Talk:Metaphysics

Higher-Order Metaphysics

There are only 3 branches listed so far after meta-metaphysics got merged. There currently is no mention of higher-order metaphysics or any other formal metaphysics, yet it seems that this is what a good chunk of the field is currently working on. There are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers on Google Scholar with "higher-order metaphysics" in the title, and books by publishers such as Springer on the topic. Worth adding per WP:DUE? Grammophone minds (talk) 01:01, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello Grammophone minds and thanks for the suggestion. I checked a few overview sources on metaphysics (Carroll & Markosian 2010, Koons & Pickavance 2015, Loux & Crisp 2017, and Rea 2021): none of them mention higher-order metaphysics. From what I can tell, this seems to be a relatively recently conceived approach to metaphysics rather than one of the established main branches. I added a short footnote to mention it in relation to logic, but this wide overview article may not be the right place for a more in-depth discussion of this specific approach. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:10, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Epistemology is part of metaphysics: it seeks the correct interpretation of physics

Please include epistemology in the definition of metaphysics because physics itself doesn't answer via experiment all interpretations. // see: Oxford Languages: epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion. // Alain Aspect mentions epistemology in physics. And this is metaphysical because it's about interpretations. Please also inform Oxford Languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2025-35055-21 (talk) 11:06, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

According to the standard characterization, metaphysics and epistemology are two distinct branches of philosophy, so claiming that epistemology is a subfield of metaphysics would be misleading. The topics of those two branches overlap in several ways. This is addressed, for example, in the sections "Methodology" and "Criticism". Phlsph7 (talk) 19:05, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Hi. I can confirm that academic philosophy generally does not allow both metaphysics and epistemology to be as intrinsically identical as you might seem to suggest. What does hold, however, is that both domains are co-constituted by each other. Epistemology can only formulate basic propositions or atomic formal sentences due to the entities that metaphysics allows to conceptualize, study and pinpoint. But you're right in saying that they're intrinsically connected all the same. That last part is true. One cannot have an epistemology without a metaphysics, and any metaphysics naturally invites the formation of an epistemology that can formulate the insights of said metaphysics. But this does not mean that both are the same. Regards, Antonino danilo (talk) 15:18, 5 July 2026 (UTC)