Metaphysics: Indian, Western, and Scientific Perspectives

Vocabulary practice flashcards defining core concepts, philosophical schools, theories of reality, and scientific perspectives covered in the Metaphysics lecture.

Metaphysics

The branch of philosophy that seeks answers to fundamental questions such as 'What is?' and investigates the nature of the ultimate reality or 'Sat'.

Ultimate Reality (Sat)

That which exists independently, is not created, and exists in itself; discovered at the end of the process of tracing the origin of everything that exists.

Substance (Dravya)

The substratum of qualities, relations, and quantities that exists independently and persists forever, even if its qualities, quantities, or relations change.

Panchamahabhuta

The five basic elements recognized in Indian philosophy—earth, water, fire, air, and ether—out of whose combinations the material world is formed (accepted by all major schools except Charvaka).

Materialism

The metaphysical doctrine asserting that the fundamental nature of the universe is physical and non-conscious, and that consciousness is merely a by-product of matter.

Charvaka Darshana

A nastika school that advocates materialism and pluralism, holding that the universe is produced solely from the interactions of four material elements (earth, water, fire, and air) without any creator or independently existing soul.

Jiva and Ajiva

The two fundamental categories in Jaina philosophy: Jiva represents living substances possessing consciousness, while Ajiva represents non-living substances devoid of consciousness.

Pudgala

In Jaina philosophy, inseparable particles of matter (atoms) that constitute physical objects, bodies of living beings, mind, speech, and breath.

Four Noble Truths

The core Buddhist doctrine consisting of Dukkha (life is full of suffering), Samudaya (there is a cause of suffering), Nirodha (cessation of suffering is possible), and Magga (path leading to cessation of suffering).

Pratityasamutpada

The Buddhist theory of dependent origination formulating the second Noble Truth, stating that the existence of everything depends on certain conditions or causes, and nothing exists without a cause.

Kshanabhangavada

The Buddhist theory of impermanence emerging from Pratityasamutpada, maintaining that nothing is permanent or eternal because all things depend on conditions, making change the essential characteristic of reality.

Paramanu (Vaisheshika)

Eternal, indivisible, and imperishable particles of earth, water, fire, and air; their integration creates perishable material objects, and their disintegration causes object destruction.

Sata-Padartha

The seven categories of reality formulated in Vaisheshika metaphysics: Dravya (substance), Guna (quality), Karma (action), Samanya (generality), Vishesha (particularity), Samavaya (inherence), and Abhava (non-existence).

Abhava

The seventh category of reality in Vaisheshika philosophy; a relative and negative category representing non-existence, absence, or 'what is not'.

Purusha (Sankhya)

The inactive, infinite, and eternal spiritual principle of pure consciousness in Sankhya philosophy, possessing no trace of matter and existing beyond the physical world.

Prakriti

The eternal and infinite material principle in Sankhya philosophy characterized by change, activity, creation, and destruction, constituted by the equilibrium of three Gunas.

Three Gunas

The constituent principles of Prakriti in Sankhya: Sattva (purity, knowledge, harmony), Rajas (activity, energy, passion), and Tamas (inertia, darkness, ignorance).

Brahman

The one and only ultimate reality pervading the universe in Advaita Vedanta; an unchanging, eternal, formless, and attributeless (nirguna) consciousness.

Maya

In Advaita Vedanta, the grand illusion that causes the empirical world of change, plurality, and diversity to appear real during the waking state.

Three Levels of Reality (Advaita Vedanta)

Adi Shankaracharya's classification of reality into Pratibhasika Sat (dream reality), Vyavaharika Sat (empirical waking reality), and Paramarthika Sat (ultimate reality that never proves unreal).

Parmenides' Monism

The pre-Socratic monist doctrine that reality is one, complete, permanent, and eternal; it rejects motion, change, time, and distinctions because they depend on non-being or empty space, which cannot exist.

Heraclitus' Theory of Reality

The pre-Socratic monist view that constant change and impermanence are the essence of reality, symbolized by fire and the river metaphor, where stability and harmony emerge from the strife of opposites.

Love and Hate (Empedocles)

The two fundamental cosmic forces in Empedocles' philosophy: attraction (love), which causes the four elements to integrate (creation), and repulsion (hate), which causes them to disintegrate (destruction).

Democritus' Atomism

The materialist view that nature consists exclusively of Being (infinite, soft, round, dynamic atoms) and Non-Being (void/empty space), evolving mechanically without intention or purpose.

World of Forms (Ideas)

Plato's intelligible realm of eternal, unchanging, non-spatial, and non-temporal essences or universals known through reason, upon which the empirical world of sensible objects depends as copies or shadows.

Substance (Aristotle)

The central category in Aristotle's metaphysics, regarded as the primary category of being in which all changes take place, except the fundamental changes of creation and destruction.

Cogito ergo sum

Rene Descartes' foundational indubitable principle ('I think, therefore I am') established via the method of doubt, proving the certain existence of the thinking mind ('I').

Cartesian Dualism

The metaphysical doctrine of Rene Descartes holding that reality consists of two independent created substances with opposite attributes: corporeal substance (matter/body in space and time) and incorporeal substance (mind/consciousness not in space and time).

Deus sive natura

Spinoza's Latin phrase meaning 'God or Nature', expressing his monist view that Substance is a single, limitless, infinite, and eternal reality comprising everything in existence.

Pantheism (Spinoza)

The philosophical doctrine held by Spinoza that 'All is God' and 'God is All', asserting that one single divine principle pervades the universe and all existing entities.

Monads (Leibniz)

Simple, indestructible, immortal, formless, and 'windowless' centers of force possessing a primary level of consciousness, serving as the ultimate spiritual building blocks of Leibniz's pluralistic idealism.

Three Kinds of Monads

Leibniz's hierarchy of substances: bare or naked monads (inorganic matter), soul monads (animals with sensing and feeling capacity), and spirit monads (humans possessing reason and abstract thought).

Pre-established Harmony

Leibniz's concept stating that God arranged and synchronized all monads from the beginning, creating the world as the best possible world without direct interaction between individual monads.

The Absolute (Hegel)

Hegel's ultimate reality: a single, non-material, dynamic, rational pure consciousness that manifests itself in matter and evolves to realize all dormant potentialities.

Dialectics (Hegel)

The evolutionary pattern of reality in Hegel's philosophy moving through the conflict of opposites, progressing sequentially from thesis to antithesis and finally resolving into synthesis.

Scientific View of Reality

The modern scientific formulation wherein reality consists of particles (atoms, molecules, ions, photons) generating four fundamental forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, two sub-nuclear), summarized by the formula $\text{Reality} = \text{Energy} = \text{Motion of particles}$.