Exploring Metaphysics – Dr. David Kyle Johnson

What comes to mind when you hear the word “metaphysics”? Forget the ancient philosophers and ivory tower professors pontificating on irrelevant abstractions. The truth is, while metaphysics is among the oldest strands of philosophical thought—an inquiry into the very nature of reality—metaphysics is also on the cutting edge of today’s scientific discoveries.

Physicist and Great Courses professor Sean Carroll explains the relationship between metaphysics and science this way: “Philosophers are very good at uncovering inconsistencies or mistakes in the kinds of causal heuristic understanding that scientists are often willing to accept. So for a physicist like me, philosophers can be very helpful in explaining what the problems are in our current versions of quantum mechanics, or in the origin of the arrow of time, or the nature of probability, or what counts as an ‘explanation.’”

Metaphysics, then, is an applied philosophy, a tool for thinking through concerns in a wide range of other disciplines, including

• psychology,
• neuroscience,
• theology,
• artificial intelligence,
• relativity, and
• quantum mechanics.

Most forms of structured thinking spring from metaphysics, and metaphysicians still think through the big questions about humans and the universe: the relationship between the mind and the brain, how consciousness emerges from neurochemical processes, the existence of God, human free will, the possibility of time travel, and whether we live in a multiverse or even a computer simulation.

Reflect on these issues and more in Exploring Metaphysics, a mind-bending tour of philosophy applied to the forefront of today’s knowledge. Over the course of 24 fascinating lectures, philosopher David Kyle Johnson, an award-winning scholar and professor at King’s College, takes you on a journey through the limits of today’s knowledge. He identifies our fundamental assumptions about the world—and then proceeds to challenge those assumptions point by point.

By teasing out the logical inconsistencies, paradoxes, and often unsettling implications of what we “know” about ourselves and the world around us, Professor Johnson poses challenging questions and covers a startling range of human inquiry. Exploring Metaphysics doesn’t offer all the answers, but it does ask questions you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else. You’ll be surprised to learn what relativity, quantum mechanics, and neuroscience imply about human free will and that time travel is not as crazy as it sounds.

From Humanity to the Nature of Reality

Forget what you think you know about yourself and your place in the world. Professor Johnson opens the course with three units that will surely alter your view of what it means to be a conscious, free person. Drawing from the realms of psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, the first half of the course examines the defining traits of being human.

In the second half of the course, Professor Johnson shifts from the nature of the individual to the nature of the universe. Here metaphysics, science, and theology all intersect. While the scientific method has given us many answers, those answers have also raised a host of new, as yet unanswered questions. These metaphysical questions may seem like science fiction, but they stem from the very concrete world of reality.

Although the subject has ancient roots, the metaphysics you study in this course is far from an esoteric system of thought. Indeed, this material is very much alive today—at the forefront of philosophy, physics, and medical technology. When you complete this course, you will have a much richer perspective on the world around you. Virtually every lecture will challenge some of your bedrock beliefs about yourself and the universe.

About Your Professor

Dr. David Kyle Johnson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s degree and doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oklahoma. At Oklahoma, he won the coveted Kenneth Merrill Graduate Teaching Award. In 2011, the American Philosophical Association’s committee on public philosophy gave him an award for his ability to make philosophy accessible to the general public.