The Great Courses - Exploring Metaphysics - David Kyle Johnson, Ph.D.

Ph.D., David Kyle Johnson

Category: Education

Narrator: Ph.D.

Tags: Education, Documentary, Misc. Non-fiction

What comes to mind when you hear the word metaphysics? Forget the ancient philosophers and ivory tower professors pontificating on irrelevant abstractions. The truth is, while metaphysics is among the oldest strands of philosophical thoughtan inquiry into the very nature of realitymetaphysics is also on the cutting edge of todays scientific discoveries., Physicist and Great Courses professor Sean Carroll explains the relationship between metaphysics and science this way: Philosophers are very good at uncovering inconsistencies or mistakes in the kinds of causal heuristic understanding that scientists are often willing to accept. So for a physicist like me, philosophers can be very helpful in explaining what the problems are in our current versions of quantum mechanics, or in the origin of the arrow of time, or the nature of probability, or what counts as an explanation., Metaphysics, then, is an applied philosophy, a tool for thinking through concerns in a wide range of other disciplin