METAPHYSICS AND THE ONTOLOGY OF BEING AMIDST THE LOGICAL POSITIVISTS' CRITICISM

Abstract

The ontological quest of what truly constitutes the nature of reality has been a major preoccupation of metaphysics from time immemorial. This is because metaphysics is a science of being. The paper states that the notion of being is surrounded by some conceptual issues like act and potency, cause and effect, essence and existence, substance and accident, time and space, and so on. All of these are said to be perennial problems in the history of philosophy. The paper argues that the principles of metaphysics are different from the methods of the natural sciences reason being that the natural sciences have four characters i.e Specic, Public, Objective, and Impersonal. A close look at the four character of science shows that the natural sciences deal with the reality of the physical world whereas metaphysics adopts a more holistic approach to reality because it considers both the material and the non-material aspects of reality. This paper further argues that metaphysical postulations have lingered on in history and as such philosophers in the different epochs of philosophy have tried to proffer solutions to the problem of being. There is no doubt that while metaphysicians try to proffer solutions to the nature of being, logical positivists and other members of the Vienne circle are against metaphysical assumptions and postulations. They claim that metaphysical assertions are nonsensical and as such should be committed to the ames because they contain sophistry and illusion. This paper concludes that despite these criticisms from the logical positivists, metaphysics as a science of being is very much relevant to humanity. The method to be adopted will be analytical, expository, and prescriptive.