Quotes About Metaphysics

Whatever begins to exist has a cause; the universe began to exist; therefore, the universe has a cause"). Second

In The Sound of Music, when Captain Von Trapp and Maria reveal their love for each other, what does Maria say? "Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could." We don't normally think of philosophical principles as romantic, but Maria was here expressing a fundamental principle of classical metaphysics.

The first question which should rightly be asked is: Why is there something rather than nothing?"[1]

Leibniz's reasoning: 1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence. 2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. 3. The universe exists.

El tiempo no transcurre. Otros tiempos son, simplemente, casos especiales de otros universos.

On the whole, their message to their students remained steady: that science was good and metaphysics was bad. As Neurath put it to Feigl in 1938, "what we have in common will remain; as products of their time, the differences will fade.

How can anything that exists from eternity have a cause, since that relation implies a priority in time and a beginning of existence?

The beginning of motion in matter itself is as conceivable a priori as its communication from mind and intelligence.

metaphysics by showing that these theories are not just false, but unintelligible.

If only one can could know the essential natures of things, one might discover the ultimate reasons why they behave as they do: for the essential nature or essence of anything... if only it were truly adequate, all the behavioural properties of that thing must follow necessarily.

Así, cuando afirmamos que Dios existe nos formamos simplemente la idea de un ser tal como nos es presentado, y la existencia que le atribuimos no es concebida por una idea particular que unamos a la idea de sus otras cualidades y que pueda nuevamente ser separada y distinguida de ellas.

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.

In God alone, essence (what He is) and existence (that he is) coincide.

God, freedom, and immortality are untenable in the light of pure reason.

That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it.

Every substance is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God.

God, great principle of all minor principles, God, who is Himself without a principle, could not conceive Himself, if, in order to do it, He required to know His own principle.

God should not be called an individual substance, since the principle of individuation is matter.

God is not described in equations.

God will not take shelter behind a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither a schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in Heaven.

Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited.

The existence of a prime mover- nothing can move itself; there must be a first mover. The first mover is called God.