api: YAML JSON TOON Database
version: 1.0.0
format: json
dataset:
  slug: metaphysics-concepts
  title: Metaphysics Concepts
  description: Fundamental concepts in metaphysics.
  summary: "Fundamental concepts about what exists and how it is structured: ontology, causality, free will, determinism, identity and possible worlds, plus substance, universals, time, the mind-body problem, essence, personal identity, materialism, idealism and emergence."
  use_when[2]: You need a precise definition of a metaphysical term.,"You are following a debate about mind, time or causation."
  caveats[2]: "Each concept is the subject of competing theories; the definitions state the question, not its resolution.",Metaphysical terms are used with different meanings across traditions and periods.
  related[4]: epistemology-terms,major-philosophers,philosophical-traditions,quantum-mechanics-basics
  category: Philosophy
  category_slug: philosophy
  tags: "philosophy,metaphysics,ontology"
  view_count: 0
  entry_count: 16
  fields[2]{section,field,type,example}:
    data,concept,string,Ontology
    data,description,string,Study of being and existence.
data[16]{concept,description}:
  Ontology,Study of being and existence.
  Causality,Relationship between cause and effect.
  Free Will,Capacity to choose between alternatives.
  Determinism,All events are determined by prior causes.
  Identity,What makes an entity the same over time.
  Possible Worlds,Framework for analyzing necessity and possibility.
  Substance,"What underlies and persists through the changes of a thing; classically, an entity that exists in its own right."
  Universals and Particulars,Universals are properties that can be shared (redness); particulars are individual things.
  Time,Debated between the A-theory (the present is special and time passes) and the B-theory (all times are equally real).
  Mind-Body Problem,"How mental states relate to physical states, with answers such as dualism, physicalism and idealism."
  Essence and Accident,An essential property is one a thing cannot lose and remain what it is; an accidental one it can.
  Personal Identity,"What makes a person the same over time: body, memory, psychological continuity or something else."
  Materialism,The view that everything that exists is physical or depends on the physical.
  Idealism,The view that reality is fundamentally mental or dependent on mind.
  Emergence,The idea that complex wholes have properties not found in their parts.
  Modality,"The study of necessity and possibility: what must be, what might be and what could have been."