Philosophers whose primary and best-known contribution concerns the fundamental nature of reality: being, substance, causation, universals, the mind-body relation broadly construed, cosmology and the nature of the self. Belongs here: philosophers principally remembered for an account of what there is and what grounds it, from the Presocratics through German Idealism, Vedanta, Neoplatonism and the foundational ontology of phenomenology. Does not belong here: philosophers whose central legacy is a theory of knowledge, grouped under Epistemology, of right action, grouped under Ethics, of valid inference, grouped under Logic, or of the state and political obligation, grouped under Political Philosophy, even where a metaphysical position underlies work better known in one of those fields.
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1. Metaphysics (Wikipedia)
WikipediaMetaphysics, lead section, Greek emergence sentence
In ancient Greece, metaphysics emerged in the 6th century BCE with the pre-Socratic philosophers, who gave rational explanations of the cosmos as a whole.
Metaphysics, lead section, Indian origin sentence
In ancient India, starting in the 7th century BCE, the Upanishads were written as religious and philosophical texts that examine how ultimate reality constitutes the ground of all being.
Metaphysics, lead section, Chinese origin sentence
At about the same time in ancient China, the school of Taoism was formed and explored the natural order of the universe.
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