Editing Metaphysics (section)

== <span style="color: #FFFFFF;">Remembering</span> ==
* '''Metaphysics''' — The philosophical study of the fundamental nature of reality; includes ontology, the study of being.
* '''Ontology''' — The study of what exists and what kinds of entities there are; a subdiscipline within metaphysics.
* '''Substance''' — A fundamental, independently existing entity; what persists through change.
* '''Property''' — A feature or characteristic of a substance; the redness of a rose, the mass of an electron.
* '''Universals''' — Properties, relations, or kinds that can be shared by multiple particulars; the debate: do they exist independently?
* '''Nominalism''' — The view that only particulars exist; universals are mere names or conceptual categories.
* '''Realism (metaphysical)''' — The view that some entities (universals, numbers, moral facts) exist independently of minds.
* '''Mind-body problem''' — The puzzle of how mental states relate to physical states; arguably the deepest problem in metaphysics.
* '''Dualism''' — The view that mind and matter are fundamentally distinct substances; Descartes.
* '''Physicalism (materialism)''' — The view that everything that exists is physical or supervenes on the physical.
* '''Identity theory''' — Mental states are identical to brain states; pain IS a particular neural firing pattern.
* '''Functionalism''' — Mental states are defined by their functional roles (inputs, outputs, relations to other states), not by their physical substrate.
* '''Causation''' — The relation between cause and effect; accounts include: regularity theory, counterfactual theory, necessitation.
* '''Modality''' — Concerned with possibility and necessity; modal logic; possible worlds semantics.
* '''Possible worlds''' — Philosophical device for analyzing possibility and necessity; David Lewis's modal realism.
* '''Personal identity''' — What makes a person the same person over time; psychological continuity vs. biological continuity.
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