noun. The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.

noun. The theoretical or first principles of a particular discipline.

noun. A priori speculation upon questions that are unanswerable to scientific observation, analysis, or experiment.

noun. Excessively subtle or recondite reasoning.

noun. The science of the inward and essential nature of things.

noun. [Used frequently with the definite article, and generally connected with unpleasant associations, as being a study very dry and at the same time of doubtful truth.

noun. Philosophy in general; especially, the philosophical study of mind; psychology: so used from the time of Descartes, and especially by the Scotch school.

noun. In the Kantian terminology, the science of God, freedom, and immortality. Abbreviated metaphysics

noun. The science of real as distinguished from phenomenal being; ontology; also, the science of being, with reference to its abstract and universal conditions, as distinguished from the science of determined or concrete being; the science of the conceptions and relations which are necessarily implied as true of every kind of being; philosophy in general; first principles, or the science of first principles.

noun. The scientific knowledge of mental phenomena; mental philosophy; psychology.

noun. The branch of philosophy which studies fundamental principles intended to describe or explain all that is, and which are not themselves explained by anything more fundamental; the study of first principles; the study of being insofar as it is being (ens in quantum ens).

noun. The view or theory of a particular philosopher or school of thinkers concerning the first principles which describe or explain all that is.

noun. Any fundamental principles or rules.

noun. The study of a supersensual realm or of phenomena which transcend the physical world.

noun. Displeasingly abstruse, complex material on any subject.

noun. Plural of countable senses of metaphysic.

noun. the philosophical study of being and knowing