You are Not Agnostic

Hey there, Internet.

We need to have conversation about the problem of agnostic atheism. It seems to me that a large number of secular atheists are identifying strongly with the agnostic label, and they tend to do so with an unsettling degree of devotion. Agnosticism, they say, is the only rational response to the question of God's existence, and only an arrogant philosophical pleb would ever dare to think otherwise. That reputation, however, is not deserved at all, and we're not doing ourselves any favors by letting such a flimsy, dogmatic perception continue to go unchallenged.

Think of it like this. How many times have you heard the popular marketing slogan, “this beverage contains all natural ingredients?” What exactly does that mean? It certainly feels enticing at first glance, doesn't it? I certainly don't want a bunch of dirty, poisonous chemicals in my drinks. But what exactly are they trying to say? Because last time I checked, anything made of physically material stuff is technically “natural” isn't it? All atoms in the known universe are supposedly part of the natural world, and so it seems somewhat trivial for any beverage to claim all-natural ingredients.

Or maybe that's not really what the phrase means? For example, one could try to argue that "all natural" is only meant to imply that no human beings were involved in the physical mixing or assembly of its ingredients. But even that interpretation fails to make any sense, because now the claim becomes outright false. Unless you’re literally bottling the pure, unfiltered water of, say, Atlantic Ocean itself, then anything you do to it after the fact is technically “unnatural.” And even if you did, in fact, do exactly that for some reason, it would hardly be worth drinking, don't you think? Just because something is natural, that doesn't automatically make it healthy.

And that's the philosophical problem with agnostic atheism. At best, it is so trivial as to be meaningless to even say out loud. At worst, it is just flat-out wrong, and it only looks foolish to keep defending it so confidently.

I realize this conversation is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable, and that’s exactly why we need to talk about it. The philosophy of agnostic atheism is not sacred, and it's practically oozing with deep, logical flaws. Yet every time I try to explain this stuff to a typical agnostic crowd, they always seem to react with an angry defensiveness that borders on outright fanaticism. I haven’t even begun to articulate the arguments yet, and I can already feel the childish onslaughts of insults, character assassinations, and straw men heading my way. So before we get started with the actual meat of this presentation, I can’t help but feel compelled to remind everyone of how a proper philosophical analysis works.

Agnosticism, at the end of the day, is just a word. It is not an identity, it is not an ideology, and it is not a way of life. It is a label that we can either choose, or not choose, to describe ourselves with. Presumably, you might describe yourself as an agnostic atheist because it reasonably articulates your personal stance on the subject of God. That's fine. If, however, such a label were to imply certain logical absurdities of which you were unaware, then surely you would like to know about them, wouldn’t you? No one wants to run around spreading confused misinformation, and I would like to think that agnostic atheists are no exception. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to explain the many philosophical problems with agnostic atheism so that we can stop confusing each other with bad ideas. I promise, if you’ll just indulge me for a few moments and think honestly about the arguments, you’ll begin to see that agnostic atheism is not the rigorous philosophical concept that popular influencers would have you believe.

Right then. Think we can call get on board with that? Great. Now let’s kick things off by asking ourselves a very simple question:

What exactly does it mean to call yourself an agnostic atheist?

Well, for starters, everyone knows that word itself---agnostic---simply means "without knowledge." Thus, at first glance, it would appear that agnosticism suggests a kind of personal uncertainty. That is to say, to call yourself an agnostic atheist is to simply say that, while you may personally believe there is no God, you also lack the confidence to claim knowledge of that proposition. Indeed, that is exactly how many popular atheists tend to describe themselves in public spaces. Rather than just deny God's existence outright, we routinely hear atheists claiming to merely "lack belief." Knowledge, in their view, has not yet been sufficiently justified, and so they practically bend over backwards to emphasize this idea of not knowing for certain that God isn't real. It would all be perfectly fine and reasonable, too, if not for one little problem. This entire premise is nothing but a gigantic lie!

It's important to understand that agnostic atheists are not casually shrugging their shoulders and expressing a personal mental state. They'd like you to think that's what they're doing, and they sometimes even express it in those exact terms. If, however, you actually pay attention, then it quickly becomes clear that agnostic atheists are making a sweeping declaration about the fundamental limits of knowledge itself. It's a textbook example of the classic logical fallacy known as the Motte and Bailey. The motte, in this instance, is the subjective lack of confidence---I don't believe in any God's existence, but I also can't prove that fact with any certainty. If, however, you ask them to elaborate on that position in further detail, then the agnostic will immediately transition to an indefensible bailey---absolutely no one can know "for sure" there is no God, because the very proposition itself is fundamentally impossible to prove.

Don't believe me? It's all right there in their own, self-professed arguments. Take, for example, the famous agnostic scholar, Dr. Bart Ehrman [Ehrman, 2021],

"... agnosticism is a statement about epistemology---that is, about what a person knows. Do I know whether there is a God in the multiverse?  Nope.  I really don’t.  How could I know?  I’m just a peon on a very big planet, circling around a very big star, which is one of some 100 billion stars in this galaxy, which is only one of anywhere from 100 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in this universe, which may be only one of trillions (infinite number?) of universes. So, well, I don’t have a broad perspective on the question. So I don’t know. I’m agnostic."

In other words, the world is a really big place, and we have yet to scour every last nook and cranny of the entire physical universe (and beyond). It therefore stands to reason that, until someone finally does exactly that, then no one can say with certainty that no gods exist. 

Blah, blah, blah, proving a negative, Russell's teapot, etc., etc... You know the routine.

I cannot stress enough that Bart Ehrman is hardly alone in this kind of thinking. Arguments like his are wildly popular among secular influencers, and they seem to encompass the sum total of all philosophical justification for agnostic atheism [Russel, 1953, Goad, 2010, Henriques, 2014]. So let's dig a little deeper and ask ourselves right now:

Is it really that difficult to prove a universal negative?

In other words, must we honestly perform an exhaustive search of the entire multiverse itself before we can finally claim knowledge about the non-existence of things?

I invite you to consider the following thought experiment.

Suppose I were to tell you that, buried somewhere deep in the vast piles of United States mail, there exists an envelope containing a perfectly rendered depiction of a square-circle. As in, literally, a Euclidean plane figure that is simultaneously a four-sided polygon of equal lengths and a smooth curve consisting of all points that are equidistant from a reference. Ask yourself right now. Does such a thing exist? Yes or no?

Obviously, the correct answer is NO. But why? How can we possibly know that? Did we personally inspect every last piece of mail throughout the entire United States Postal Service (and beyond)? Or is there perhaps some other way to arrive that such conclusions?

The answer, it turns out, lies in pure, logical deduction. The definitional properties of squares and circles are mutually incompatible. We can therefore immediately declare, with absolute logical certainty, that square-circles do not exist. We can do all of this entirely from the comfort of our own armchairs, simply by analyzing the meaning of the words themselves.

Notice that this declaration has nothing whatsoever to do with the world, per se, but everything to do with language and definitions. When I declare that no pieces of paper can accurately depict a square-circle, I'm not bragging about my personal exploration through an entire universe's worth of envelopes. Rather, what I'm really saying is that the rules of language and logic prevent me from describing any actual thing in those terms. You show me a picture of literally anything, and there is no logically consistent way for me to affirm that such a thing is both a square and a circle.

Notice also that we can even extend this kind of reasoning to empirically falsifiable claims. For example, suppose I were to tell you that there exists a magical postal service that instantly teleports all United States mail to its destination. All you have to do is follow the specified procedure. Simply place your letter on a desk, then twinkle your nose, rub your belly, and wish upon a star. Do that, and your letter will actually teleport immediately to its destination.

Don't believe me? Try it yourself!

Oh, what's that? You mean it didn't work as I said? Well golly! I guess that means no such service exists, don't you think? My existence claim has therefore been reasonably falsified, wouldn't you say?

So yes, my agnostic friends, we can indeed "know" that certain things don't exist, even if the universe happens to be really big. It therefore stands to reason that, if the idea of God were likewise defined by incoherent or falsifiable properties, then we can likewise "know" that no such being exists, either.

And boy howdy, is God ever so rife with all kinds of logical and empirical absurdities! Here's just a few off the top of my head:

• The omnipotence paradox
• The problem of evil and suffering
• The problem of divine hiddenness
• The problem of omniscience and free will
• The problem of the trinity
• The problem of necessary existence
• The problem of substance dualism
• The Euthyphro Dilemma
• The problem of immaterial beings
• The problem of supernatural beings
• The problem of Hell
  

We can do this all day. Any time someone tries to talk about God in the traditional monotheistic sense, they are basically speaking gibberish. We can absolutely conclude with the highest philosophical confidence that such a God does not exist. The foundational premise of agnostic atheism is therefore completely wrong, and demonstrably so.

"But wait!" I'm sure some of you are saying. "That only disproves the existence of some gods. You still haven't disproved the existence of every conceivable God in human imagination. For all you know, there could still exist a nebulous form of higher power that possesses many approximations to the properties we associate with God. Therefore, you don't know for sure that no God exists."

Okay... That may technically be true, but it's not exactly the philosophical flex you think it is. The moment anyone resorts to this kind of rhetoric, they have effectively conceded the entire argument. It's an open admission that we can, in fact, know with rigorous logical certainty, that certain variations of God are most definitely not real. And since that already includes the singular deity of classical monotheism, the debate is officially settled. Nobody builds churches in honor to the nebulous higher powers what may or may not be hiding somewhere in the outer reaches of the Virgo galactic supercluster. They worship at the altars of El, Allah, Abba, and Yahweh, plus all of the traditional variations and derivatives thereof. So if that isn't the concept of God you're referring to in your agnostic atheism, then I honestly have no idea what the hell you're even talking about---and frankly, neither does anyone else. The very argument itself is nothing but a gigantic fallacy of equivocation and moving goal posts.

"But wait again!" I hear people saying. "Those mysterious higher powers are important to me, dammit! Unless you can decisively prove the nonexistence of every possible variation of deity to ever to arise from human imagination (and beyond), then I can't say for sure that no such entities exist. Therefore, I must still describe myself as an agnostic atheist. And frankly, if we're being honest with ourselves, so must you."

Sigh… seriously? Is that seriously the burden of proof you expect me to meet before finally elevating your belief to the status of knowledge? Because if that really is the road you want to go down, then I promise you, it will only end in madness. It all begins by asking yourself one simple question: 

Barring the usual logical inconsistencies and empirically falsifiable claims, can you name a single thing that you know does not exist?

Seriously. Anything at all. It could Santa Claus, leprechauns, vampires, or even the flying space monkeys of planet Neptune. Can you disprove the existence of any of these creatures, plus all of their logically possible variations? Yes or no?

This is a philosophical challenge that I like to call the Agnostic's Dilemma. No matter how you choose to answer, it doesn't work out well for the usual philosophy of agnostic atheism.

For instance, suppose your answer is "yes." We can indeed prove the nonexistence of certain creatures. That's great! Now please do me a favor and put together a comprehensive presentation of your analysis---say, for example, the definitive philosophical proof for the absolute nonexistence of unicorns. I shall then take your exact argument, scribble out the word "unicorn," and then replace it with the word "God." I guarantee, whatever argument you come up with, the logic will be equally valid in both cases. Therefore, by your very own standard of knowledge, we can indeed claim the same degree of certainty with respect to God.

Now consider the alternative answer, which is no, we cannot prove the nonexistence of anything. Then pray tell, my dear agnostic friends. What exactly does it mean to "know" anything at all? For all you know, there could exist an evil mad scientist who likes to keep brains in a special vat and subject them to a giant matrix-style simulation. For all you know, your own brain could be sitting in one of those vats right now, and your entire lived experience is nothing but an elaborate illusion. For all you know, your very own mother could be an NPC generated by a sophisticated computer algorithm. It's all technically possible, isn't it? We cannot know for sure that our entire world is nothing but a complete illusion, can we? The agnostic is therefore left with a serious problem. Until you figure out how to disprove the existence of the evil brain-in-a-vat mad scientist, you cannot claim to know anything whatsoever about the external world. As in, literally, you cannot claim to know anything about anything.

Congratulations, my wonderful agnostics friends! You officially discovered Cartesian skepticism. Well done. Give yourself a star! You're finally all caught up with the cutting edge of 17th century philosophy.

This is exactly why the philosophy of agnostic atheism grinds my gears. Proponents go out of their way to present themselves as these ultra-sophisticated philosophical thinkers, yet their entire concept of epistemology is stuck 400 years in the past. At best, agnostic atheism is merely ignorant, in that there are plenty of strong arguments with which to justify a confident knowledge claim. At worst, however, it is nothing but a death spiral into outright solipsism! If you cannot disprove the existence of the evil mad scientist, then the very idea of knowledge itself loses all meaning. The very same arguments used to justify agnostic atheism apply equally well to vampires, Santa Claus, flying space monkeys, and even your very own god-damned mother. 

Bear in mind now that I'm not saying this stuff to play "gotcha" with some obtuse technicality. Rather, I'm simply applying the very standard of knowledge that agnostics themselves are proposing. It is therefore kind of strange that I have never encountered a single human being who ever insisted on qualifying themselves as an agnostic avampirist, an agnostic motherist, an agnostic a-flying-space-monky-ist, or an agnostic a-mad-science-vat-brain-ist." Yet if nobody ever actually does that, then why exactly are agnostic atheists so hell-bent on making such ferocious exceptions for God? Either it applies equally well to every synthetic proposition you could ever hope to make, or God is just special somehow, and agnostics are pleading in his defense.

Fortunately, there's a perfectly simple solution to this entire metaphysical debacle. All we have to do is reevaluate the meaning of knowledge. So again, let's ask ourselves that same question we asked before:

What exactly does it mean to "know" anything at all? 

More to the point, must all synthetic propositions really defeat the problem of external-world skepticism before you'll finally assign them a confident truth value? Or, just maybe, can we perhaps bend the meaning of knowledge, just a little bit, so that it actually expresses something useful?

Allow me to now introduce you to the basic philosophy of science. It all begins by embracing the doctrine of philosophical skepticism. You will never, ever, "know" anything about the external world with infallible philosophical certainty. That is an insurmountable problem, and no one is ever going to solve it. Just accept that already and get over it. That being said, it is important to remind ourselves that nobody ever uses the word "knowledge" in that kind of absolute philosophical sense. Knowledge does not have to be perfectly infallibly inerrant before we can confidently declare it as such. All it means is that---God forbid---human knowledge is fallible, and we're just going to be wrong from time to time.

And that's okay!

It cannot be stressed enough that scientists are simply not interested in the assignment of arbitrary truth values to linguistic propositions. Rather, science is all about the generation of empirically predictive models. Nobody believes in the current laws physics out of respect for the capital-T "Truth." We believe them because they parsimoniously explain a wide body of prior empirical observations while simultaneously granting us the power to predict the consequences of our actions. We therefore choose to continue applying them for all future empirical predictions, and we are more than happy to stop applying them if/when something better happens to come along. That is what knowledge means in the scientific world, because it is the only conception of knowledge that actually does somethings useful. We therefore know the second law of thermodynamics is true, just as we also know that, in principle, it could all hypothetically get proven wrong tomorrow. Contrary to what wannabe internet philosophers may tell you, these two propositions are perfectly compatible.

Notice also how this is the exact same standard of knowledge that everyone implicitly utilizes throughout their daily lives. When you look both ways to cross the street, you don't stop to wonder if that speeding bus is merely an illusory concoction of some prankster demon. You accept the mandates of your prior experience, plus the empirically predictive models of high-speed collisions, and you confidently make your decisions accordingly. That is the closest thing to philosophical "knowledge" you are ever going to get in this world, so why not just bite the bullet and call it what it is? Pure, Gnostic knowledge!

This is why it is perfectly reasonable to claim knowledge of the fact that there is no such thing as God. It has nothing whatsoever with our ability to scour the furthest reaches of the multiverse (and beyond). It's because the idea of God has consistently failed to cohere into a meaningful concept, and it consistently fails to provide us with reliable empirical predictions. God therefore has no place in our predictive modeling of the natural world, and so we simply choose to leave Him out as a result.

Please understand that I'm not the one who created any of these philosophical absurdities with agnostic atheism. They were sitting there all along, just hiding within the idea itself. All I'm doing is pointing them out, and I'm hardly the first person to do so. Yet every time I try to have this conversation with a group of agnostics, they almost always react as if I just threatened to kick their puppies. They'll actually say asinine things as, "Stop forcing your beliefs on me!" or "why are you so intolerant and judgmental?" [Reddit, 2023]---as if merely analyzing a philosophical label were the emotional equivalent of a putting a gun to their heads! It's maddening, too, because agnostic atheists are the ones routinely talking shit about Gnostics, often describing them as a bunch of arrogant, unsophisticated, loud-mouth dummy heads [Rosenbaum, 2010].

One of my favorite examples of this attitude comes from the famous science educator Neil deGrass Tyson [Tyson, 2012]. When asked point-blank whether or not he considers himself an atheist, he explicitly went out of his way to identify as agnostic. He admits openly that he doesn't believe in any God or Gods, yet he simultaneously refuses to associate with the very label that means exactly that. In his own words, Tyson doesn't like the word "atheist" because all the atheists he knows are too "active" for his liking. And since Tyson is a popular science educator, he doesn't want his message to be tainted by the psychological baggage of the dirty atheist label.

And you know what? That's perfectly fine! It's meaningful, it's consistent, it's honest, and it finally tells us the real reason why agnostics are so ferociously defensive about their label. They're not trying to express a rigorous philosophical idea. Rather, they're just kowtowing to the emotional sensibilities of religious fanatics. When you go out to dinner with your ultra-conservative Christian family, the last thing you want to do is get them all riled up with your non-belief [Reddit, 2024]. After all, in the eyes of a typical true-believing Christian, it is intrinsically confrontational to express a confident knowledge claim against their cherished beliefs. If, however, you just say something timid about merely not being convinced, then it tends to come off as a lot more non-threatening, don't you think?

Which brings us to the final reason why agnostic atheism gets under my skin. For all the philosophical pomp surrounding it, agnosticism is essentially just an act of submissive placation to religious bullies. Organized religion only ever thrives in a social environment where fanatics get to impose their beliefs onto others without challenge. The last thing they want is for a bunch of atheists make it clear to the public that theological beliefs can, in fact, be rejected with rigorous confidence. Thus, to protect their fragile egos against the evils of secular doubt, philosophers of religion simply changed the very meaning of knowledge itself. Rather than base it on empirically predictive models supported by a preponderance of hard data, they just raised the bar so high as to render everything a matter of "faith." Thus, nonexistence claims can simply by dismissed out of hand as impossible to ever prove, and all Gnostic atheists are subsequently derided as the unsophisticated philosophical plebeians that they are. It's absurd, it's manipulative, it's controlling, and for some extraordinarily confusing reason, a large majority of the atheist community routinely goes along with it!

The comedian Steven Colbert once famously joked that, "agnostics are just atheists without balls," [Colbert, 2007] and frankly, there's a lot of truth in that statement. You worked so hard to tear yourself away from a coercive religious authority, only to then embrace a label that was implicitly shaped by them to placate their sensibilities. Words mean things, and the way you use them can say a lot about the forces that control you. You would never think twice about strongly affirming the gnostic nonexistence of Santa Claus and vampires, so what exactly is compelling you to fight so hard for God?

References:

• Colbert, Steven, "I am America, and So Can You," Grand Central Publishing, 1st edition (2007)
  
• Ehrman, Bart, "On Being an Agnostic Atheist," The Bart Ehrman Blog (2021) [link]
  
• Jim Goad, "Why I am Agnostic" (2010) [link]
• Russel, Bertrand, "What is an Agnostic?" [link]
• Henriques, Greg, "Why I am an Agnostic Atheist," Psychology Today (2014) [link
• "Why are there so many agnostics on this forum?" r/Exmormon (2023) [link]
• Rosenbaum, Ron, "An Agnostic Manifesto," Slate (2010) [link]
• Tyson, Neil DeGrass, "Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist or Agnostic?" Big Think (2012) [link]
• "Coming out as agnostic," r/Exmormon (2024) [link]
  

The Emperor's New Metaphysics

 If you make people think they are thinking, they will love you. If you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

Imagine getting a new job as the Chief Technology Officer for a big Silicon Valley startup corporation. In this new role, you are responsible for supervising various technical projects and tracking their schedules. In an effort to get settled, you decide to host a series of meetings with the individual teams. The goal for each team is simple: Tell me exactly what it is you do for this company. What projects are you working on? What kind of tasks are you responsible for? What value do you bring to our business that justifies paying you a salary?

At first, everything seems to go exactly as you would expect. Starting with the software team, you find a highly motivated group of engineers who write all of the code for company algorithms. They happily present you with a detailed portfolio of every project they've completed, every new feature they're working on, and all the value it brings to our customers.

Moving along, you next meet with the electrical team. Again, you find yourself impressed by their dedicated professionalism. They show you the lab they work in, the products they're developing, and the obstacles they're struggling to overcome. It's another talented team of skilled workers all coming together to innovate and solve problems.

And so it goes for meeting after meeting. Every group you talk to consists of well-trained professionals who collaborate in a focused effort to drive the company business model. It's all perfectly normal stuff, until you suddenly encounter a strange team known as the meta-engineers. It's a little startling at first, given that you've never heard of such a concept before. But then again, this is a highly innovative startup company. It is therefore only natural to feel some excitement about all amazing things they must be doing. Here's what they have to say: 

Well, to be honest, we're not really sure what we do. You just kind of have to do it for a while before it begins to make any sense. Broadly speaking, however, we explore the fundamental nature of business itself—business qua business, if you will. We seek to understand the underlying principles that govern our key performance indicators, as well as the essence of corporate synergy. We ask questions like, 'What is the true nature of a customer?' or 'Does a photocopy retain the same fundamental essence as the original?'

“Okay,” you say out loud. “But what exactly do you do for the company? What value do you bring? What sort of projects do you take ownership of, and how do you track their progress? What problems are you even solving? What results can you show for all the work you've been doing since you were hired?" 

We do meta-engineering for its own sake! Our work transcends the realm of petty material concerns like sales and profits. But rest assured, the entire company would absolutely fail if not for us. Why, those poor dumb engineers would be totally lost without the work we do. So don’t you dare lay any of us off. If anything, we should all get raises! 

Given such a scenario, what exactly do you think is the sensible business decision? Should you continue paying these guys to do whatever it is they do? Or should you fire them all on the spot and then allocate their resources elsewhere?

That may sound like a far-fetched scenario, but it really is a practical illustration of how metaphysics seems to operate as an academic institution. For centuries, prestigious philosophers have been dedicating their lives to the study of metaphysics, yet none of its greatest practitioners appear to have the slightest clue what it's even about. They take it as a point of pride that metaphysics has no tangible value, and they make no effort to hide their rejection of empirical data as a standard of merit. The questions they ask are often so vague as to be completely meaningless, and many of their greatest problems have already been settled by professionals in other fields. There’s even an ongoing debate within metaphysics itself over whether or not the field is actually worth pursuing in the first place. But then, despite all of these shortcomings, many of those very same authorities will have the audacity to promote metaphysics as (quite literally) the greatest thing ever—as if a study of metaphysics is the noblest of all human activities, and that all other fields of study would completely collapse without it [1,2,3,4,5].

It is difficult to overstate the significance of metaphysics within the broader context of academic philosophy. It is widely regarded as one of the core branches of all philosophy itself, and students are universally required to take multiple courses in the subject before earning their degrees. It's easily one of the most popular areas of specialty, too, with metaphysics typically holding first or second place among modern PhDs being awarded [6,7]. Many experts likewise describe metaphysics as being foundational to all other schools of thought, such that it is commonly referred to by the reverential title of The First Philosophy. 

That being said, it is also important to understand that metaphysics is not exactly well-liked among other academics. I don’t mean in the sense that scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are all gathered around the water cooler making fun of the silly humanities. If anything, the topic never even comes up. Not a single one of my technical textbooks has ever mentioned the word “metaphysics,” and I can think of no collaborations where a metaphysician has ever contributed anything noteworthy to a scientific project

Even mainstream philosophy itself has a weirdly mixed relationship to metaphysics. Despite the public image it tries to convey, there is actually a rich tradition of highly influential figures arguing explicitly against the field. For example, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf Carnap, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A. J. Ayer, and Bertrand Russel are just a handful of the many prominent thinkers who expressed very negative opinions about the value of metaphysics. There is even an entire sub-discipline within metaphysics, called meta-metaphysics, devoted specifically to the question of what the heck metaphysics is all about [8,9]. Consequently, a sizeable number of research publications within metaphysics are devoted specifically to the defense of metaphysics as a respectable field of study.

All of this has given rise to a weirdly paradoxical image among the broader public. On the one hand, metaphysics actively promotes itself as a profoundly insightful discipline in which respected academics probe the deepest mysteries of the universe. On the other hand, nobody outside of metaphysics seems to have any real use for it. Many of its own practitioners admit that it has no real value, and it is widely regarded among philosophers themselves as a gigantic waste of time. So if you are anything like me, and you have a deep interest in exploring philosophy, then you’re probably curious about what exactly this whole “metaphysics” thing is all about. Is it really as important as proponents say it is? Or is just a pretentious buzzword designed to mask the incompetence of pseudo-intellectual hacks? 

I'm a professional scientist, engineer, and mathematician with a doctorate of philosophy from an accredited American university. I have authored dozens of peer-reviewed publications in the technical literature, and I have about two decades' worth of experience in both academia and private industry. I also have a passion for sharing my philosophical insights from a qualified perspective of science and engineering. I like philosophy, and I strongly believe that, when done properly, philosophy has the power to sharpen our minds with valuable insights. What I don't like about philosophy is the way in which practitioners habitually abuse the subject by lending credibility to terrible ideas. It’s almost cultish, too, how defensive this community tends to get whenever someone like myself offers hard criticisms of their beloved institutions. So before anyone gets the naïve impression that this just another ignorant rant by some angry, trash-talking STEM-lord, let’s make one thing perfectly clear:

I am not alone in my antagonism against metaphysics. The things I’m about to say have been widely echoed across the academic world and even by influential members within mainstream philosophy itself. Most of my criticisms are not even a matter of debate, either, but admitted openly by PhD-wielding authorities in their own self-authored textbooks. The only thing I’m doing is compiling those criticisms for a modern, popular audience, so that everyone may reasonably decide for themselves if metaphysics is truly worth pursuing. 

Now before we get too carried away in our criticism of metaphysics, it’s important to ask ourselves what exactly that word means. That is to say, when I go to a university and pay thousands of dollars to study metaphysics from a certified metaphysician, what exactly am I learning? What separates a metaphysical question from, say, a regular physics question? Or even a regular philosophical question? What methodology can I expect to utilize in that effort? What standards exist to identify quality metaphysical research and measure progress?

These are important questions to ask because the answers are almost embarrassing to say out loud. In short, there are no official answers. Countless philosophers have stated very matter-of-factly that nobody really knows what metaphysics is, only to then go on discussing metaphysics anyway as if it was no big deal [10,11,12,13,14]. It’s a mind-boggling failure that speaks volumes about the sheer incompetence of the entire discipline. After all, if we honestly don’t know what metaphysics really is, then what makes anyone so confident that anything is truly metaphysics? How does one become a certified authority in the subject matter and thus worthy to speak on its behalf? How do we prevent bad actors from merely claiming to be authorities, only to then pollute the discourse with a bunch of self-serving propaganda? You simply cannot claim that metaphysics is a respectable field of study when absolutely no one can give a straight answer as to what the hell metaphysics is all about. 

To be fair, countless self-proclaimed experts have at least tried to define metaphysics, but not a single answer has ever managed to catch on [10]. Consequently, any answer you get to the question is usually just the unqualified opinion of whoever you happened to ask. Most textbooks tend to avoid the question altogether, opting instead for the time-honored tradition of “you’ll just know when you see it” [15,16]. The reader is then presented with a series of representative essays on a random assortment of topics which the author just so happens to consider canonical. Thus, under this definition, metaphysics is apparently the study of a wide variety of topics, including (but not limited to): identity, free will, time, personhood, causality, and---I swear I'm not making this up---the question of whether or not you’ll die from stepping in a teleporter.

Granted, this is arguably a perfectly valid definition, but it’s hard to shake the impression that this is also completely arbitrary. It’s as if metaphysics is little more than a hodgepodge of assorted topics that philosophers can’t be bothered to organize under other categories [17]. To put it in perspective, it would be like a meta-engineer telling you his professional field of study is defined by the following skillset: 

• Interior Design
  

• Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

• Ornithology

• Culinary Arts, and 

• Bee Keeping 

Sure, there’s nothing logically wrong with this definition per se, but there is also no theme with which to tie it all together. This leads to all sorts of practical concerns, in that anyone can now arbitrarily decide to add or subtract items from that list. To illustrate, suppose another self-proclaimed meta-engineer comes along and says that he doesn’t think Ornithology belongs in the skill set. According to him, it should really include Massage Therapy, Origami, and Bowling! It’s a perfectly valid concern, and it happens all the time in the world of metaphysics. To demonstrate, consider such questions as: 

• Does God exist? 

• What is the nature of consciousness? 

• Is there a meaning to life? 

• Where does human morality come from? 

• What exactly is metaphysics, really?

Are these metaphysical questions or not? Some people might argue yes, others might say no, and no one has any standard or authority with which to settle the debate. Consequently, anyone gets to pick and choose whatever answers they like, which means anything can now qualify as a metaphysical question. And since anything gets to be metaphysics, then nothing is metaphysics. The very distinction itself has no meaning.

Another common definition you may have heard is the idea that metaphysics is the study of being qua being (or, depending on who’s talking, the study of being as being, or perhaps being as such) [18,19]. It’s a wildly popular phrase that permeates the metaphysical literature, but it again suffers from a number of glaring problems. The most obvious, of course, is that the very phrase itself---being qua being---is nothing but a meaningless string of gibberish nonsense. It's like saying that art is the study of "color qua color" or "pictures as such." It might sound all deep and profound to an untrained ear, but it also tells me nothing. It should therefore come as no surprise that philosophers themselves have published countless essays on the supposed meaning of "being qua being," and they still have yet to agree on an official interpretation [20,21,22,23].

Remember that sooner or later we have to pick and choose what subject matter gets to officially qualify as metaphysics. We need to write textbooks, we need to define college curricula, and we would like to publish original research in prestigious journals. So when some joker comes along with a 20-page essay on the essential versus accidental of properties of tables, how exactly does "being qua being" set the standard?

A third definition that many philosophers like to throw around states that metaphysics is “the branch of philosophy concerned with fundamental questions about the nature of reality” [24,25]. It sounds great in theory, until you suddenly realize that every other field of study presumably does the same thing. Economists study the fundamental nature of scarcity, biologists study the fundamental nature of life, and cosmologists study the fundamental nature of our very universe. All of these fields are presumably concerned with the nature of reality, which means there is nothing to differentiate metaphysics from the alternatives. That’s not even my own argument, either, but a point that was specifically raised by the very authors of the textbook from which I just pulled that definition!

Yet another variation you may have heard is the idea that metaphysics concerns itself with questions “beyond” the scope of regular physics [26,27,28]. That is to say, metaphysics operates as a kind of super physics that explores questions beyond the reach of ordinary physical science. For example, what is the origin of consciousness? How do abstract objects affect the material world? What is the fundamental essence of space and time? Allegedly, such questions are inaccessible to the pitiful methods of empirical science, so only the philosophers get to explore them through the mighty power of reason alone [29,30,31].

This is again highly problematic for all sorts of reasons. For starters, the claim itself is little more than a bare assertion that isn't even remotely accurate. Neurologists are very much concerned with the origin of consciousness, thank you very much. In fact, they're doing a fantastic job at it, too, with profound discoveries being made on a daily basis. Likewise, physicists are absolutely interested in the fundamentals of space and time. Talk to any one of them, and they will be more than happy to share all kinds of amazing insights about quantum wavefunctions, black hole singularities, and hyperbolic four-dimensional spacetime manifolds. In contrast, the metaphysical interest in such topics is downright laughable. Over the last 50 years, not a single metaphysical researcher has published anything original about the nature of time, its interactions with space, or its relationships to velocity and gravity. In fact, the overwhelming majority of all published research on the metaphysics of time was devoted entirely to a petty debate between the so-called A-theory and B-theory. Decades’ worth of effort by prestigious PhD-wielding authorities, and philosophers have nothing to show for it other than a bunch of back-and-forth arguments over a false dichotomy on whether or not “tensed facts” are real. [32].

I see this sort of thing happen all the time in the metaphysical literature, and it’s weirdly unsettling from a modern scientific perspective. A good analogy would be like watching two alchemists argue over the best way to turn lead into gold. Not only are they incapable of producing tangible results, but they often get angrily defensive over the very idea. Then there's the technical jargon they use to hold their debates, which usually comes off as hopelessly antiquated. They’ll spend hours babbling about esoteric nonsense like the tria prima, the first matter, and the proper levels of citrinitas in some reaction. Meanwhile the periodic table of elements is conspicuously absent from the conversation, and anyone who even mentions words like radioactivity or atomic theory will be openly scorned for their insolence. Worse still, they have no idea that modern science has actually figured this stuff out pretty darn well, in that scientists have already demonstrated a real transmutation of mercury into gold [33]. Instead, they just repeat the same tired arguments with each other for centuries on end, never producing a single atom of actual gold, all while the real science continues on in the background making further discoveries. 

Another huge problem with metaphysics is the way in which practitioners routinely operate through a strictly a-priori methodology. It’s a gigantic red flag that once again speaks volumes about the sheer incompetence (if not outright fraud) of the entire field. It is simply not possible to generate original facts about objective reality through the sheer power of thought. Yet when it comes to metaphysics, this is apparently a feature, rather than a bug. We’re literally talking about a scenario in which philosophers claim to produce hard facts about mind-independent reality using naught but the power of their own minds. It’s practically a contradiction in terms, and it demonstrably doesn’t work. Never in the 2000-year history of metaphysics has such a methodology been successful at settling a single debate or revealing a single matter of objective fact.

This is actually one of the most widely vocalized criticisms against metaphysics, in that practitioners honestly don’t seem to grasp the difference between language and reality. It’s a little thing called the analytic/synthetic distinction, and you can’t just pretend it doesn’t exist. When a philosopher sits lazily from the comfort of an armchair, no amount of thought is going to magically generate reliable information about the universe. At best, they can only ever analyze the interplay between ideas as expressed within a given set of propositional models. That’s fine, and there’s a perfectly valid place for that stuff in modern philosophy. For metaphysics, however, that's just not good enough, and so countless hack philosophers will still insist that metaphysics is a study of the world beyond language and perception. We're talking about a realm where the rules of inquiry are governed specifically by the empirical methods of science, and metaphysicians have explicitly rejected those methods as a matter of principle. It's nothing but a tacit admission that metaphysics is not a reliable source of real-world understanding, but instead operates solely on baseless speculation.

This is profoundly basic doctrine for any serious student of epistemology, and scientists have been happily operating under such rules for hundreds of years. In contrast, most metaphysicians seem either unable or unwilling to wrap their heads around it. They tend to be obnoxiously pompous about it, too, like you’re some of moron for even bringing it up. They routinely dismiss it outright as the ignorant rantings of a dirty "logical positivist," and it is especially common to hear the derisive label of "scientism" when expressing such concerns.

There's a deep anti-empirical bias that permeates the metaphysical literature, and it's hard to ignore the blatant hypocrisy that it represents. Philosophers of metaphysics often go out of their way to present a strict neutrality in their own textbooks, no matter how crazy the subject matter appears to be [34,35,36]. For example, entire book chapters may be devoted to wholly discredited nonsense like immaterial souls, inter-dimensional abstract realms, and the biological properties of angels. Philosophers will routinely behave as if this is all perfectly sensible stuff, just so that students can "decide for themselves" what they want to believe. But then, the moment anyone dares to mention science with its dreaded empiricism, and metaphysicians are suddenly tripping over themselves to loudly proclaim just how wrong you are [37,38,39].

It is difficult to take metaphysics seriously when so many of its best practitioners are so inexcusably unprofessional. Contrary to popular opinion, the legacy of logical positivism is very much alive and well. The analytic/synthetic distinction is easily one the most widely accepted doctrines in the history of modern philosophy [40], and the principle of verification is practically a cornerstone of modern physics. Science itself is the de facto standard of justification for all synthetic propositions, and people who reject science are almost universally engaged in some manner or fraud. So when metaphysicians try to pretend as if such principles are little more than archaic relics of a bygone age, I can't help but wonder. Does metaphysics even care about the truth? Or is it nothing but a glorified haven for self-indulgent naval gazing?

Finally, we need to explore the very claim itself: the idea that “meta” in metaphysics indicates field of study that extends above and beyond the reach of regular physics. This claim is categorically false, and it represents a profound ignorance about the origin of metaphysics as a concept [41]. The word traces back to the original writings of Aristotle, which are basically just a bunch of disorganized lecture notes. Ancient scribes then had to copy and re-copy those manuscripts over many centuries, and they happily took it upon themselves to organize content along the way. For example, one of Aristotle’s volumes just so happens to talk at length about the natural world, and so editors simply called it exactly that: The Physics, after the ancient Greek word phusis (φύσις) meaning “nature.” Aristotle then continued to write even more stuff after his Physics, and ancient scribes again called it exactly that: Ta Meta Ta Fysica [τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά], which roughly translates into “the ones after the Physics.” Over time, this title was eventually simplified to just The Metaphysics, and the name stuck. 

So no, the prefix “meta” does not mean beyond the physics, and it never has. It means after the physics. As in, literally, whatever random collection of assorted philosophical crap that Aristotle happened to feel like writing about after he wrote his Physics. Since that just so happens to include a bunch of weird statements about the sciences of First Philosophy and Being as Being, such phrases have historically been associated with the study of metaphysics.

Notice how this perfectly explains the seemingly arbitrary nature of metaphysics as an academic field of study. Aristotle talked at length about all kinds of wacky stuff, like the nature of God, the fundamentals of causality, and just plain being. It was therefore perfectly natural for ancient philosophers simply lump all of these topics under the purview of metaphysics. It's also terribly vague, too, which explains why the field eventually grew to encompass all kinds of extra topics over time. There was never any official distinction between what is, or is not, metaphysics, except for what Aristotle happened to write. As a result, no one could ever complain when some two-bit yahoo happened to lump his own pet essays under the banner of First Philosophy. 

We can also begin to make sense out of the uncomfortable relationship that modern philosophers seem to have with Aristotle. Pick up major treatise on the subject of metaphysics, and it is perfectly normal to encounter some token lip-service to his awesome brilliance. We especially see this attitude in Scholastic philosophies like Thomism, which are practically dripping with Aristotelian influence. Most notably, St. Thomas Aquinas absolutely loved Aristotle, and he even referred to the guy through the reverential title of The Philosopher. It’s because of people like Aquinas that the Catholic church embraced Aristotelian philosophy as official doctrine, and medieval scholars were often threatened with death for teaching anything contrary [42,43]. It is therefore not a coincidence that modern Christian apologists also happen to be some of the loudest cheerleaders for metaphysics today [43]. Metaphysics and theology go hand in hand, which is why modern Christian apologists constantly appeal to antiquated Aristotelian concepts in their modern arguments.

This is all perfectly fine from a strictly historical perspective, but it’s absolutely horrifying from a philosophical one. Aristotle’s legacy is hardly one of brilliant innovation and discovery, but more like centuries of stifled progress under Catholic oppression. The guy is often revered as one of the greatest philosophers of all time, despite being categorically wrong about damn-near everything he taught. Honest scholars tend to praise him more for his influence rather than this discoveries, because most of his supposed discoveries were hardly significant breakthroughs for the time. Remember, we’re talking about a guy who actually believed that:

• The Earth is the center of the universe and that all celestial bodies orbit our world atop perfect spherical shells.
  

• He believed in the five elements of nature, including Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Aether. 

• He believed that heavy objects fall faster than light objects, and that all moving bodies naturally seek a state of absolute rest. 

• He believed in spontaneous generation, whereby living creatures could just poof out of the ground from non-living materials. 

• He thought that upward motion was superior to downward motion, and that forward motion was superior to reverse. 

• He argued that slavery was totally awesome, and that slaves should be grateful for the opportunity to live as human property. 

• He actually claimed that women have fewer teeth than men, and he used this supposed fact as just one of many justifications for their naturally subservient role!

Call me crazy, but this hardly seems like the kind of person who should be taken seriously over questions about the fundamental nature of reality.

We can even begin to make sense out of the obnoxious writing style that plagues the broader canon of philosophical literature. Aristotle was certainly wrong about a lot of things, but that’s usually only limited to the parts where one can make sense out of what the hell he was even trying to say. Most of the time, he just blathered nonsense. It is not an exaggeration to say that his writing style often feels like the demented fever dreams of a guy struggling to put ideas into words. It’s a terrible practice that should have been ruthlessly outlawed centuries ago, but modern Western philosophers routinely mimic this style.

Please understand that this is not some personal nit-pick from a dull plebeian who just doesn’t get it. There is a very big difference between “I don’t know what you’re saying” versus “the things you are saying have objectively failed to cohere into a meaningful thought." Aristotle’s Metaphysics is absolutely in the latter category, and countless students throughout history have been very vocal in their complaints. There’s even a famous story about the Persian philosopher Avicenna who claimed to have read The Metaphysics over forty times because he just couldn’t understand it [44]. Some commentators would even defend the practice openly, as if it’s your own damn fault that Aristotle couldn’t make a clear point. For example, the ancient philosopher Ammonius Hermiae once famously remarked that “Aristotle uses obscurity as a veil, so that good people may for that reason stretch their mind even more, whereas empty minds that are lost through carelessness will be put to flight by the obscurity [45].” It's as if philosophers collectively realize that Aristotle is impossible to comprehend, only to shift the blame onto you, the reader, for failing to comprehend him.

This is a well-documented practice known as obscurantism, and it is a cancerous tumor on the history of Western philosophy. Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, Lacan, and countless other influential figures are all notorious for their excessively obtuse writing. It's a grossly unprofessional practice, yet modern university students are required to slog through it anyway if they ever expect to earn their degrees. With all due respect, I should not have to utilize a magic decoder ring just to make sense out of somebody’s arguments. It is not a sign of genius when philosophers fail at basic communication, but bumbling incompetence. Any idiot can write a bunch of convoluted gibberish and then demand that the reader make sense of it after the fact. Real genius is when the argument is so undeniably clear and forceful, that the reader cannot help but feel compelled to adopt its conclusion. 

There’s a classic children’s tale called The Emperor’s New Clothes, in which two swindlers are hired by a vain emperor to produce the finest outfit ever conceived. The garments, they tell him, are so delicate and lightweight that the suit feels like one is wearing nothing at all. Furthermore, the silk has a magical property that causes it to appear invisible to only those who are either stupid or incompetent. Thus, when presented with absolutely nothing at all, the emperor feels afraid to speak up, lest the royal court come to suspect he is unfit for office. The emperor's advisers likewise refuse to speak up, lest they be exposed as unfit for the offices they hold. The end result is a naked emperor and his entourage setting out on parade in front of the entire city, apparently oblivious to the whole scam. 

There’s even a modern variation on the classic story which explores the aftermath of a young child exposing the emperor’s nudity. Rather than break the illusion as one would expect, the exact opposite occurs. Dubbed The Courtier's Reply, the entire entourage simply doubles down on the whole pretense, even going so far as to mock the boy for his ignorance of the finer things [45]. Meanwhile, the emperor is still strutting around naked, and the illusion continues despite being openly challenged.

This charming little folktale is a perfect metaphor for modern institutions of metaphysical study. Every year, naïve young college students around the world pay good money to attend university courses in metaphysics. Presumably, they do this because metaphysics openly markets itself as a place to learn “fundamental truths” about the world “beyond” physics. Students are then presented with a gigantic survey of literature from influential figures across history, and they are promptly instructed to study it in depth if they ever expect to earn passing grades. Little do they realize that much of this literature was deliberately written to be as obtuse as possible, and very little of the subject matter has anything whatsoever to do with fundamental truths about anything. Most of the major questions have been heavily debated for centuries, and not a single one has ever been resolved in any definitive capacity. Anyone who complains about this state of affairs is promptly scolded for their insolence, because who are you to question the greatest minds in the history of philosophy? The end result is that many philosophers plainly recognize the complete uselessness of the entire field, but they lack the courage to speak up about it. Everyone thinks that everyone else still believes, and so the illusion of support is validated through public compliance [46].

To be fair, if you honestly enjoy metaphysics and think it’s the coolest stuff ever, then that’s totally fine. You do you, and no one will care. But the moment you start advertising metaphysics as a serious field of study that explores real questions with real answers, then I’m afraid you're only speaking lies. The very word itself has no official meaning, which means there is no way to tell what questions are "metaphysical" in nature and which ones are not. Metaphysics has no formal methodology, either, which means everyone just writes whatever they want, and there is no conceivable way to make any progress or evaluate quality. Metaphysics openly claims to study the world through pure, armchair philosophy, apparently oblivious to the fact that this is a fundamentally impossible thing to do. Metaphysics embraces obscurantism, which means the majority of its literature is purposefully written to be so vague as to be outright meaningless. Finally, any outsider who demands that metaphysics hold itself to objective standards is angrily shut down as an ignorant dogmatist. This is in spite of the fact that metaphysics itself continuously publishes research questioning its own merit! Many philosophers openly acknowledge all of these issues in their own self-authored textbooks, only to then praise metaphysics as the absolute pinnacle of human achievement. 

But hey, maybe that's being too harsh. Maybe you personally know all of the definitive answers to all the big questions about meaning and methodology in metaphysics. That's great! But until you convince the broader community of professional philosophers to officially endorse your view, it will only ever remain exactly that: your view. Authors will not publish it in their textbooks, professionals will not follow your methodology, and no one is going to stop any pretenders from promoting their own alternative views in place of yours. These are hardly unreasonable conditions to demand, either, given that most other professions absolutely satisfy all of these requirements. So until metaphysics can finally get its act together and decide what on Earth it officially wants to be, it will only ever remain a haven for incompetence, fraud, and propaganda.

Notes/References 

1. Richard M. Gale: “I view [metaphysics] as one of the glories of our species, one of our greatest cultural achievements…” from The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics (2002) 
2. Stephen Mumford: “We don’t study metaphysics so that we can be healthy and productive. We make ourselves healthy and productive so that we can do metaphysics!” from Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 108 (2012)
3. Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands: “Metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy. Without an explanation or an interpretation of the world around us, we would be helpless to deal with reality. We could not feed ourselves, or act to preserve our lives. The degree to which our metaphysical worldview is correct is the degree to which we are able to comprehend the world, and act accordingly. Without this firm foundation, all knowledge becomes suspect. Any flaw in our view of reality will make it more difficult to live.” Importance of Philosophy [link]
4.  Brian Kemple: “…metaphysics, which is the summit of philosophical inquiry—fulfills our most fundamental human need.” Why Study Metaphysics? (2016) [link]
5. W. Turner: “In the first place, metaphysics is the natural co-ordinating science which crowns the unifying efforts of the other sciences. It accomplishes in the highest plane of knowledge that process of unification towards which the human mind tends irresistibly.” From  “Metaphysics” In The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) [link] 
6. David Bourget and David J. Chalmers, “What do philosophers believe?” Philosophical Studies, Vol. 170, No. 3, pp. 465-500 (2014)
7. David Bourget and David J. Chalmers, "Philosophers on philosophy: The 2020 philpapers survey." Unpublished manuscript (2021) 
8. David Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (eds), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, Clarendon Press, Oxford (2009)
9. Tuomas E. Tahko, An Introduction to Metametaphysics, Cambridge University Press (2015) 
10. Richard M. Gale, “It is not an accident that none of the included essays attempts to say what metaphysics is, to describe the methods for doing it and the rules or criteria for assessing the success of a metaphysical theory. For all such metaphilosophical attempts have failed miserably.” From The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics, Blackwell Publishers (2002) 
11. Peter van Inwagen and Meghan Sullivan: "It is not easy to say what metaphysics is… The word ‘metaphysics’ is notoriously hard to define." From “Metaphysics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014)
12. William Lane Craig and J. P. Mooreland "It is difficult, if not impossible to come up with an adequate definition of metaphysics." Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, InterVersity Press (2003)
13. John W. Carroll and Ned Markosian: "Part of the problem is that it's practically impossible to get any two philosophers to agree on a single definition of 'metaphysics' (and the book is, after all, written by two philosophers)." From An Introduction to Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press (2010)
14. Michael J. Loux: "It is not easy to say what metaphysics is. If one looks to works in metaphysics, one finds quite different characterizations of the discipline… Disagreement about the nature of metaphysics is certainly tied to its long history." From Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd Ed, Routeledge (2006) 
15. Richard M. Gale, “Just as the best way to learn how to hit tennis strokes is to watch good players in action, the best way, in fact the only way, to learn how to do metaphysics is to be exposed to paradigm cases of metaphysics in action and then try to answer in kind.” From The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics, Blackwell Publishers (2002) 
16. Stephen Mumford: “The best way to understand an activity is often through doing it rather than theorizing about it. In that case, we start by doing some metaphysics…” from Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press (2012)
17. Michael J. Loux: "…what is supposed to be a single discipline with a single subject matter turns out to be the examination of a hodgepodge of unrelated topics." From Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd Ed., Routledge (2006)
    
18. Panayot Butchvarov, Being Qua Being: A Theory of Identity, Existence, and Predication, Indiana University Press (1979)
19. Gregory Doolan (author/editor), The Science of Being as Being, Metaphysical Investigations, The Catholic University of America Press (2012)
20. Christopher Shields, The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, Chapter 14: Being Qua Being, Oxford University Press (2012)
21. Allan Bäck, “What is being qua being?” Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp 37-58 (2004)
22. Robert Sokolowski, “The Science of Being as Being in Aristotle, Aquinas, and Wippel,” from The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations, Gregory T. Doolan (editor), The Catholic University of America Press (2012)
23. Philip Merlan, “On the terms ‘metaphysics’ and ‘being-qua-being’,” The Monist, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp 174-194 (1968)
24. John W. Carroll and Ned Markosian, An Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 3 (2010)
25. Amie L. Thomasson, “What can we do, when we do metaphysics?” from The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology, edited by Giuseppina D’Oro and Søren Overgaard, Cambridge University Press (2017)
26. Peter van Inwagen and Meghan Sullivan: “Twentieth-century coinages like ‘meta-language’ and ‘metaphilosophy’ encourage the impression that metaphysics is a study that somehow “goes beyond” physics, a study devoted to matters that transcend the mundane concerns of Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg.” From “Metaphysics,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014) [link]
27. Merriam Webster: “Just as physics deals with the laws that govern the physical world (such as those of gravity or the properties of waves), metaphysics describes what is beyond physics—the nature and origin of reality itself, the immortal soul, and the existence of a supreme being.” [link]
28. Jennifer Trusted: “As used by Aristotle, the word ‘metaphysics’ meant ‘beyond physics,’ that is beyond the scope of physical science.” From Physics and Metaphysics: Theories of Space and Time, preface (2003)
29.  E. J. Lowe: “But metaphysics is not at heart an empirical science---it does not typically appeal to experimental or observational data in support of its claims,” from A Survey of Metaphysics, Oxford University Press (2002)
30. Kit Fine, “What is Metaphysics?” In Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, edited by T. E. Tahko. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2011)
31. Timothy Williamson: “Natural scientists and metaphysicians may seem to be asking the same questions. The difference is that the natural scientists base their answers on observation, experiment, measurement and calculation, while the metaphysicians base theirs on armchair reflection.” From “What is metaphysics?” in The British Academy (2020) [link]
32. From David Bourget and David J. Chalmers (2014): A-theory = 27%, B-theory = 38%, Other = 36%
33. R. Sherr, K. T. Bainbridge, and H. H. Anderson, “Transmutation of Mercury by Fast Neutrons,” Physical Review, Vol 60 (1941) 
34. “The editorial staff and their consultants were careful to present official Church teachings in a straightforward manner, and in areas where there are legitimate disputes over fact and differences in interpretation of events, they made every effort to insure a fair and balanced presentation of the issues,” from the Forward to The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Volume 1, Gale Group, Inc., (2003)
35. John W. Carroll and Ned Markosian: "We have gone out of our way to introduce topcis and arguments without pressuring the reader to settle on any definite conclusions." Preface to An Introduction to Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press (2010)
36. E. J. Lowe: “It should also be stressed, however, that the book is by no means narrowly partisan in the sense of promoting my own opinions on particular issues whilst excluding mention of others.” From the Preface to A Survey of Metaphysics, Oxford University Press (2002)
37. “Scientism, by restricting valid knowledge to the level of science, overgeneralizes the scientific method and overrestricts reality to the confines of matter alone.” From “Scientism,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Volume 9, Gale Group, Inc., (2003)
    
38. Richard M. Gale: “This demand for a cognitive discipline to have a decision procedure for determining who is right smacks of scientism…” from the Preface to The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics, Blackwell Publishers (2002) 
39. Edward Feser, “Against Scientism,” Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, Gazelle Books (2014)
40. From David Bourget and David J. Chalmers (2020): 63% of respondents accept or lean towards the Analytic/Synthetic distinction  
41. Takatura Ando, Metaphysics: A Critical Survey of its Meaning (1974) 
42. “The inceptor in arts at Paris was sworn during the 14th century to teach nothing inconsistent with Aristotle, and as late as 1624 the French Parlement threatened with death all who taught anything contrary to his doctrines.” From "Aristotelianism," The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Volume 1, Gale Group, Inc., pp 674 (2003)
43. William Lane Craig and J. P. Mooreland “Along with logic and epistemology, metaphysics is the most basic part of philosophy. And metaphysics has been the longstanding friend of theology. The early creeds of Christendom are filled with metaphysical terms—person, essence, substance, subsistence—and they give testimony to the help that metaphysics can give to the development of systematic theology.” Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, InterVarsity Press (2003)
    
44. “I read the Metaphysics [of Aristotle] but did not understand what it contained and was confused about the author’s purpose to the point that I reread it forty times and consequently memorized it. In spite of this I still did not understand it or what was intended by it, and I said, despairing of myself, there is no way to understand this book!” From Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, by Dimitri Gutas (2014) 
45. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_reply
    
46. Damon Centola, Robb Willer, and Michael Macy, “The Emperor’s Dilemma: A Computational Model of Self-Enforcing Norms,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 110, N0. 4, pp. 1009-1040 (2005)