The issue is whether it is possible to construct a metaphysics as an accomplishing discipline of thought, meaning a metaphysics that would be more than a mental ad philosophical exercise and that would instead serve to offer a real framework for living and for understanding the world in which we live. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality and the relationships between such elements as mind and matter, substance and attribute. It includes both ontology and cosmology. Metaphysics is the most abstract division of philosophy and addresses issues of ultimate reality. Metaphysics is concerned with what really exists and what it is that makes reality possible. The exact nature of metaphysics has long been argued, which brings into question its validity and usefulness. Metaphysics asks the big questions, the questions that we may want answered but that at some point we may have to admit can never be answered. Metaphysics is in some sense an attempt to know the unknowable, and this brings its validity into question--can we ever overcome the unknowability of reality so that metaphysics is more than a mental exercise?
Certainly metaphysics has ben an important part of the history of philosophy and has engaged the minds of philosophers since the time of the Greeks. The Greeks developed over time a massive and complex mythology that explained in animistic, anthropomorphic terms many of the natural phenomena seen in the world around them and at the same time propounded a direct relationship between themselves and the gods as part of that explanation. At the same time, the Greeks developed a strong metaphysics which seemed a more scientific attempt to explain reality. The subject matters of myth and metaphysics overlap. They can indeed be seen as attempts to explain the same things--natural phenomena, the relationship between human beings and whatever gods there may be, the meaning of existence. Phi...