| ̷ ̷ ̷ ̷|fiziks, -zēks noun plural but usually singular in construction
Etymology: plural of metaphysic (I) ; rendering of Medieval Latin metaphysica, neuter plural, from Greek (ta) meta (ta) physika the (works) after the physics, the things after those relating to external nature; from the fact that this section of the collected works of Aristotle died 322 B.C. Greek philosopher was reputedly so designated by the editor, Andronicus of Rhodes fl 1st century B.C. Greek philosopher in Rome, because it came after the physics
1.
a.
(1) : a division of philosophy that includes ontology and cosmology
metaphysics … treats of the relations obtaining between the underlying reality and its manifestations — Fred Sommers
metaphysics … analyzes the generic traits manifested by existences of any kind — J.H.Randall
metaphysics , or the attempt to conceive the world as a whole by means of thought, has been developed, from the first, by the union and conflict of two very different human impulses, the one urging men towards mysticism, the other urging them towards science — Bertrand Russell
(2) : ontology and epistemology
metaphysics as a philosophic discipline … concerned with the nature of the real only so far as that problem is amenable to the reflective method — C.I.Lewis
(3) : ontology
b.
(1) : something that deals with what is beyond the physical or the experiential
(2) : the more abstruse philosophical sciences
the mathematics and the metaphysics , fall to them as you find your stomach serves you — Shakespeare
2. : metaphysic 2
differentiates between a theory of esthetic experience and a metaphysics of beauty — J.G.Brennan
each language … conceals a unique metaphysics — B.L.Whorf
erected a metaphysics on this fundamental antagonism of vitality or “Life” … and what he calls “Spirit” — V.C.Aldrich
3. : the Christian Science system of mental healing