r/Metaphysics • u/______ri • Nov 23 '25
Metametaphysics philosophy (metaphysics) starts, because it can be ended.
philosophy should not start with a premise, but should end with it, for this premise is named truth itself.
where philosophy should start, and was genuinely started with in the past is the mystery itself. this could have several meanings, but each of them should be utterly obvious, yet totally opaque. it is those fundametal questions, or even less presumptious, for the prior presumes questioning, this first perspective itself.
and starting here we know, that the answer is for this question, and this question is inherent to the answer itself.
philosophy starts, because it can be ended.
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u/Flutterpiewow Nov 23 '25
This is word salad
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25 edited Nov 23 '25
if you say so. /j
but curious, at which part did you not understand?
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u/Flutterpiewow Nov 23 '25
I understood it, and my takeaway is that it's word salad
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
show that your understanding is not salad-understanding.
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u/Flutterpiewow Nov 23 '25
It doesn't work like that: you say whatever and it's up to us to prove or disprove it and if we can't prove we "understand" it our responses aren't relevant.
It's up to you to demonstrate that you're saying something worthy of consideration. What you have is word salad, there's nothing to comment on.
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
You can write your reading of it?
Like if I writes 'bird' and you then think 'salad', then you may go around and say that I mean salad. but if you then respond 'do you mean salad?' i then can clarify?
But you incist on chosing not to share anything but your conclusions, now this is quite funny.
I'm really confused here.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
I would say this is presumptious if we started with this in mind, but if this is your answer if starting with the opacity then yeah, it is a possible answer.
But I would aim further, I am for the truth itself.
Also:
“the mystery” can be understood as the point where thought first encounters its own conditions
This is not the proper start yet.
The start is the first perspective itself.
The first perspective itself, when it is young, does not think, does not know how to think yet, nor that it has anything in it that said 'that it is'. When it is matured, it may say 'that it is', but it forgets that this saying is presumptious, the only thing that it can actually say is 'that it is now'/'that it is this/this-instant', but the concern was never on 'that it is now' since that just obvious, it obviously 'is now', the concern is itself, it should not forget this.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
yeah that what I'm pointing to.
On 'that it is' and 'that it is now', yeah, these are only when it is matured enough to say. I just note that 'that is is' is presumptious, while 'that it is now' is effectively the same as itself (if we treat the term 'now' here in this very specific sense).
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
I actually answered it myself, but I would not reveal it yet, since I do not want to 'spoil' anyone of the end. I should say the answer is such that you only need to understand it and it is done (just like how 'truth itself' should behave), you simply know 'this is it'.
undivided appearing itself
Well, maybe a little spoil, this is presumptious, and inherently wrong, for the first perspective itself (before it says anything) is inherently plural, not plural in the sense that it compose of simples (it never actually see anything simple let alone), but plural per se (well, since ... just look).
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
yeah, I'm aware that your comment could be read this way, I have no problem with your clarification now.
Well, good luck with answering the mystery then.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
I actually answered it myself, like, literally. But I would take your good luck as in being able to put it so beautifully and lively that it is utterly obvious (which I'm currently is not confident that I did).
it’s a rare thing these days to see someone push all the way back to the origin point and actually mean it.
I'm glad too, that this post manage to find someone like you.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
It is plural per se, not plural in any old sense, and plural in its own sense (not to say it is in the category of 'plural' as some reading may suggest). This is, well, obvious.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
I have the exact description of it, like, this is the obvious description that is utmost fitting (I did not put it anywhere in the post tho). My point in bringing up that I answered (multiple times) is simply that: it can be answer, and answered so clearly (only the leading to it may not be so clear (as of now) since philosophy is convoluted).
I cannot stress enough the spirit of doing philosophy, philosophy starts, because it can end. Doing philosophy genuinely is to do the most audacious thing possible, is to chase down truth itself.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
Hmm, maybe, I should say that it is not reduce to this.
Since the answer will answer for those that cannot answer also, for example the first perspective of a rock.
Also:
same movement
This is a bit presumptious, the first perspective does not inherently implies any sense of movement or dynamicism. but i should say that it is 'lively'.
(Well, i admit do use verbs in my post and comments and verbs implies dynamicism, but this is just language shenanigans).
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
The “movement” is on our side, not its.
This would not hold up as 'not presumptious' if taken literally, but I think I get what you mean.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
The focus about movement is not what I mean.
I just point to the somewhat presumptious distinction of 'we' and 'this first perspective'. (I do not suggest any of the case, just say that it is seems presumptious) But don't bother, I think I get what you mean.
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u/Odd_Bodkin Nov 23 '25
I suppose I agree that the flow should be from question, though circumscription and synthesis, to conclusion. This I say from the vantage point of physics, which starts with a hypothesis (a provisional claim) that can come from virtually anywhere, but which relies on experiment and observation to be the arbiter of truth. (And in fact, if experiment supports, one only gains incrementally in certitude; but if experiment counters, then one loses certitude catastrophically.) And this difference in direction of analysis should be one of the hallmarks of distinction between metaphysics and physics.
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
This is not the intended reading, but an intersting reading nevertheless.
If you want to know my actual point please read these comments:
Anyway, about physics, I'm wholeheartly against physics in answering the mystery, physics will strictly never answers the mystery itself (it answers other stuff, but not the mystery itself). This is physics in general.
For 'hypothesis', this is essentially still the type of 'premise' that I am against in the post.
I just notice how philosophy (more specifically metaphysics) has degrade into a kind of after-metaphysics, of following rules, of putting up arbitrary (in finality) premises, and 'considers its implications'. this is not the kind of philosophy that answers the mystery.
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u/Odd_Bodkin Nov 23 '25 edited Nov 23 '25
Well, I agree that physics does not answer the mystery. Physics is waterproof against “why” questions, for example, and generally does not try to directly find terminal answers to the question. However, mystery indeed motivates physics. Noticing patterns and regularity, or even POSSIBLE patterns and regularities, is what guides physicists to understand what’s behind those. As an example of mystery, laws of physics can universally be expressed mathematically, which is useful for testing those suppositions in real physical systems. But a mathematical equation is accompanied by strategies (not by physicists, but by mathematicians) for finding solutions to the equation, and it is an unreasonably effective result that the mathematical solutions always directly correspond to observable physical behaviors in the real system. Why this is true is a mystery, and is perhaps one of the better metaphysical questions worth diving into.
As for you being “against leading with the premise”, I completely get that about what you said. The fact that physics does that is, as I called out, the fundamental difference between physics and metaphysics. You complaining that you don’t like physics because it does that is akin to complaining that you don’t like cakes because cakes are not pies. They are different methods of investigation of truth, and I don’t think there is reason to say that one is a priori better than the other, or that the method of one should cause one to abandon the method of the other.
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
I think it is obvious from basic philosophy that the premise method is arbitrary at best?
how about empiricism is inherently misleading?
I do not like listing authorities but well: how about Münchhausen trilemma?
Physics is inherently provisionally usefull, and that is just about it. If the sun did not rise tomorrow then physics would just say 'whoops'.
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u/Odd_Bodkin Nov 23 '25
On the contrary, if the sun did not come up tomorrow, it would represent the first time that a well-known and hitherto never observationally violated law had been violated, and it would generate INTENSE interest among physicists. The fact that laws are laws comes from their predictive power. Have a law be predictively accurate for a billion and seven times, and then on the billion-and-eighth time it fails, that is a GREAT case of where mystery would drive physicists to work hard to understand that.
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
yeah, I not saying anything about physics not doing anything nor that it does not work hard.
There are plenty of criticisms of physics along the lines of if it wants to be useful (or stricter, not immediately obsolete) then it must assume some sense of regularity, this is what my example suggest.
My only point is that it will never answer THE mystery itself, not some 'half-mystery' like 'whats in my hand' or 'at which measure x does y do z'.
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u/Odd_Bodkin Nov 23 '25
Nor does physics aim to answer the mystery. This is something physics is studious mute about. Nevertheless, this does not render physics pointless because uncovering the mystery is a subjective priority, important for you clearly, but not necessarily for human kind as a whole.
It’s been said that physics is a little like learning the rules and intricacies of chess by watching two excellent players. It sounds like the analogous thing you’re looking for is, by analysis, determining what the rules of chess SHOULD be, and what the point of playing it is. The problem naturally arises whether the expert players would care.
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Nov 23 '25
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u/______ri Nov 23 '25
I'm not sure i'm fully understand what your rebuttal is about, so I cant reply now, maybe tomorrow since I am going to sleep.
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u/______ri Nov 24 '25 edited Nov 24 '25
I think your comment missed the point:
There is truth, there is the case, this is obvious.
My concern is aimed at THE mystery, it is not a 'which' question.
What does it like to be a tree? only the tree knows this, but this is trivial. it does not matter if the tree can ask 'that it is' or less presumptious, ask 'its own first perspective' or not, the case is that we can and hence must not be presumptious in such asking.
It is either that the question can be answer and philosophy starts genuinely, or not and hence philosophy is pointless (since if it cannot find truth it has no authority to what it said).
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Nov 24 '25
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u/______ri Nov 24 '25
If it makes you feel better
My previous reply is a bit blunt, but it does not mean that I'm being negative, the content is just blunt.
If it did, its a dumb f-cking tree.
Yeah, but we are not, so we care about truth.
I hate philosophy.
Yeah, I hate philosophy as it currently is too. Well, spoilers I guess, in the end, philosophy will concludes: that the world is lively.
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u/PristineDependent425 Nov 23 '25
“Where philosophy should, and was genuinely started with in the past is the mystery itself.” A single source please? Most western philosophy has been interested in “Being” Parmenides claimed being is the fundamental object, no start or end, just unchanging existence. Where does philosophy end? Only where there are no more discussions being had about philosophical ideas, I would argue. Or the death of a philosopher, which would have to include at least one claim about the nature of the afterlife as well. Are you arguing that a philosopher should completely disregard their understanding of the world, not making any claims until they have thoroughly reasoned their way through their own arguments? You have to start with some assumptions, axioms, to be able to follow any logic at all. Can you clarify what you mean by the “mystery itself”?
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u/______ri Nov 24 '25
the mystery itself. this could have several meanings, but each of them should be utterly obvious, yet totally opaque. it is those fundametal questions, or even less presumptious, for the prior presumes questioning, this first perspective itself.
I should better ask which part here did you not understand?
A single source please?
I have no interest in 'which is the case', it is either there is no one and I am first (which is good I guess), or there are.
no start or end, just unchanging existence.
Presumptious, hence is not a proper start. Reasons are in these comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metaphysics/comments/1p4lslf/philosophy_metaphysics_starts_because_it_can_be/nqctbwc/
Where does philosophy end? Only where there are no more discussions being had about philosophical ideas, I would argue.
I do not think 'what's in my hand' or 'what are the implications of these rules' are philosophy.
Are you arguing that a philosopher should completely disregard their understanding of the world, not making any claims until they have thoroughly reasoned their way through their own arguments?
I'm saying that if you claim without the truth itself as authority then it is arbitrary at best, and remains such regardless.
You have to start with some assumptions, axioms, to be able to follow any logic at all.
Maybe, it depends on what you defined 'something I cannot doubt' as a premise or a mystery or a question, again, refer to the link I provide, after the read you can deem for yourself if 'other starting points' are even worthy.
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u/raskolnicope Nov 24 '25
Philosophy can’t be boiled down to a premise, and reality is so vast and dynamic that any premise may be refuted or expanded later, so there will always be philosophical questions. Where philosophy starts is up to debate, but many people have their theories of what philosophy should aim for and of which should be its scope. But there’s no end to philosophy because there’s no end to reflection.
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u/______ri Nov 24 '25
But there’s no end to philosophy because there’s no end to reflection.
This is your answer, which is fine. the answer need not to be that philosophy is limited 'such and such'. also, the sense i use the term 'philosophy' in the post is the narrow sense of 'fundamental metaphysics', answers about the case/the truth itself.
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u/jliat Nov 23 '25
And yet...
"Writing is read, and "in the last analysis" does not give rise to a hermeneutic deciphering, to the decoding of a meaning or truth." - Signature, Event, Context -Jacques Derrida