Metaphysics

Use in the book

The contrast with logic calls metaphysics contemplation, views, and paintings when its practitioner writes. Its related characterization as half-poetry gives bodiless things transparent bodies. These are descriptions of its representational work, not claims that every metaphysical statement is knowingly fictional.

The preference for ingenuity in metaphysics and certainty in physics assigns different criteria to different kinds of inquiry. Yet metaphysical style can be condemned even when metaphysics itself is called beautiful. Discovering the meaning of a daily word may count as a major metaphysical discovery. These distinctions make language central while leaving room for criticism of abstractions that obscure rather than illuminate.

Places to read

1. I, p. 295, entry 2, ¶1Metaphysical contemplation differs from logical operation.
2. I, p. 289, entry 4, ¶1Half-poetry gives transparent bodies to the bodiless.
3. II, p. 745, entry 10, ¶1Metaphysics and physics receive different standards of preference.
4. II, p. 656, entry 1, ¶1The inquiry is distinguished from an objectionable style.
5. I, p. 468, entry 14, ¶1Discovery can mean fully understanding an everyday word.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves “ingenious,” “paintings,” and “transparent body.” The related problematic reading nations elsewhere in the corpus is not silently changed to notions; it belongs in the lexicon’s unresolved-readings apparatus, not in an invented definition.