1. The study of the basic structures of reality
Metaphysics
The study of the basic structures of reality

2. What is reality?
Why is there something and not nothing?
What is it to exist?
What is a being?
What is a person?
Am I Free?
Is there a supreme being?

3. Theories Common Sense Realism
What people perceive under ordinary conditions is reality.
Weakness in this argument – common sense is often driven by ignorance/laziness rather than by seeking the truth

4. Theories Idealism George Berkely 18th Century
Denies existence of material things
Reality is ideas and the minds that hold these ideas
Objects are ideas that God placed in humans

5. Theories Platonic Realism
Reality is ideal forms or ideas that are timeless, unchanging, immaterial, and more perfect than the world of changeable things

6. Theories Materialism or Physicalism Pre-Socratic Philosophers
Everything is physical; Reality consists of matter.
Matter – particles in motion and forces like gravity.

7. Theories Monism Reality is one all encompassing thing
All particular things are expressions of this one thing
Thing can be material or mental
Baruch Spinoza argued it could also be divine
String Theory – everything composed of one-dimensional strings of energy
Materialism and Idealism are Monists Theories

8. Theories Dualism Descartes
Reality consists of two things: Mind and Matter
Interactionism – Common version of Dualism
Mind and Body co-exist as separate entities
Epiphenomenalism – Mind is a byproduct of Body

9. Materialism versus Dualism
Man is simply an animal, and brains are simply chemical systems
Computers are humans?
Question of souls?
Dualism
Mental is separate from Physical
Mind and Soul can pre-exist the body and survive bodily death
Believe in afterlife, and paranormal