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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Metaphysics
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1992-09-03
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A branch of philosophy that deals with first
principles, in particular `being' (ontology)
and `knowing' (epistemology), and that is
concerned with the ultimate nature of
reality. It has been maintained that no
certain knowledge of metaphysical questions
is possible. Epistemology, or the study of
how we know, lies at the threshold of the
subject. Metaphysics is concerned with the
nature and origin of existence and of mind,
the interaction between them, the meaning of
time and space, causation, determinism and
free will, personality and the self,
arguments for belief in God, and human
immortality. The foundations of metaphysics
were laid by Plato and Aristotle. St Thomas
Aquinas, basing himself on Aristotle,
produced a metaphysical structure that is
accepted by the Catholic church. The subject
has been advanced by Descartes, Spinoza,
Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Locke, Kant, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, and Marx; and in the 20th
century by Bergson, Bradley, Croce,
McTaggart, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein.