

























METAPHYSICS AND THE ONTOLOGY 
OF BEING AMIDST THE LOGICAL 

POSITIVISTS' CRITICISM

Anthony Akalue

Abstract
The ontological quest of what truly constitutes the nature of 
reality has been a major preoccupation of metaphysics 
from time immemorial. This is because metaphysics is a 
science of being. The paper states that the notion of being is 
surrounded by some conceptual issues like act and potency, 
cause and effect, essence and existence, substance and 
accident, time and space, and so on. All of these are said to 
be perennial problems in the history of philosophy. 
The paper argues that the principles of metaphysics are 
different from the methods of the natural sciences reason 
being that the natural sciences have four characters i.e 
Specic, Public, Objective, and Impersonal. A close look at 
the four character of science shows that the natural 
sciences deal with the reality of the physical world whereas 
metaphysics adopts a more holistic approach to reality 
because it considers both the material and the non-material 
aspects of reality. This paper further argues that 
metaphysical postulations have lingered on in history and 
as such philosophers in the different epochs of philosophy 
have tried to proffer solutions to the problem of being. 
There is no doubt that while metaphysicians try to proffer 
solutions to the nature of being, logical positivists and other 
members of the Vienne circle are against metaphysical 
assumptions and postulations. They claim that 
metaphysical assertions are nonsensical and as such 



should be committed to the ames because they contain 
sophistry and illusion. This paper concludes that despite 
these criticisms from the logical positivists, metaphysics as 
a science of being is very much relevant to humanity. The 
method to be adopted will be analytical, expository, and 
prescriptive.

Key Words: Being, Logical Positivism, Metaphysics, Natural 
Science,  

Introduction
From time immemorial, issues relating to the realities of existence 
have been the main focus of man. This means that man tries to grapple 
with the ontology of what truly constitutes the existence of the 
universe. One important discipline which is used to determine the 
basic substratum of existence is the tools of philosophy. 
 Philosophy means man's quest for wisdom about nature itself 
thus William Aso sees philosophy as  “man as the subject of 
philosophy has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge not only for 
empirical realities alone but also phenomenal realities and everything 

1that concern human experience and the universe in general”.  Nature 
here is not just to be seen as that which appeals to the senses alone, but 
also, things that do not appeal to the senses. Now one major branch of 
philosophy that helps man to truly understand the workings of 
existence is metaphysics.
 Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that grew up with the 
quest to understand nature as it is in itself. Now, different 
philosophers from the classical age down to the age of enlightenment 
have postulated different theories to help in understanding the 
formulation of the things in existence. This is where metaphysics as a 
science of 'Being' emanated from. For instance, Heidegger sees 
metaphysics as an ontological inquiry into the “sein”, 'being' or 'to 

2be'  Heidegger calls it an ontological inquiry into existence because 
ontology is a central branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature 
of beings, becoming, existence or reality. This is because everything, 
in reality, is known as being because 'Being is'. There is no doubt 
therefore that many philosophers have variant views on the notion of 

111Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



being. While some hold that being is that which is veriable to the 
senses, others hold that metaphysical realities (being) are not 
veriable to the senses. This great divide about the notion of being 
has led to a thorough investigation into the conceptual analysis of the 
notion of being and the perennial problems that are attached to it.
 Given the fact of these variant views, the question now is what 
truly constitutes the nature of metaphysics? Do beings exist? If they 
do, are they to be easily veried by the senses? Do they not appeal to 
the senses? Are beings both veriable to the senses and at the same 
time not veriable to the senses? Is metaphysics different from the 
principles of natural sciences?
 The main aim of this work is to do an overview of the nature 
and content of metaphysics as a branch of philosophy vis-à-vis the 
Logical positivists' criticisms of metaphysical speculations. This will 
usher us into the analogy of being in which certain conceptual notions 
of being will be dealt with together with the perennial problems that 
are associated with the nature of being. The methods to be adopted 
will be expository, analytic, and speculative. 
 However, care must be taken not to see this work as fully 
expressive in content, but as that which will further spur many 
thinkers to research this area.

Meaning of Metaphysics
The term 'metaphysics' is derived from two Greek words meta 
meaning after and phusis meaning physical. Literarily, this means 
'after the physica'. This goes to show that metaphysics deals with 
realities that are beyond the physical world. This concept is said to be 
derived from Andronicus of Rhodes who was arranging the works of 
Aristotle. It was reported that while he was arranging the works of 
Aristotle in Alexandria, he placed the work that Aristotle calls rst 
philosophy after the ones on physics and gave them the title 'ta meta 
ta physica' meaning 'after the physica'. The question now is why 
would Aristotle refer to metaphysics as the rst philosophy? The 
answer is not far-fetched. He calls it the rst philosophy because it is a 
discipline that deals with the rst causes of all things. Thus, Ayo 
Fadahunsi sees “metaphysics as speculation not just concerning the 
particulars of our world, its kinds, and species, but rather the attempt 

112 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



3to nd some rst causes from which sprang the diversities of reality.
Be that as it may, one thing that stands out in the etymological 
meaning of metaphysics is the fact that it deals with the totality of 
reality and its rst causes thus Joseph Omoregbe denes it as “the 
branch of philosophy that studies the totality of being, that is, nature 

4
and structure of reality as a whole” . One thing that stands out about 
this denition of Omoregbe is that metaphysics investigates reality as 
a whole and not just a part of it. It deals with both realities that apply to 
the senses are things that do not apply to the senses. This is against the 
backdrop of those who are of the view that metaphysics concern itself 
with extraterrestrial realities alone. Metaphysics is an interrogation 
of what is seen to what is unseen. J. Omoregbe argues thus:

… 'after physics' came to be understood as 'beyond 
physics', that is, beyond the physical world, and 
metaphysics came to be understood as the discipline 
dealing with realities beyond the physical work. This 
has been the popular understanding of the word down 
through the ages. But this popular understanding of 
the word is not quite accurate because it is not only 
realities that are beyond the physical world that 
metaphysics deals with. Rather, as a branch of 
philosophy, it is the study of the totality of being, that 

5is, the nature and structure of reality as a whole.

This holistic nature of reality is traced back to Aristotle's metaphysics 
where he refers to it as 'prime philosophy that examines both the 
material (celestial bodies) and spiritual (God and the celestial 

6
movers) divine realities.  This idea about metaphysics further 
determines how scholars see the term metaphysics. For instance, 
Sylvester Enomah sees it as a branch of philosophy that studies and 

7investigates the principles that pervade all reality.  He also went 
further to state that metaphysics studies reality as a whole and not just 
a portion of it.  This is because it extends to all reality both those 
perceptible to the senses which we come to the knowledge of through 
empirical sciences and empirical investigation and those realities that 

8we cannot experience or know experientially.  Pantaleon Iroegbu 
subscribes to this view when he states that “metaphysics involves 

113Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



both the physical and the spiritual, the empirical and the supra-
9

empirical. It concerns each being, all of being, and being in all.   Here, 
there is an interface between empiricism and rationalism, between a 
priori reasoning and aposterori reasoning. All of these forms the 
basic fulcrum of metaphysics.
 Pantaleon Iroegbu's point de part of metaphysics is to correct 
the somewhat misconception that metaphysics is a form of occultic 
discipline. He argues thus “ the layperson's conception of 
metaphysics is often limited to occultic. Many identify metaphysics 
with occultism: the exploitation of hidden powers in nature. This is a 
misconception of what metaphysics is. Occultism is not metaphysics, 

10
metaphysics is not occultism” . This argument becomes necessary 
when one considers the myopic way by which some conceives of 
what metaphysics as a study of nature is all about. 
 This was what informs his denition of metaphysics as 

11
“ordered investigation into the inner side of existence” . He went 
further to scintillatingly state that “metaphysics unravels the most 
fundamental contents of being and beings … it researches into the 

12prolixities of being, and the relationship among them” . It is this 
investigative research into reality as a whole that makes metaphysics 
not occultic premonstrations, but the discovery of the response to the 

13
questions of why things are the way they are.
 This integrative notion of metaphysics makes it very different 
from the methods of the natural sciences. This natural sciences are 
often referred to as 'pure science' when distinguishing them from 
applied science and social sciences. The natural sciences are different 
from the principles of metaphysics because they deal with an aspect 
of nature. That is, the aspect of nature that is veriable to the senses. 
 This notion of the natural sciences is well-buttressed in its 
four basic characteristics. Jack Aigbodioh gives the four basic 
characters that are solely exclusive of the natural sciences. They are 

14
specic, public, impersonal, and objective . The natural sciences are 
said to be specic because they deal with particular observable or 
identiable objects of this terrestrial world; it is said to be public in 
character because their methods and techniques as well as their 
products are exoteric rather than esoteric; it is said to be impersonal 
because it does not involve idiosyncratic beliefs, that is, beliefs or 

114 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



ideals which result from a person's peculiar power of imagination; it 
is objective insofar as their conclusions (concepts, laws, and theories) 
are drawn directly from the hard and naked facts about the world of 

15
everyday perceptual experience.
 It becomes clear therefore that the methods of metaphysics 
are different from the methods of the natural sciences. This is not to 
say there are no areas of convergence in some aspects but the overall 
point of divergence shows that while metaphysics deals with the 
totality of reality; that is, an investigation into the material (empirical) 
and the spiritual (non-empirical) realities, the methods of sciences 
deal with realities that can be veriable and validated utilizing the 
senses. 
 Conclusively, it sufces to say that metaphysics is known 
with variant nomenclatures. It is called ontology because it 
discourses being toward an ultimate unied report of reality. It is 
called prime philosophy or rst philosophy because it searches for the 
rst causes of all things; it is called natural theology in so far as it 
deals with the science of the divine, the primordial cause of all things, 
and other supra-sensible realities. All of these nomenclatures show 
that metaphysics deals with an investigation into being qua being and 
all that belongs to being as being. 
 Having stated this with all its clarity, there is a need to survey 
the notion of being as it constitutes the basic fulcrum of metaphysics.

Metaphysics as a Science of Being: The Analogy of Being
Metaphysics down the ages has been referred to as the science of 
being. The question that readily comes to mind is: what then is Being? 
J. Omoregbe says the question ' what is being' is the most fundamental 
question of philosophy; this is because it has been a problem in 

16
philosophy right from the pre-socratic period to our own day . 
However, the notion of being can be something in reality whether 
seen or unseen. It can be concrete, empirical or meta-empirical. In 
fact, the totality of nature is known as being. 
 The term 'being' as present participle of the verb 'to be' means 
existing (existens, existere). This participle has come to be used as a 
noun, and as such it does not necessarily imply actual existence hic et 
nunc. It does imply some relation to actual existence; for we 

115Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



designate as being (in the substantive sense) only whatever we 
conceive as existing or at least as capable of existing and it is from this 
participial sense, which implies actual existence, that the substantive 

17
sense has been derived  
 The different philosophical epochs have helped to spell out 
the framework from which the notion of being can be accessed. For 
instance, in the ancient era, it is arguably believed that Parmenides 
was the rst to busy himself with the notion of being. He concludes 
that being is eternal and unchanging. This is against the backdrop of 
Heraclitus who holds that being is something that is open to change. 
 Be that as it may, one will immediately conclude that from 

18
Parmenides, the things around us that change are not beings . 
 Parmenides' philosophy truly inuences that of Plato who 
holds that being is eternal and unchanging and as such anything, we 
see around us that changes is not being. This position of Plato means 

19
that he is against Heraclitus's theory of Flux . However, it is 
important to note that despite the fact that Plato subscribed to 
Parmanides' thought does not mean he agrees with everything. He 
differed from Parmenides in the point of view that reality is not only 

20
one. This invariably means that Plato is not a monist  but more of a 
dualist as seen in his bifurcation of existence into The Material World 
and The World of Form. Being for Plato are many but not the things 
we see around us but the ones in the World of Form. Aristotle on his 
part holds that the object of metaphysics is 'being qua being'. This 
Being qua Being or Pure Being, Aristotle calls 'God' thereby making 

21
metaphysic theology . This is further proof of the fact that 
metaphysics can also be called natural theology.
 The middle age which was dominated by the era of the papacy 
tends to tailor things from the theological perspective. Thus, Thomas 
Aquinas a neo-Aristotelian, concurred with the fact that being qua 
being is God. He went further to state that God is being per excellence 

22
while other creatures are being in the analogical sense  Dun Scotus 
while rejecting this analogical sense of Aristotle claims that being is 
indenable because it is the simplest and the most all-embracing of all 
concepts. This means that for Dun Scotus creatures are being in the 
real sense of the word. Thus, one can say that innite beings are 

23
beings in the same way as nite beings are . This view of Dun Scotus 

116 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



is in tandem with William of Ockham who held on to the univocal 
notion of being.
 In the modern era, the notion of being did not gain 
prominence as many scholars busy themselves talking about 
substance rather than being. The problem of being in this era began 
with Hegel who gave a dialectical approach to it. He contrasted being 

24with non-being, as thesis and antithesis respectively . This 
dialectical approach between the thesis and anti-thesis is a synthesis. 
This resultant synthesis is becoming. Thus, in the Hegelian dialectic, 

25
being and non-being are “moments” in the process of becoming . 
Martin Heidegger was the one who showed more interest in the 
notion of being in the modern era in his work Being and Time. In this 
work, he distinguished between being itself and individual beings. 
For him, 'being itself' is the source of the beings of the 'individual 

26beings' and it manifests itself in them . It is important to note that 
Heidegger did not identify any particular being with God as Aristotle 
and Aquinas did. For instance, you cannot call a chair or a man a being 
itself. Being itself goes beyond particular things, it is rather the 
ground of all things and the source from which all beings derive their 

27
being
 Jean-Paul Sartre who is also a seasoned existentialist differs 
from Heidegger when he holds that being is whatever is and not 
something hidden or mystical. In his major work, Being and 
Nothingness, he argues that the foundation of being is nothingness, 
for being emerged from nothing. He went further to distinguish 
between two kinds of being. They are: being-for-itself (pour soir) and 
being-in-itself (en soir). The former is a conscious being while the 
latter is an unconscious being. This notion of being is not in tandem 
with those who uphold the religious and mystical notion of being like 
that of Aquinas and Aristotle. His own is purely natural and atheistic 
in approach. However, Gabriel Marcel a Catholic existentialist 
revived the religious notion of being when he holds that being is a 
mystery and not a problem. For him, a mystery in which we are part 

28of; a mystery in which we are involved and engulfed
 Given the historical excursus on the notion of being, one thing 
that stands out is that being is whatever is. As Pantaleon Iroegbu 
concludes, the notion of being is the primum notum (the rst to be 

117Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



known) and the per se notum (the most self-evident) reality of the 
29

human intellect . He says this because for him, whatever exists is 
being. This is because everything, in reality, is being. Daniel 
Sulivan's argument here becomes expedient.
 The term 'being' is applied to everything that is or can be, even 
to possibilities, for whatever is not nothing, is being. (if we can't say 
'being', we can only say 'nothing'). Being, then, is something that 
belongs to all things. Yet one being is not another being, nor one way 
of being another way of being. Things, in other words, not only agree 
in that they are all beings, but they also differ by their very being … 
every being is unique, isolated, and separate from every other being; 
in a certain sense, every being is nal and ultimate … we are 
confronted with one more instance of the mystery of sameness and 
difference … namely that being is common to everything that is, but 
at the same time things differ by their very being. We say that God is a 
being and that a stone is a being. Man is a being and a possibility is a 
being. But the being of God is innite, and the being of a stone is 
nite. My being is actual but the being of my grandchildren is 
potential. They can all be called being in that they are all 'not nothing'. 

30
But they differ in the way they are 'not nothing'
 The point of Daniel Sullivan is based on the fact that whatever 
is seen in reality is a being and since it is being it is not nothing. For 
that which is not nothing, is a being. However, in the notion of being, 
there is the reality of sameness and difference. This is because the 
way a stone is a being is different from the way God is a being. The 
way man is a being is different from the way a chair is a being. But one 
common thing is that they are all being yet in different degrees 
judging from the reality of act and potency.
 Given this notion of being, there is a need to do a bifurcation 
of what being is all about. Pantaleon Iroegbu gave three kinds of 
Being. 
 They are: Real beings, Ideal Being and Logical beings. All of 
these three beings are a derivation of the different notions of beings 
by the earliest philosophers. For instance, the scholastics 
philosophers distinguished between Necessary Beings and 
Contingent Beings; the same is true of the bifurcation of Martin 
Heidegger's (being itself and Individual Beings) and Jean-Paul 

118 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Sartre's  Being-for itself (pour-soir) and Being-in-itself (en-soir) as 
seen above, which most scholars have translated into Transcendental 
Beings and Conceptual Beings. 
 For Pantaleon Iroegbu, the Real Being is whatever is or that 
which can be independent of our knowledge of it. This real being 
according to him, can be actual and potential. It is actual if it exists hic 
et nunc and it is potential if it can, though it does not yet exist. Other 
features of the real being include: substantial and accidental; 
Necessary and Contingent, Finite and Innite; absolute and relative, 

31
ontologically absolute being and logical absolute being  The ideal 
being, refers to being in knowledge; that is, being as it is known. It is 
also called intentional being because it is the thought-presence or 
appropriation of the thing by the human mind in its collective 
consciousness and awareness. Lastly, The Logical Beings, are beings 
that exist only in the mind. They are a creation of thoughts and the 
fruit of the reections, comparisons, relations, and extensions of Real 
and Ideal beings by the human mind. They have no external existence 
whatsoever. They are purely mental, logical, or thought beings. 
 Logical being has no fundamentum in re if is a mere 
fabrication of the human mind, for instance, a square circle, but a 
logical being has a fundamentum in re if its conception is based on 
real or ideal being, though it does not exist.
 More so, a signicant part of being is in its basic conceptual 
principles. In other words, every being is said to be adjudged from the 
point of view of these conceptual principles and some perennial 
philosophical problems like Act and Potency, Essence and Existence, 
Substance and Accident, Cause and Effect, Space and Time, 
Appearance and Reality, Universal and Particular, Change and 
Permanence and so on. All of these will form the basis for the next 
discuss. 

Some Basic Conceptual Principles of Being and their Perennial 
Metaphysical Problems
Having done an examination and investigation into the notion of 
being that is a subject matter of ontology and metaphysics, there is the 
need to do an exposition on how it can be applied to some conceptual 
principles that are proper to it. These principles are necessary because 

119Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



before we do a proper study of being we must rst consider its 
principles as Alvira holds “{these principles} are found in all 

32creatures and enable us to acquire a deeper knowledge of being”
 The rst of these principles of being to be considered is Act 
and potency. It is believed that before any being is said to be in its 
complete state, it must have undergone some processes.  while its 
complete state is known as Act (actuality), the processes that led to its 
completion are known as potency (potentiality). This knowledge of 
act and potency is premised on our idea of change, motion, and 
permanence. Act is any perfection of a subject while, potency is the 

33capacity to have perfection.  More so, actuality according to 
34

Aristotle, is before potency.  The actual is always produced from the 
potential, the potential is always reduced to act by the actual, for that 

35
which is already in act, as man is produced by man.
 Act and potency should be assessed from two points of view 
as they relate to being. First from the physical point of view and 
secondly, from the metaphysical point of view. From the physical 
viewpoint, Nkwain Sam says that act and potency form the elements 
that make change and motion possible in being more understandable. 
This is because an actual being cannot be at the same time potential 
and vice versa. Change is the transition between being in potentiality 

36
and being in actuality . From the metaphysical point of view, the 
doctrine of act and potency shows itself in all nite being so much so 
that potency after having been made actual continues to be a co-
principle of its corresponding act. It, therefore, means that a particular 
being that has attained an act can also be a potency of something else. 
However, this is not so with the necessary being. The necessary being 
is the being that is always in act. Its actuality is not dependent or 
premised by any form of potentiality.
 Another basic principle of being is essence and existence. 
Existence, on the one hand, is the state of being in virtue of which a 
being is present as an actuality and not merely as a possibility, distinct 
from the mind; and if it is a produced being, distinct from its 

37producing cause.  resorting to the issue of acts and potency, 
Celestine's denition sees every existent being as already in actuality 
and not just a possible being this is because existence connotes 
concreteness. 

120 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Essence on the other hand is what a being is or what a thing is. In other 
words, it is what a thing is before it takes a concrete existence.  
 Pantaleon gave three (3) essential points on what essence is 

38
all about. For him, essence is quiddity, nature, and substance.  
Quiddity means that the essence of a being is what denes a being in 
itself that makes it distinct from another being. It has to do with the 
beingness of a thing thus it answers the question: quid? (What?). 
 Nature as essence means that which brings about the peculiar 
character and structure of being.  For instance, the nature of man is 
body and soul.  Substance as essence is used to differentiate being 
from its accident. This brings about the form of being.
 Here it is believed that every being exist and as such has its 
essence. 
 If being is whatever is, it means being is that which exists, and 
whatever exists must have an essence. The seeming interrelatedness 
between essence and existence has been a cause of concern among 
scholars from the classical age till this age. This is so because, in 
ancient times, the notion of essence and existence feature 
prominently most especially in the work of Plato and Aristotle. 
 While Plato on his part concludes that essence is the most 
perfect and stable object and to be found in the World of Form, 
Aristotle claims essence does not exist in a separate world as Plato 
claims; but essence is to be found in the sensible beings of this world, 
wherein they are said of having a concrete and singular mode of 
existence. In medieval times these views of Plato and Aristotle were 
absorbed by Aquinas and other Christian philosophers; where 
Aquinas holds that it is existence that actualizes essence. However, 
the Islamic thinkers who made contributions to this issue in the 
medieval era are Avicenna and Averroes. For Avicenna, he conceives 
existence as an accident since essence is a primacy. 
 Avicenna conceives of essence as independent of, and before 
existence. This is because while the essence is uncaused, existence is 

39caused.  In the modern era, different existentialist philosophers like 
Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Monley Ponty, and a host of others lay 
primacy to existence over essence. For the existentialist, existence 
precedes essence. Jean-Paul Sartre conceives of this view from an 
atheistic perspective because for him, “there are no eternal essences, 

121Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



presents as “ideas” in the mind of God, which precedes the existence 
40

of things”  this simply means that being is not created for a purpose. 
It has no xed nature rather, it is determined by his own choice 
because it is precisely the way in which being exists and acts that 

41expresses the essence of what the being is all about.  
 There is no doubt that this view does not sit well with 
phenomenologists like Edmund Hurssell in his eidetic science (the 
science of essence). This is because, for phenomenologists, essence 
precedes existence.
 Now, it is important to note that the whole argument on 
essence and existence is for contingent beings alone and not for 
Necessary beings. Joseph Omoregbe argues thus:

This distinction between essence and existence applies 
only to contingent beings, and not to the necessary 
Being. In the necessary being essence and existence 
are identical, existence is part of his essence. 
Consequently, the Necessary Being cannot but exist 
since existence is part of his nature. Contingent beings 
do not have existence as part of their nature, it comes 
from outside them. Hence they owe their existence to 

42another being outside them.

Be that as it may, one truth that stands out about the notion of being is 
a complementarity between essence and existence. They are basic 
conceptual issues of being. They are indeed inseparable. A being that 
exists has its respective essence. While essence makes existence what 
it is, existence is the cause of essence because existence makes 
essence real or exist concretely.
 Another distinct conceptual issue is cause and effect or the 
principle of causality. Causality is a generic connection of 
phenomena through which one thing (the cause) under certain 

43
conditions gives rise to, and causes something else (the effect).  He 
went further to state that the essence of causality is the generation and 
determination of one phenomenon by another. This invariably means 
that for a being to exist, it must have been caused by something. It is 
so because nature abhors non-causality and vacuum. This means that 
in nature there is a continuity in the chain of productivity. This is the 

122 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



foundation from which the notion of causality stands for “causality is 
44

dened as the act of bringing into reality what was not in reality”
 The notion of causality in being will be discussed in 
Aristotle's four causes. Andrea Falcon says that the doctrine of the 
four causes is an indispensable tool for a successful investigation of 

45
the world around us.  The four causes are the material cause; which 
is the stuff from which a thing is made; the formal cause, which has to 
do with the shape or the form which a being takes; the efcient cause 
is the agent that is responsible for bringing a being into existence; and 
the nal cause, which has to do with the purpose for which a thing is 
made. The account of the four causes is general in the sense that it 
applies to every being that requires an explanation.
 The principle of causality holds that contingent beings are 
caused. The only being that is not caused is the Supreme Being. He is 
the uncaused cause. H. D. Guardeil in his assessment of Thomas 
Aquinas's philosophy puts it thus: “a cause is a principle of being … 
everything except the Supreme Being depends on something not only 
for its being but also for its becoming. This something of whatever 

46sort is a cause” . This point is further buttressed in the works of 
Aristotle and later adopted by Thomas Aquinas in his Qui Que Viae 
for proving the existence of God. In their thought, the Supreme Being 
is known to have caused every other being into existence but he is not 
caused thus he is referred to as the uncaused cause.
 Other conceptual analysis of being Space and Time. It is 
believed that every being exist in space and time. This is highly 
attested to in Aristotle's metaphysics and physics. The notion of 
potency and act in being takes place in time for it is a matter of time 
before potency becomes act. However, the only being that transcends 
time and space is the Necessary Being which has the character of 
immanence and transcendence as part of its nature. The question that 
readily comes to mind here is the notion of change. Do beings change 
or are permanent? This contention featured in the early history of 
philosophy in the work of Heraclitus and Parmenides. While 
Heraclitus holds that beings change, Parmenides holds that beings do 
not change. According to him (Parmenides), nothing goes out of 
being and nothing comes into being. Being is one and eternal. For 
him, what we call a change in being is due to the deformity of sense 

123Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



perception for the senses cannot give us true knowledge. The likes of 
Plato and Rene Descartes are a proponent of the failures of sensual 
knowledge. For them, the best that the senses can offer in being is 
mere appearance and not reality. This is because appearance can 
deceive us.
 Conclusively, it is important to note that every being has the 
reality of substance. This substance is said to exist. The substance of 
being constitute the nature or essence of a particular being as distinct 
from other beings. 
 Having done an examination of metaphysics as the science of 
being together with the analogy of being and its conceptual 
framework, can one say metaphysics is relevant to humanity? Are 
there people or schools of thought that are opposed to metaphysical 
methodology? Now an investigation into these questions becomes 
expedient.

The Logical Positivists' Criticisms of Metaphysics Vis-a Vis the 
Relevance of Metaphysics to Humanity
Metaphysics as a branch of philosophy has been a subject of attack by 
many logical positivists who are members of the Vienne circle. 

th The members of the Vienne circle are a group of early 20 -
century philosophers who sought to reconceptualize empiricism 

47utilizing their interpretation of reality . Their radically anti-
metaphysical stance was supported by an empiricist criterion of 
meaningfulness where statements that are to be considered 
meaningful are those that are mathematical in nature. Scholars like 
Moritz Schlick, David Hume, Rudolf Carnap, A. J. Ayer, and a host of 
others are a proponent of this view. They disregard every religious 
and metaphysical concept that does not fall within the ambiance of 
the sciences. Concepts like God, spirit, soul, and so on are considered 
meaningless. A. J. Ayer who is one of the leading members of this 
group is quoted to say:

The mention of God brings us to the question of the 
possibility of religious knowledge. We shall see that 
this possibility has already been ruled out by our 
treatment of metaphysics … for to say that God exists, 
is to make a metaphysical utterance that cannot be 

124 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



either true or false. And by the same criterion, no 
sentence which purports to describe the nature of the 
transcendent God can possess any literal signicance 
… All utterances about the nature of God are 

48nonsensical

Ayer like every other logical positivist sees a talk about God and other 
metaphysical realities as nonsensical reasons being that they cannot 
be veriable by scientic assumptions. He even went further to deny 
the nature of the soul because it can also not be veried when he says 
“to say that there is something imperceptible inside a man, which is 
his soul or his real self, … is to make a metaphysical assertion which 
has no more factual content than the assertion that there is a 

49
transcendent god” . David Hume holds that every metaphysical 
content should be thrown into the wind for they contain nothing but 
sophistry and illusion. Added to this, there are some empiricists and 
rationalists who see scholastic metaphysics as abstract and mere 
jargon because it deals with realities that cannot be veried. This is 
almost in tandem with Ockham Razor of William Ockham who holds 
that reality should not be multiplied unnecessarily. Why make a 
bifurcation of reality into a complex entity when there is a veriable 
way to explain the nature of existence? With all of these postulations, 
can one still say metaphysics as a science of being is relevant to 
humanity?
 The relevance of metaphysics cannot be over-emphasized. It 
is relevant in some way in that it helps humanity to understand reality 
better. This is evident in the different sub-branches that have 
emanated from it. For instance cosmology, anthropology, natural 
philosophy, and philosophy of mind. All of these have helped man to 
understand the world and all it contains. It is said that metaphysics 
helps scientists in the postulation of laws and theories about nature. 
 This is because while scientists rely on empirical 
observations to understand reality, metaphysicians employ the use of 
intelligent reasoning to help make sense of scientic theories. Ayo 
Fadahunsi captures this clearly when he says “metaphysics deserves 
a credit for its high sense of reasoning without which no inquiry can 

125Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



be made into any theory because looking into a theory requires a deep 
50

respect for reasoning”.
 Giving the fact that science makes use of an aspect of reality 
means that existence in all its wholeness cannot be grasped by 
scientic discovery alone. To understand the totality of being, certain 
metaphysical methods need to be adopted. For instance, it is through 
the help of the metaphysical method that different conceptual issues 
about being were considered. Concepts like act and potency, essence 
and existence, substance and accident, space and time, and the like. 
All of these issues help in understanding the nitty gritty of being and 
existence alike. 
 Metaphysics helps in the understanding of religious concepts 
like God, angels, spirit, and soul. It is a proper understanding of these 
concepts that human conduct is well-formed; for the man who has no 
touch of metaphysics goes through life imprisoned with prejudices 
 From the political point of view, one must not rule out the 
importance of metaphysics in the formulation of policies. This is 
because the principle of metaphysics emphasizes the integrity of 
humanity over racial discrimination and ethnocentric bias. In other 
words, laws will be made to benet humanity and not party members 
only or people from the same race or tribes. The benet of 
metaphysics is also seen in the different areas of the social and natural 
sciences for they depend on metaphysical speculations to bring about 
their laws and theories.
 To put the value or relevance of metaphysics into perspective, 
Chulor C. Leo & Apebende S. Atah Citing Henry Koren outlines 
some importance or value of metaphysics. This outline will be 
summarized accordingly. For him, metaphysics is valuable because it 
is a speculative science. this is because it teaches us how to do certain 
things. After all, every man desires to know. It is said to have absolute 
value because it deals with being and all its components. It is said to 
render secure the ultimate foundations of the sciences because every 
other science depends on it to make useful postulations; it helps to 
examine and analyze general principles because it deals with the 
totality of existence and not just an aspect of existence; it is important 

51because it helps in making a balance on the different norms of life.

126 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Conclusion
In this work, we have been able to establish that metaphysics is a 
branch of philosophy that studies the totality of reality. This was 
further buttressed on the ground that metaphysics is a study of being. 
 There is no doubt therefore that the nature of being is 
surrounded by some basic conceptual issues like act and potency, 
essence and existence, cause and effect, and the like. Given that the 
principles of metaphysics have been criticized over time yet its 
invaluable nature to humanity cannot be sidelined since many 
sciences depend on it for their postulations.

ENDNOTES

1  Aso William. Rudiments of Philosophy for Undergraduates; Lagos. 
Fropiel International Ltd 2018, p. 3

2 Heideggar in Pantaleon Iroegbu, Metaphysics: The Kpim of 
Philosophy. Owerri: International Univ. Press Ltd. 1995 p. 22

3 Ayo Fadahunsi  Metaphysics: A Historical and Thematic 
Introduction. Ibadan: Hope Pub 2004,  p.10

4 Joseph Omoregbe Metaphysics Without Tears: A Systematic and 
Historical Study. Lagos: Joja Educational Research and Publishers 
Ltd. 2011 p. ix

5 ibid
6 Aristotle- Metaphysics, 1026 a 10 in Dario Composta, History of 

Ancient Philosophy p.257-258
7 Sylvester Enomah. The Nature of Metaphysics Vol. 1. Ibadan Bibis 

Press 1997 p. 11
8 ibid
9 Pantaleon Iroegbu Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy Opcit p.15
10 ibid p.15
11 ibid
12 ibid
13 ibid
14 Jack Aigbodioh Philosophy of Science: Issues and Problems. Ibadan 

Hope Publications 1997 p. 3
15 Ibid p. 3-5
16 Joseph Omoregbe Metaphysics Without Tears: A Systematic and 

Historical Study. Opcit  p. 1
17 Peter Coffey, Ontology or the Theory of Being. London: Longmans, 

Green and Co. 1918 p.45

127Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...



18 ibid
19 Anthony Kanu The Problem of Being in Metaphysics: An 

International Multidisciplinary Journal, Ethiopia Vol. 6 (2), N.25 
2012 P. 114

20 Joseph Omoregbe Metaphysics Without Tears: A Systematic and 
Historical Study. Opcit p.1

21 Anthony Kanu The Problem of Being in Metaphysics Opcit p. 114; J. 
Omoregbe, Metaphysics without Tears Opcit  p. 2

22 ibid
23 Anthony Kanu The Problem of Being in Metaphysics Opcit p.114
24 Ibid 115
25 Joseph Omoregbe Metaphysics Without Tears: A Systematic and 

Historical Study. Opcit  p3-4
26 Martin Heidegger in Joseph Omoregbe ibid p.4
27 Anthony Kanu The Problem of Being in Metaphysics Opcit  p.115
28 J. Omoregbe Metaphysics Without Tears: A Systematic and Historical 

Study. Opcit p5
29 Pantaleon Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy Opcit  p.60
30 Daniel Sullivan. An Introduction to Philosophy: Perennial Principles 

of the Classical Realist Tradition.  North Carlifonia: St. Benedict 
Press, LLC TAN Books 2012 p.215

31 Pantaleon Iroegbu Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy Opcit pp 
62-63

32 Alvira, T., et al., in Nkwain Sam. Act and Potency 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337670520_ACT_AND_P
OTENCY

33 Nkwain Sam. Act and Potency 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337670520_ACT_AND_P
OTENCY

34 Aristotle Metaph., 1049 b 5 in Fredrick Copleston: A History of 
Philosophy: Greece and Rome: London Bloomsbury 2013 p. 310

35 Fredrick Copleston A History of Philosophy: Greece and Rome: Ibid 
p.310

36 Paul Gerard Horrigan, Act and Potency 2009 p.3 
https://www.academia.edu/9966369/Act_and_Potency

37 Celestine Bittle .N. The Domain of Beings, Milwauke: The Bruce 
Pub. Co., 1939 p. 116 

38 Pantaleon Iroegbu Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy Opcit p.48-
49

39 Catarina Belo Essence and Existence in Avicenna and Averros.  Al- 

128 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Quantara 2009  P. 413
40 Fredrick Copleston. A History of Philosophy: Logical Positivism and 

Existentialism Vol. 11  London: Bloomsbury 2013 p. 126
41 Blessing Agidigbi Existentialist Philosophy: Central Issues and 

Themes Benin City: Kay-Babs Print 2015  p. 58
42 J. Omoregbe Metaphysics Without Tears: A Systematic and Historical 

Study. p. 9
43 A. Spirkin. Dialectical Materialsim: The System of Categories in 

Philosphical Thought Chap.2 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/spirkin/works/dialectical-
materialism/ch02-s06.html

44 Pantaleon Iroegbu Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy p 364
45 Andrea Falcon  Aristotle on Causality' Standford Encyclopedia of 

Phlosophy  2019https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-
causality/#Int

46 H. D. Guardeil, Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas 
ndAquinas: Cosmology. 2  Ed. Vol. 2 Translated by John A. Otto. 

London: B. Herde Book Co., 1958 p. 61
47 Thomas Uebel. Vienne Circle: Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy  

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vienna-circle/2020
48 A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, (New York: Dover 

Publications, 1946) pp. 114-120
49 ibid
50 Ayo Fadahunsin Metaphysics: A Historical and Thematic 

Introduction. p161
51 Ochulor C. Leo & Apebende S. Atah “The Necesity of Metaphysics” 

American Journal of Social Issues & Humanities Vol 1 2011 pp40-42

129Metaphysics and The Ontology of Being Amidst the Logical ...


