Kachmazashvili N. - The Attempts of Foundation of Metaphysics in the 20th Century (A. Whitehead). - The collection of works of Gori State university - Gori - 2002 - N 2 - p. 130-133 in Georgian.
During the epoch of dominating Positivism and denying Metaphysics, Whitehead creates Metaphysical system called Philosophy of Organism, which is considered to be perfect elaboration of modern natural science researches. Whitehead's philosophy is of great scientific significance. His ideas are based on the necessity and importance of Metaphysical theories.
He describes Metaphysics and sciences in close connection. Metaphysics tries to give knowledge complete, logical and appropriate aspect, to improve the problems existing in its different spheres. It raises the generalization to the highest level and tries hard to work out such system of general ideas that is characteristic to reality as a whole. Metaphysics represents the attempts to create the harmonious, logical and necessary ideas by means of which, it will be possible to explain all the elements of out experiments. It means that something revealed during the experiment must be restricted to the Metaphysical frames. But when Metaphysics can not carry out the experiment it needs reviewing.
Science perceives the facts existed on earth, but every fact is in the systemic connection with the whole world. Thus, scientific perception leads us to the necessity of Metaphysical interpretation. Sciences find their principles in Metaphysics. Metaphysics ideas influence scientific researches giving them stimulation and orientation. For its part, Metaphysical construction comes from the generalization of the concrete factors of private branches of science, but it is necessary to check the usefulness of this construction in terms of availability of the idea it was created through generalization.
The History of European Philosophy showed that it was impossible to create a complete, scientific Metaphysical system. According to Whitehead a leading role in Metaphysical theory places free imagination and creative fantasy plus the deepest intuition of our soul. Metaphysical systems appear and disappear. Philosophy will never be able to get rid of experimental experiences. It is endless and developing experience where even partial success is a matter of vital importance. The criterion of its evaluation lies not on its scientific purpose but behind its understanding to go ahead and gain as much experience as possible. And moreover, when Metaphysics shows the whole picture of the world, it builds up such points of view which can unite in it all the systems of human qualities. In this way Metaphysics carries out its important function to survive people, who appreciate the virtues different from the wild needs.
Kachmazashvili N. - Traditional Understanding of Metaphysics (From Aristotle to Kant). - The collection of works of Tskhinvali State University. Gori - 1999 - p. 205-212 - Bibl: 8 in Georgian.
Metaphysics, a word of Greek origin was used at first in purely technical signification, but later it acquired the meaning that Aristotle meant is his original Philosophy.
In his sixth book referring to The First Philosophy Aristotle divides the problems into two parts. According to this division, the main idea described there is dealt with the nature of existence, as it is the core of the whole existence. And this notion is pronounced as Usia in Greek meaning the Supreme Being, the whole one which defines the nature of existence and truth. Finally, Aristotle formulated this existence as holy (theon' in Greek), which had then nothing in common with religious understanding.
Taking into consideration this holy existence Aristotle called his first philosophy as Theology .
According to Aristotle the problem concerning Usia as the whole one was named as The First Philosophy.
In medieval centuries, after being acquainted with Aristotle's metaphysical works the specific connection existing between Aristotle's first philosophy and theology made it easier for Christian religion to raise their theories to the level of First Philosophy because Metaphysics studied these same problems as Theology did. Thomas Aquinas, the best follower of Aristotle's works, identifies Aristotle's First Philosophy with Metaphysics and Theology.
In the middle centuries Aristotle's understanding of Theology was believed to mean the study of the nature of God. Metaphysics was entirely orientated to Christian Theology and to the foundations of Christian religious beliefs where God was the main object of the theory. Thus, Theology and Metaphysics dealt with the same problem i.e. to serve God.
In a new period Philosophy seemed to break all the contacts with old Philosophy still tries to prove the same as medieval Philosophy did. Here Descartes is meant, who sees the subject of First Philosophy in existence of God and in immortality of soul trying to prove this ideas. Therefore, it is no more chance that Kant means Theology in traditional Metaphysics. According to Theology, the whole core is divided into God, nature and man. Theology investigates God; cosmology investigates nature and psychology man. They create a discipline called Metaphysics Special different from Metaphysics General where existence is studied.
In the new period Metaphysics accepted new properties. The first peculiarities is that the whole problems of the traditional metaphysics are described from the pointes of view of new branches of science and here Mathematics is considered as model of all sciences, where the following ideas are meant; as the main subject of Metaphysics is the Supreme being existence, it should be treated as Super science the Queen of Science. Therefore, the method of its perception must be strict, necessary and compulsory and must be raised to the level of the ideal of perception. Mathematical perception is thought to be such ideal i.e. pure science of mind. Hence, Metaphysics General is perception of existence in general and Metaphysics Special is perception of sciences of mind.
Kachmazashvili N. - The Problem of Metaphysics in Logical Positivism (L.Wittgenstein, R.Carnap). - The collection of works of Gori State University. Gori - 2002 - N 2 - p. 126-129 - Bibl: 4 - in Georgian.
According to the author the attempts made by Wittgenstein and Carnap in the cause of destroying and expelling Metaphysics is the most radical in the history of Philosophy in regard to anti-metaphysical points of view.
Wittgenstein's perception of Philosophy comes from The Logical Philosophic Tractate shared at first by Carnap as well. According to this understanding Philosophy is not theoretical knowledge, it has no theoretical perceptive purpose. It is an activity of a practical type. The only aim of Philosophy is based on logical analyses of scientific statements, in order to show their usefulness or uselessness, which is oriented on the use of mathematical logic. His views about the subject of Philosophy Carnap described in his work The Logical Syntax of the Language, where he developed the ideas of possibility of becoming Philosophy as a branch of science. Scientific problems of Philosophy are the questions of logical analyses of scientific notions, statements and theories
Philosophy as science may exist as scientific logic, which is nothing but logical syntax and semantics.
As for the traditional metaphysical problems Wittgenstein evaluates them in this way: there does not exist any metaphysical problem at all. All the real problems are of scientific purposes. Metaphysical problems are aimless as you can answer them neither positively nor negatively. They are impossible to solve.
Carnap writes that in the history of Philosophy, Metaphysics was rejected by many scientists, but nobody managed to prove its uselessness. He thinks it is possible at the modern stage of development of Logics. Through the logical analyses, it can be determined that metaphysical statements are not real statements; they cannot be represented as true or false ones. They are generally aimless and do not indicate anything at all. The nature of Metaphysical pseudo-statements is well revealed by the logical analyses.
At first, Carnap shared the views for the verification of the Tractate but then he changed this theory into accurately-built formulas, i.e. into the theory of artificial languages which obeys certain rules. Carnap tried to solve the problems by building up the scientific language, which would make it impossible for metaphysical theories to be uttered in this language either due to its terminology which would not be available or due to its formula as there would not be any. It was the attempt to build up the artificial language for the scientific language motivated by the desire to destroy Metaphysics.
The author considers that the negative, logical positivism of Metaphysics made Philosophy lose its vital function and turned into the founder of natural sciences. And natural sciences founded positivistly, as we know lose all the connections with human fundamental interests and as Kircegore says turn into inhuman curious faces. Positivism expels ethical problems from the sphere of Philosophy, it excludes the problems which are very important to people, it expels the problems regarding purposefulness and purposelessness of the whole mankind which causes the crises, such as isolation and loosing the aim in human existence.