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Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, and related to the natural sciences, like physics, psychology and the biology of the brain; and also to mysticism, religion, and other spiritual subjects. It is notoriously difficult to define, but for purposes of briefly introducing it, it can be identified as the study of any of the most fundamental concepts and beliefs about the basic nature of reality, on which many other concepts and beliefs rest—concepts such as being, existence, universal, property, relation, causation, spaceThe word space has many meanings, including: Physics The definition of space in physics is contentious. Various concepts used to try to define space have included: the structure defined by the set of "spatial relationships" between objects a manifold defi, timeFor alternate uses of "time", see Time (disambiguation). Time quantifies or measures the interval between events, or the duration of events. Time has long been perceived as a dimension in which each event has a definite (but not necessarily unique) positi, eventThere are many kinds of events In common language, an event is something that happens (changes), in particular something special of limited duration, for example a major football match or pop music concert. An event is an outcome, result, reference or sin, and many others.Part of the trouble with defining metaphysics lies in how much the field has changed since it was first given its name by AristotleAristotle ( Greek Αριστοτλης Aristotelēs) ( 384 BCE March 7, 322 BCE) was a Greek scientist and philosopher. Along with Plato, he is often considered to be one of the two most influential philo's editors centuries ago (see below). Problems that were not originally considered metaphysical have been added to metaphysics. Other problems that were considered metaphysical problems for centuries are now typically relegated to their own separate subheadings in philosophy, such as philosophy of religionPhilosophy of religion is the rational study of the meaning and justification of fundamental religious claims, particularly about the nature and existence of God (or gods, or the divine). Philosophy of religion as part of metaphysics Philosophy of religio, philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind is the philosophical study of the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, and consciousness. These areas give rise to some very difficult problems and questions, and there are many opinions as to their so, philosophy of perceptionThe philosophy of perception concerns how mental processes and symbols depend on the world internal and external to the perceiver. Our perception of the external world begins with the senses, which lead us to generate empirical concepts representing the w, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. It would require quite a long time to state all the problems that have, at one time or another, been considered part of metaphysics.
What might be called the core metaphysical problems would be the ones which have always been considered metaphysical and which have never been considered not metaphysical. What most of such problems have in common is that they are the problems of ontology, "the science of being qua being".
Other philosophical traditions have very different conceptions of the metaphysical problems from those in the Western philosophical tradition; for example, Taoism and indeed, much of Eastern philosophy completely reject many of the most basic tenets of Aristotelian metaphysics, principles which have by now become almost completely internalized and beyond question in Western philosophy, though a number of dissidents from Aristotelian metaphysics have emerged in the west, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Science of Logic.
