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From: jlg@lanl.ARPA (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Metaphysicians
Message-ID: <281@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 14:59:19 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.281
Posted: Mon Mar 10 14:59:19 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 22:50:07 EST
References: <899@decwrl.DEC.COM> <402@aoa.UUCP> <192@ulowell.UUCP>
Reply-To: jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 17

In article <212@dg_rtp.UUCP> throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>        When did "metaphysics" aquire the meaning "occultism" (rather
>        than the more proper meaning of "the study of the nature of
>        being and reality").

Karl Popper, in his influential book "The Logic of Scientific Discovery",
defines metaphysics as anything that is not susceptable to empirical study.
This does't force metaphysics to mean occultism, but most occultism falls
into this category.  Popper's book was in German: the word 'metaphysics'
may be an English translation of some German word that has a more specific
meaning of 'non-empirical'.

J. Giles
Los Alamos

Note: I posted only to net.sci because that is the only list I read
of the three that the original note was posted to. :End of Note