- the branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology.
- philosophy, especially in its more abstruse branches.
- the underlying theoretical principles of a subject or field of inquiry.
- a treatise (4th century b.c.) by Aristotle, dealing with first principles, the relation of universals to particulars, and the teleological doctrine of causation.
- the branch of philosophy that deals with first principles, esp of being and knowing
- the philosophical study of the nature of reality, concerned with such questions as the existence of God, the external world, etc
- See descriptive metaphysics
- (popularly) abstract or subtle discussion or reasoning
