Phil. 101 Metaphysics

Philosophy stemmed from the early Greek religions and myths, in search for answers to their questions about life. From early B.C. till today people still have questions about life and after-life, what is real and what is reality. Philosophy has dozens of subdivisions within it, one being metaphysics. Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, and within metaphysics there are three more divisions materialism, idealism, and hylemorphism. Each philosopher fits into one category more then others. I have chosen to write about Aristotle, Plato, and Histories because I feel they each fit into a category with little confusion as to where they belong in metaphysics. Materialism falls all the way on the left of the spectrum. Materialism is defined as all reality is only and ever matter. This is the mindset of nothing happens after death, or if the tree falls and no one hears it there is no sound. I interpreted this as a pessimistic, dull outlook because it left little room for imagination. As I read Aristotle’s piece Metaphysics’ it really opened my eyes to materialism. On page one he says, “ A sign of this is out liking for the senses; for even apart from their usefulness we like them for themselves—especially the sense of sight, since we choose seeing above practically all the others, not only as an aid to action, but also when we have no intention of acting.” If one were to

break this down Aristotle says we as humans use our senses not only for the innate purpose, the most used sense is sight because it helps when doing something or nothing at all. This quote showed materialism because I related it the tree falling, because no one used his or her senses to hear the tree fall therefore nothing happened when it fell. Aristotle explains that if one does not know if something is real by using his or her senses then it is nothing at all. Idealism lies on the right of the spectrum as far from materialism as possible. Idealism is defined, as all reality is only and