The problems that that definition may face are (i) is knowledge of the real possible (ii) what its distinction from science may be (iii) how and to what extent this and other conceptions of metaphysics have overlap that is sufficient to justify this definition.

The narrative addresses these problems in detail. Here, I will address them briefly.

One form of skepticism is to deny the possibility of knowledge altogether (this form is called Pyrrhonic skepticism). A response is that if there is no knowledge at all, then given that we do have some success using what we think of as knowledge, surely there is something wrong with the conception of knowledge employed. A first observation is that with sufficient abstraction, there is perfect knowledge. For example, I know that there is consciousness and that there is a world even if it is only that of consciousness itself. Here the abstraction is that we are not distinguish kinds of consciousness or between consciousness and the world. But even where knowledge is imperfect on some criterion, we may consider it to be pragmatic. What we will find is that the perfect (e.g., according to correspondence criteria) and the pragmatic mesh to constitute an ultimate metaphysics, which is perfect according to emergent criteria that are a combination of the epistemic and the valuational (ethical and aesthetic).

Two approaches to metaphysics may be recognized. One is the speculative approach of A. N. Whitehead in his Process and Reality—he posits a metaphysical system and proposes to compare it with experience. The speculative approach is rather like the hypothesis, deduction, and comparison with observation (‘hypothetico-deductive’) approach of science. Since it is posited, agreement of results with what we see, suggests but does not confirm that the foundation is ‘real’ (i.e., true, and perfect knowledge). A second is to have a real foundation, e.g., as noted above, via abstraction. The result is perfect according to correspondence criteria; this is the beginning of a metaphysics that is real in contrast to being speculative. We find the abstract framework needs to be supplemented as described in the previous paragraph; and that when appropriately supplemented, the result is (here called) real metaphysics, which is perfect according to dual epistemic-valuational criteria. Both speculative metaphysics and science could be seen (and will be) part of the pragmatic side of real metaphysics (this does two things—it shows distinctions between science and speculative metaphysics on the one hand and real metaphysics on the other; and it shows speculative metaphysics and hypothetico-deductive science to be better than merely speculative).

Let us now compare the present conception of metaphysics with received conceptions with regard to their nature and content. Let us first address the question of the nature of the conceptions. If we take the received notion of metaphysics to be “study or knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality” we may note that without clear conceptions of knowledge and reality, the received notion is indefinite. Now, that is problematic because if they are adequate, conceptions of knowledge and of reality will be interdependent. We respond to that problem (i) as far as the present and received notions are vague, there is a clear overlap between “knowledge of the real” and “knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality”, for true knowledge of the real ought to include knowledge of the fundamental nature of reality (ii) it has already been seen how to patch the indefiniteness in our definition of metaphysics in a manner that includes “knowledge of the fundamental-and-pragmatic nature of reality”.

We now address content. The contents of received metaphysics include (from Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) (a) ancient metaphysics up to the time of Kant—“Being as such, first causes, unchanging things; categories of being and universals; substance;” (b) the “new” metaphysics—"modality; space and time; persistence and constitution; causation, freedom, and determinism; the mental and physical; social metaphysics;” (note that above article discusses whether these topics are metaphysics or science, but that is largely a discussion of academic rather than fundamental division) (c) some newer topics (not from the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)—logic and knowledge of the real; everything and nothing (or the void and the universe); mereology as metaphysics; metaphysics and action; the weave of metaphysics with other topics usually considered to be the main branches of philosophy, i.e., epistemology, axiology (value theory), and logic.

Does our conception of metaphysics concern itself with the same content? Not a priori, but we will find that reasoning from the conception in combination with experience, does indeed lead to consideration of the topics #a and #b above (with considerable success) and more—it is similarly generative of #c.

A dialetheia is a sentence such that both the sentence and its negation are true. Dialetheism is the view that there are dialetheias.

Thus, a dialetheia is a true contradiction and dialetheism is the view that there are (some) true contradictions.

This essay begins with an account the place of dialetheism in my thought (https://www.horizons-2000.org).

Then, the document will (i) introduce dialetheism, pointing out some of its apparent problems—the apparent absurdity and the problem that in standard propositional logic, a dialetheia implies that all statements are true (and false), (ii) defuse the problems in an analysis that will suggest that all dialetheias result from suppressing distinctions or introducing distinctions when there are not any, (iii) take up a range of examples of dialetheias and uses of dialethism—as further examples to extend the analyses and to show the uses of dialetheism, (iv) raise the question of whether reality is contradictory, i.e., of whether absolute dialetheism (thought about the entire real must be dialetheic) holds, i.e., whether there are dialetheias whose dialetheic quality cannot be resolved by making sufficient distinctions (relative dialetheism will be the view that there are dialetheias, whose dialethic quality can be resolved), (v) suggest that absolute dialetheism does not hold, but that relative dialetheism does hold, and that its study may be useful (one might say that reality is relatively contradictory but that would have nowhere near the significance of absolute contradictoriness).

This is a short treatment of dialetheias and dialetheism—an adjunct to the essential way of being. For sources and further discussion of dialetheism, see the little manual (this site, has a treatment of paraconsistent logic), Dialetheism - Wikipedia, and Dialetheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), which have further references.

Overview

Though the introduction argued in terms of metaphysics as “true knowledge of the real” (‘true’ is implicit in ‘knowledge’), an article on general metaphysics ought to take a neutral approach. But what is a neutral approach? Here, we consider it to be consideration of all good approaches from neutral to committed (and we will find that a good approach includes commitment without over or distorted commitment).