Letters from Tomis

Sixth in a series of reflections on my thoughts after reading What is Marxism: An Introduction into Marxist Theory by Rob Sewell and Alan Woods. The thoughts, opinions, and any errors are mine alone.

The term metaphysical carries with it an air of intrigue and grandeur, evoking images of cloistered philosophers debating the nature of existence or poets plumbing the depths of the human soul. Yet for all its evocative power, the word suffers from a troubling vagueness. Like many concepts that skirt the boundaries of philosophy, religion, and aesthetics, it has been conscripted into the service of countless ideologies, often with little regard for clarity or coherence. If we are to take the term seriously—and there is good reason to do so—we must first disentangle it from the clutter of mysticism and muddled thinking that so often surrounds it.

Etymologically, metaphysical derives from the Greek meta ta physika, meaning “beyond the physical.” The term was coined not by Aristotle himself, but by his editors, who used it to refer to those of his works that dealt with first principles—the fundamental nature of reality, causality, and existence itself. It is a curious irony that this term, born of systematic inquiry, should now be so frequently associated with the fuzzy realm of the esoteric.

Let us begin, then, by rescuing metaphysics from its contemporary caricatures. Properly understood, the term refers to questions that transcend the empirical—the realm of what can be observed, measured, and tested. What is the nature of being? Is there a purpose to existence? What, if anything, lies beyond the material universe? These are not scientific questions, for science deals with phenomena that can be systematically observed and falsified. Yet they are not meaningless, as some reductive materialists would have us believe. They are, rather, the questions that define our uniquely human capacity for abstract thought.

But here we encounter a pitfall. To say that a question is metaphysical is not to grant it immunity from skepticism or rigorous analysis. On the contrary, the history of metaphysics is a history of intellectual triumphs—and, just as often, spectacular follies. Consider the grand systems of the pre-modern philosophers, from Plato’s ideal forms to the medieval scholastics’ intricate theological cosmologies. These were undoubtedly metaphysical endeavors, but they were also, in many respects, exercises in overreach. By positing unverifiable realms or principles, they risked creating more questions than answers.

The scientific revolution, and later the Enlightenment, brought a necessary corrective. Figures like David Hume and Immanuel Kant subjected metaphysical claims to merciless scrutiny, exposing the limits of reason and the dangers of speculation. Hume’s radical empiricism reminded us that our knowledge of the world is mediated by experience, while Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason delineated the boundaries of what we can know versus what we can merely imagine. These were not rejections of metaphysics but refinements of it—attempts to discipline the metaphysical impulse without extinguishing it.

Yet the metaphysical impulse persists, as it must. Even in our age of scientific triumphalism, certain questions stubbornly resist empirical resolution. What is consciousness? Is it merely a product of neural processes, or does it point to something more elusive? Is the universe infinite, or does it have a boundary—and if so, what lies beyond it? Does moral truth exist independently of human minds, or is it a social construct? These are metaphysical questions, not because they lack answers, but because their answers, if they exist, do not readily lend themselves to the methods of science.

It is here, I think, that the term metaphysical reveals its true significance. It is not merely a label for the unobservable or the ineffable. Rather, it designates a category of inquiry that challenges us to think beyond the constraints of immediate experience. It is a reminder of the vastness of our ignorance and the audacity of our curiosity. The metaphysical does not ask us to believe without evidence; it asks us to consider what evidence itself might mean.

Of course, this openness to the metaphysics has its dangers. The human mind, as we know all too well, has a tendency to fill gaps in knowledge with comforting fictions. Religion, in particular, has often claimed the metaphysical as its exclusive domain, offering us unprovable assertions about gods, souls, and afterlives in place of genuine inquiry. This is not metaphysics but its negation—a retreat into dogma rather than an exploration of the unknown.

The true spirit of metaphysical inquiry, then, is one of disciplined wonder. It is the recognition that there are questions worth asking even when answers elude us, that the limits of knowledge are not the limits of thought. It is, if I may borrow a term from Spinoza, an amor fati—a love of the fate that binds us to the mysteries of existence.

In this sense, the metaphysical is not a realm apart from the physical but an extension of it. To inquire into the metaphysics is not to deny the material world but to seek its deeper implications. It is to ask, in the most profound sense, not just what is but what could be. And in this endeavor, we find not only the roots of philosophy but the essence of our humanity.

So let us reclaim metaphysics, not as a refuge for superstition but as a challenge to our intellects and our imaginations. For in confronting the great questions of existence, we do not diminish ourselves—we affirm our place in the grand, bewildering drama of being.