The science of real as distinguished from phenomenal being; ontology; also, the science of being, with reference to its abstract and universal conditions, as distinguished from the science of determined or concrete being; the science of the conceptions and relations which are necessarily implied as true of every kind of being; philosophy in general; first principles, or the science of first principles.
“Commonly, in the schools, called metaphysics, as being part of the philosophy of Aristotle, which hath that for title; but it is in another sense: for there it signifieth as much as “books written or placed after his natural philosophy.” But the schools take them for “books of supernatural philosophy;” for the word metaphysic will bear both these senses.”
— Hobbes.
“Now the science conversant about all such inferences of unknown being from its known manifestations, is called ontology, or
metaphysics proper.”
— Sir W. Hamilton.
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Metaphysics are [is] the science which determines what can and what can not be known of being, and the laws of being, a priori.”
— Coleridge.