Metaphysics concerns the study of first principles of being (e.g. identity, change, space, time, causality, necessity, possibility). In other words, whereas physics studies the physical world, metaphysics is the study of the fundamental categories we use to make sense of the world in the first place. For example, Isaac Newton structured much of modern physics with his system of categories; Immanuel Kant revolutionized philosophy by attempting to think of these categories as structures of the mind; and Georg Hegel introduced a higher-order dialectical movement to these categories as features of a historical process.
Martin Heidegger, certainly one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, famously attempted to “overcome metaphysics”. Heidegger’s project is marked by “returning to Dasein” (or our being-in-the-world), claiming that all of Western philosophy had “forgotten being” under different “metaphysical regimes”. In our age Heidegger was convinced that metaphysics imposed a “techno-scientific-industrial” character onto our being-in-the-world. However, even Heidegger admitted that we must return to being-in-the-world only in order to be able to “begin anew” (metaphysics). In this discussion we seek such new beginnings, not only an affirmation of our being-in-the-world, but also a return to metaphysics.
