ABSTRACT
Work at the intersection of metaphysics and cognitive neuroscience generally presupposes naturalism. Naturalism is the view that everything that exists is natural and, so, can be studied by the natural sciences. A historical definition of metaphysics thereby complements an ahistorical definition of metaphysics: metaphysics is reasoned inquiry into the ultimate, fundamental, or general nature of reality as a whole or of its various parts. An introductory course in metaphysics is likely to treat topics in philosophy of mind, including free will and determinism, mind and body, and the nature of selfhood and consciousness, all of which are metaphysical at root, in addition to topics that cut across domains of inquiry: existence and identity, objects and their properties, causation, possibility, space and time, and God. Some metaphysicians employ a weaker standard of identity that hews more closely to ordinary linguistic usage.
