greece . During the subsequent medieval period in the West, discussions about the nature of universals were influenced by the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The modern period saw the emergence of various comprehensive systems of metaphysics, many of which embraced idealism . In

6545-492: The concepts of space, time, and change , and their connection to causality and the laws of nature . Other topics include how mind and matter are related , whether everything in the world is predetermined , and whether there is free will . Metaphysicians use various methods to conduct their inquiry. Traditionally, they rely on rational intuitions and abstract reasoning but have more recently also included empirical approaches associated with scientific theories. Due to

6664-399: The historical Buddha . Mani's followers were organized in a church structure, divided into a class of "elects" ( electi ) and "auditors" ( auditores ). Only the electi are required to follow the laws strictly, while the auditores care for them, hoping to become electi in their turn after reincarnation . The Western Christian tradition of Mani is based on Socrates of Constantinople ,

6783-404: The 20th century, traditional metaphysics in general and idealism in particular faced various criticisms, which prompted new approaches to metaphysical inquiry. Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality , including existence , objects and their properties , possibility and necessity, space and time , change, causation , and the relation between matter and mind . It

6902-547: The Divine Light illuminates the intellect of man through " theoria " or contemplation . In the Gospel of John , the opening verses describe God as Light: "In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it." (John 1:5) In John 8:12, Christ proclaims "I am the light of the world ", bringing the Divine Light to mankind. The Tabor Light , also called

7021-664: The Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians , Iamblichus refers to the divine light as the manifestation of the gods by which divination , theurgy , and other forms of ritual are accomplished. Light is a core concept in Iranian mysticism. The root of this thought lies in Zoroastrian beliefs, which define the supreme God, Ahura Mazda , as the source of light. This essential attribute is manifested in various schools of thought in Persian mysticism and philosophy. Later, this notion

7140-627: The Eiffel Tower, or a specific apple, and abstract objects, like the number 2 or a specific set in mathematics. Also called individuals , they are unique, non-repeatable entities and contrast with universals , like the color red, which can at the same time exist in several places and characterize several particulars. A widely held view is that particulars instantiate universals but are not themselves instantiated by something else, meaning that they exist in themselves while universals exist in something else. Substratum theory analyzes each particular as

7259-523: The English language through the Latin word metaphysica . The nature of metaphysics can also be characterized in relation to its main branches. An influential division from early modern philosophy distinguishes between general and special or specific metaphysics. General metaphysics, also called ontology , takes the widest perspective and studies the most fundamental aspects of being. It investigates

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7378-551: The Iranian elite. He was also famed as a painter . Shapur's successor Hormizd I , who reigned only for one year, continued to patronize Mani, but his successor Bahram I , a follower of the intolerant Zoroastrian reformer Kartir , began to persecute the Manichaeans. He incarcerated Mani, who died in prison within a month, in 274. According to sources, he passed his last days comforting his visiting disciples, teaching that his death would have no other consequence than

7497-532: The Latin narrative, "Manes" is said to have come, after his flight from court, from Arabion, a frontier fortress, to Caschar or Carchar, a town said to be in Roman Mesopotamia , in the hope of converting an eminent Christian there, named Marcellus, to whom he had sent a letter beginning: "Manichæus apostle of Jesus Christ, and all the saints and virgins with me, send peace to Marcellus." In his train he brought twenty-two (or twelve) youths and virgins. At

7616-637: The Life of Mani. Mani was born near Seleucia-Ctesiphon , perhaps in the town Mardinu in the Babylonian district of Nahr Kutha; according to other accounts in the town Abrumya. Mani's father Pātik (Middle Persian Pattūg ; Koinē Greek : Παττικιος , Arabic : Futtuq ), a native of Ecbatana (now Hamadan , Iran), was a member of the Jewish Christian sect of the Elcesaites . His mother

7735-714: The Uncreated Light, was revealed to the three apostles present at the Transfiguration . Quakers , known formally as the Religious Society of Friends , are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or see "that of God in every one". Most Quakers believe in continuing revelation : that God continuously reveals truth directly to individuals. George Fox said, "Christ has come to teach His people Himself." Veronika Koller explains liberal Quakers also see light as

7854-402: The abstract nature of its topic, metaphysics has received criticisms questioning the reliability of its methods and the meaningfulness of its theories. Metaphysics is relevant to many fields of inquiry that often implicitly rely on metaphysical concepts and assumptions. The roots of metaphysics lie in antiquity with speculations about the nature and origin of the universe, like those found in

7973-463: The account in Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadim , purportedly by al-Biruni , or were anti-Manichaean polemics, such as the 4th-century Acta Archelai . Among these medieval accounts, Ibn al-Nadim's account of Mani's life and teachings is generally speaking the most reliable and exhaustive. Notably, the (in other accounts prominent) image of the "Third Ambassador" is only represented through a brief mention of

8092-430: The average person thinks about an issue. For example, common-sense philosophers have argued that mereological nihilism is false since it implies that commonly accepted things, like tables, do not exist. Conceptual analysis , a method particularly prominent in analytic philosophy , aims to decompose metaphysical concepts into component parts to clarify their meaning and identify essential relations. In phenomenology ,

8211-405: The basic structure of reality . It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the fundamental categories of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle , designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics encompasses

8330-404: The concepts of truth , truth-bearer , and truthmaker to conduct their inquiry. Truth is a property of being in accord with reality. Truth-bearers are entities that can be true or false, such as linguistic statements and mental representations. A truthmaker of a statement is the entity whose existence makes the statement true. For example, the fact that a tomato exists and that it is red acts as

8449-768: The correctness of specific claims or general principles. For example, arguments for the A-theory of time , which states that time flows from the past through the present and into the future, often rely on pre-theoretical intuitions associated with the sense of the passage of time. Some approaches use intuitions to establish a small set of self-evident fundamental principles, known as axioms , and employ deductive reasoning to build complex metaphysical systems by drawing conclusions from these axioms. Intuition-based approaches can be combined with thought experiments , which help evoke and clarify intuitions by linking them to imagined situations. They use counterfactual thinking to assess

8568-497: The dawn and its goddess, Ushas. In the terminology of Sant Mat , light and sound are the two main expressions of God . Manichaeism , the most widespread Western religion prior to Christianity, was based on the belief that God was, literally, light. From about 250-350 CE, devout Manichaeans followed the teachings of self-proclaimed prophet Mani . Mani's faithful, who could be found from Greece to China, believed in warring kingdoms of Light and Darkness, in "beings of light," and in

8687-452: The different areas of metaphysics share a set of underlying features and provides instead a fine-grained characterization by listing all the main topics investigated by metaphysicians. Some definitions are descriptive by providing an account of what metaphysicians do while others are normative and prescribe what metaphysicians ought to do. Two historically influential definitions in ancient and medieval philosophy understand metaphysics as

8806-624: The direct relationship established by God in Christ with ‘every [person] that cometh into the world [...]’ ". Quakers first gathered around George Fox in the mid-17th century and belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations . In Hinduism , Diwali —the festival of lights—is a celebration of the victory of light over darkness. A mantra in Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (1.3.28) urges to God: "from darkness, lead us unto light". The Rig Veda includes nearly two dozen hymns to

8925-469: The disputation he taught concerning the sphere, the two luminaries, the transmigration of souls, and the war of the Principia against God, that "Corbicius" or Corbicus, about the age of sixty, translated the books of Terebinthus. He made three chief disciples, Thomas, Addas, and Hermas, of whom he sent the first to Egypt, and the second to Scythia, keeping the third with him. The two former returned when he

9044-496: The divine and its role as the first cause. The scope of special metaphysics overlaps with other philosophical disciplines, making it unclear whether a topic belongs to it or to areas like philosophy of mind and theology . Applied metaphysics is a relatively young subdiscipline. It belongs to applied philosophy and studies the applications of metaphysics, both within philosophy and other fields of inquiry. In areas like ethics and philosophy of religion , it addresses topics like

9163-489: The doctrines of Buddas Terebinthus as his own. The king of Persia, hearing that he worked miracles, sent for him to heal his sick son, and on the child's dying put Manes in prison. Thence he escaped, flying into Mesopotamia, but was traced, captured, and flayed alive by the Persian king's orders, the skin being then stuffed with chaff and hung up before the gate of the city. According to Jerome , Archelaus wrote his account of his disputation with "Manichæus" in Syriac, whence it

9282-744: The fault of metaphysics not in its cognitive ambitions or the meaninglessness of its statements, but in its practical irrelevance and lack of usefulness. Martin Heidegger criticized traditional metaphysics, saying that it fails to distinguish between individual entities and being as their ontological ground. His attempt to reveal the underlying assumptions and limitations in the history of metaphysics to "overcome metaphysics" influenced Jacques Derrida 's method of deconstruction . Derrida employed this approach to criticize metaphysical texts for relying on opposing terms, like presence and absence, which he thought were inherently unstable and contradictory. There

9401-447: The features that all entities share and how entities can be divided into different categories . Categories are the most general kinds, such as substance, property, relation , and fact . Ontologists research which categories there are, how they depend on one another, and how they form a system of categories that provides a comprehensive classification of all entities. Special metaphysics considers being from more narrow perspectives and

9520-444: The final judgment at the conclusion of history. While his religion was not strictly a movement of Christian Gnosticism in the earlier mode, Mani did declare himself to be an "apostle of Jesus Christ", and extant Manichaean poetry frequently extols Jesus and his mother, Mary , with the highest reverence. Manichaean tradition also claims that Mani was the reincarnation of different religious figures including Jesus, Zoroaster , and

9639-468: The fundamental structure of mind-independent reality. The concepts of possibility and necessity convey what can or must be the case, expressed in modal statements like "it is possible to find a cure for cancer" and "it is necessary that two plus two equals four". Modal metaphysics studies metaphysical problems surrounding possibility and necessity, for instance, why some modal statements are true while others are false. Some metaphysicians hold that modality

9758-404: The human mind, created to organize and make sense of reality. Spacetime absolutism or substantivalism understands spacetime as a distinct object, with some metaphysicians conceptualizing it as a container that holds all other entities within it. Spacetime relationism sees spacetime not as an object but as a network of relations between objects, such as the spatial relation of being next to and

9877-443: The indiscernibility of identicals is widely accepted and holds that numerically identical entities exactly resemble one another. The converse principle, known as identity of indiscernibles or Leibniz's Law, is more controversial and states that two entities are numerically identical if they exactly resemble one another. Another distinction is between synchronic and diachronic identity. Synchronic identity relates an entity to itself at

9996-415: The individual sciences by studying the most general and abstract aspects of reality. The individual sciences, by contrast, examine more specific and concrete features and restrict themselves to certain classes of entities, such as the focus on physical things in physics , living entities in biology , and cultures in anthropology . It is disputed to what extent this contrast is a strict dichotomy rather than

10115-469: The meaning of a statement is given by the procedure used to verify it, usually through the observations that would confirm it. Based on this controversial assumption, they argue that metaphysical statements are meaningless since they make no testable predictions about experience. A slightly weaker position allows metaphysical statements to have meaning while holding that metaphysical disagreements are merely verbal disputes about different ways to describe

10234-501: The method of eidetic variation is used to investigate essential structures underlying phenomena . This method involves imagining an object and varying its features to determine which ones are essential and cannot be changed. The transcendental method is a further approach and examines the metaphysical structure of reality by observing what entities there are and studying the conditions of possibility without which these entities could not exist. Some approaches give less importance to

10353-734: The mind used to order experience by classifying entities. Natural and social kinds are often understood as special types of universals. Entities belonging to the same natural kind share certain fundamental features characteristic of the structure of the natural world. In this regard, natural kinds are not an artificially constructed classification but are discovered, usually by the natural sciences, and include kinds like electrons , H 2 O , and tigers. Scientific realists and anti-realists disagree about whether natural kinds exist. Social kinds, like money and baseball , are studied by social metaphysics and characterized as useful social constructions that, while not purely fictional, do not reflect

10472-561: The name bašīr , "messenger of good news", and the topos of "Mani the Painter" (which in other Islamic accounts almost completely replaces that of "the founder of a religion") is completely absent. This work and other evidence discovered in the 20th century establishes Mani as a historical individual. For an updated critique of the standard account and a radically alternative proposal see Iain Gardner's The Founder of Manichaeism: Rethinking

10591-539: The name remains unsolved. It may have derived from Babylonian-Aramaic Mânâ [luminescence]. Mandaeans used the term mânâ rabba , which means "Enlightened Lord/King". Ancient Greek interpretations were skeuos ( σκεῦος , vessel, instrument ) and homilia ( ὁμιλία , intercourse, company, communion, instruction) . The same slightly contemptuous "a certain" (Manes quidam) also appears in Hegemonius' Acta Archelai (4th century), however, Hegemonius contributes

10710-889: The natural sciences rely on concepts such as law of nature , causation, necessity, and spacetime to formulate their theories and predict or explain the outcomes of experiments. While scientists primarily focus on applying these concepts to specific situations, metaphysics examines their general nature and how they depend on each other. For instance, physicists formulate laws of nature, like laws of gravitation and thermodynamics , to describe how physical systems behave under various conditions. Metaphysicians, by contrast, examine what all laws of nature have in common, asking whether they merely describe contingent regularities or express necessary relations. New scientific discoveries have also influenced existing metaphysical theories and inspired new ones. Einstein's theory of relativity , for instance, prompted various metaphysicians to conceive space and time as

10829-401: The object is present, not the object as a whole. Change means that an earlier part is qualitatively different from a later part. For example, when a banana ripens, there is an unripe part followed by a ripe part. Causality is the relation between cause and effect whereby one entity produces or affects another entity. For instance, if a person bumps a glass and spills its contents then the bump

10948-471: The objective features of reality beyond sense experience, from critical metaphysics, which outlines the aspects and principles underlying all human thought and experience. Philosopher P. F. Strawson further explored the role of conceptual schemes, contrasting descriptive metaphysics, which articulates conceptual schemes commonly used to understand the world, with revisionary metaphysics, which aims to produce better conceptual schemes. Metaphysics differs from

11067-584: The ontological foundations of moral claims and religious doctrines. Beyond philosophy, its applications include the use of ontologies in artificial intelligence , economics , and sociology to classify entities. In psychiatry and medicine , it examines the metaphysical status of diseases . Meta-metaphysics is the metatheory of metaphysics and investigates the nature and methods of metaphysics. It examines how metaphysics differs from other philosophical and scientific disciplines and assesses its relevance to them. Even though discussions of these topics have

11186-465: The past. From the perspective of the B-series theory, time is static, and events are ordered by the temporal relations earlier-than and later-than without any essential difference between past, present, and future. Eternalism holds that past, present, and future are equally real, whereas presentism asserts that only entities in the present exist. Material objects persist through time and change in

11305-480: The possible consequences of these situations. For example, to explore the relation between matter and consciousness, some theorists compare humans to philosophical zombies —hypothetical creatures identical to humans but without conscious experience . A related method relies on commonly accepted beliefs instead of intuitions to formulate arguments and theories. The common-sense approach is often used to criticize metaphysical theories that deviate significantly from how

11424-508: The process, like a tree that grows or loses leaves. The main ways of conceptualizing persistence through time are endurantism and perdurantism . According to endurantism, material objects are three-dimensional entities that are wholly present at each moment. As they change, they gain or lose properties but otherwise remain the same. Perdurantists see material objects as four-dimensional entities that extend through time and are made up of different temporal parts . At each moment, only one part of

11543-784: The questions about the relation between body and mind, whether the nature of the human mind is historically fixed, and what the metaphysical status of diseases is. Metaphysics is similar to both physical cosmology and theology in its exploration of the first causes and the universe as a whole. Key differences are that metaphysics relies on rational inquiry while physical cosmology gives more weight to empirical observations and theology incorporates divine revelation and other faith-based doctrines. Historically, cosmology and theology were considered subfields of metaphysics.         Mani (prophet) Mani ( / ˈ m ɑː n i / ; c.  April AD 216 – 2 March AD 274 or 26 February AD 277)

11662-464: The realm beyond sensory experience. A related argument favoring the unreliability of metaphysical theorizing points to the deep and lasting disagreements about metaphysical issues, suggesting a lack of overall progress. Another criticism holds that the problem lies not with human cognitive abilities but with metaphysical statements themselves, which some claim are neither true nor false but meaningless . According to logical positivists , for instance,

11781-448: The realm of physics and its focus on empirical observation. Metaphysics may have received its name by a historical accident when Aristotle's book on this subject was published. Aristotle did not use the term metaphysics but his editor (likely Andronicus of Rhodes ) may have coined it for its title to indicate that this book should be studied after Aristotle's book published on physics : literally ' after physics ' . The term entered

11900-433: The relation between free will and causal determinism —the view that everything in the universe, including human behavior, is determined by preceding events and laws of nature. It is controversial whether causal determinism is true, and, if so, whether this would imply that there is no free will. According to incompatibilism , free will cannot exist in a deterministic world since there is no true choice or control if everything

12019-534: The request of Marcellus, he debated on religion with bishop Archelaus, by whom he was vanquished, whereupon he set out to return to Persia. On his way he proposed to debate with a priest at the town of Diodorides. But Archelaus came to take the priest's place, and again defeated him, whereupon, fearing to be given up to the Persians by the Christians, he returned to Arabion. At this stage Archelaus introduces in

12138-407: The return of his soul to the realm of light. Mani's followers depicted Mani's death as a crucifixion in a conscious analogy to the crucifixion of Jesus ; al-Biruni says that Bahram ordered the execution of Mani. There is a story which claims that he was flayed, and his corpse suspended over the main gate of the great city of Gundeshapur; however, there is no historical basis for this account. It

12257-431: The same time, whereas diachronic identity is about the same entity at different times, as in statements like "the table I bought last year is the same as the table in my dining room now". Personal identity is a related topic in metaphysics that uses the term identity in a slightly different sense and concerns questions like what personhood is or what makes someone a person. Various contemporary metaphysicians rely on

12376-559: The same time. For example, the particulars Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi instantiate the universal humanity , similar to how a strawberry and a ruby instantiate the universal red . A topic discussed since ancient philosophy, the problem of universals consists in the challenge of characterizing the ontological status of universals. Realists argue that universals are real, mind-independent entities that exist in addition to particulars. According to Platonic realists , universals exist independently of particulars, which implies that

12495-418: The science of the first causes and as the study of being qua being, that is, the topic of what all beings have in common and to what fundamental categories they belong. In the modern period, the scope of metaphysics expanded to include topics such as the distinction between mind and body and free will . Some philosophers follow Aristotle in describing metaphysics as "first philosophy", suggesting that it

12614-517: The sentence "some electrons are bonded to protons" is true then it can be used to justify that electrons and protons exist. Quine used this insight to argue that one can learn about metaphysics by closely analyzing scientific claims to understand what kind of metaphysical picture of the world they presuppose. In addition to methods of conducting metaphysical inquiry, there are various methodological principles used to decide between competing theories by comparing their theoretical virtues. Ockham's Razor

12733-517: The temporal relation of coming before . In the metaphysics of time, an important contrast is between the A-series and the B-series . According to the A-series theory, the flow of time is real, meaning that events are categorized into the past, present, and future. The present continually moves forward in time and events that are in the present now will eventually change their status and lie in

12852-408: The underlying faculties responsible for these phenomena. The mind–body problem is the challenge of clarifying the relation between physical and mental phenomena. According to Cartesian dualism , minds and bodies are distinct substances. They causally interact with each other in various ways but can, at least in principle, exist on their own. This view is rejected by monists , who argue that reality

12971-475: The universal red would continue to exist even if there were no red things. A more moderate form of realism , inspired by Aristotle, states that universals depend on particulars, meaning that they are only real if they are instantiated. Nominalists reject the idea that universals exist in either form. For them, the world is composed exclusively of particulars. Conceptualists offer an intermediate position, stating that universals exist, but only as concepts in

13090-419: The world. According to this view, the disagreement in the metaphysics of composition about whether there are tables or only particles arranged table-wise is a trivial debate about linguistic preferences without any substantive consequences for the nature of reality. The position that metaphysical disputes have no meaning or no significant point is called metaphysical or ontological deflationism . This view

13209-420: Was a docetic Christ . It is believed that his Christian roots might have been influenced by Marcion and Bardaisan . At ages 12 and 24 Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" of his ( syzygos ), calling him to leave his father's sect and preach the true message of Jesus in a new gospel. It is said that his appearance was a mixture of Iranian and Mesopotamian features. On the one hand he looked like

13328-845: Was an Iranian prophet and the founder of Manichaeism , a religion most prevalent in late antiquity . Mani was born in or near Ctesiphon (south of modern Baghdad ) in Mesopotamia , at the time part of the Parthian Empire . Seven of his major works were written in Syriac , and the eighth, dedicated to the Sasanian emperor Shapur I , was written in Middle Persian . He died shortly after being imprisoned by Bahram I in Gundeshapur . The exact meaning of

13447-550: Was discovered. It is now designated Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis because it is conserved at the University of Cologne . Combining a hagiographic account of Mani's career and spiritual development with information about Mani's religious teachings, and containing fragments of his writings, it is now considered the most reliable source of information about the historical Mani. All other medieval and pre-medieval accounts of his life are either legendary or hagiographical, such as

13566-522: Was dispersed across the entire Middle East , shaping the paradigms of religions and philosophies emerging in the region. After the Arab invasion , this concept was incorporated into Islamic teachings by Iranian thinkers, the most famous of them being Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi , the founder of the illumination philosophy . Metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines

13685-444: Was in prison, and that he sent them to procure for him the books of the Christians, which he then studied. According to the Latin narrative, finally, Manes on his return to Arabion was seized and taken to the Persian king, by whose orders he was flayed, his body being left to the birds, and his skin, filled with air, hung at the city gate. Mani is described as a painter who set up a sectarian movement in opposition to Zoroastrianism. He

13804-525: Was of Parthian descent (from "the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan " ); her name is reported variously, among others Maryam . Mani was raised in a heterodox environment in Babylon. The Elcesaite community was ostensibly Jewish Christian, though with some Gnostic features due to their Ebionite heritage, such as the belief in recurring incarnations of heavenly apostles, one of whom

13923-427: Was persecuted by Shapur I and fled to Central Asia , where he made disciples and embellished with paintings a Tchighil (or picturarum domus Chinensis ) and another temple called Ghalbita . Provisioning in advance a cave which had a spring, he told his disciples he was going to heaven, and would not return for a year, after which time they were to seek him in the cave in question. They then came back there after

14042-452: Was proposed by Aristotle, who outlined a system of 10 categories . He argued that substances (e.g. man and horse), are the most important category since all other categories like quantity (e.g. four), quality (e.g. white), and place (e.g. in Athens) are said of substances and depend on them. Kant understood categories as fundamental principles underlying human understanding and developed

14161-600: Was translated into Greek. The Greek is lost, and the work, apart from extracts, subsists only in a Latin translation from the Greek, of doubtful age and fidelity, probably made after the 5th century. By Photius it is stated that Heraclean, bishop of Chalcedon , in his book against the Manichæans, said the Disputation of Archelaus was written by one Hegemonius, an author not otherwise traceable, and of unknown date. In

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