Philosophy

I often hear people say that metaphysics is not really philosophy because the philosophy is based on rational arguments and metaphysics often not, it is really true? the metaphysics is only about "supernatural" things (or concepts) or or it is also about things that can be demonstrated rationally?

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I believe that in some bookstores "metaphysics" is used to classify books that are "new age," but, technically, in philosophy or for most philosophers, the domain of metaphysics refers to theories of what exist. In this usage, metaphysics is hard to avoid. For a good defense of this outlook, see E.J. Lowe's The Possibility of Metaphysics. Some metaphysical systems accept what may be called the "supernatural" (God, the soul), other systems of metaphysics may be pretty materialistic, e.g. the view that the only thing that exists are matter and energy. Accounts of what can be demonstrated rationally concerns the domain of epistemology (theories about knowledge and what can be known or justifiably believed). I personally think there are good, rational reasons for accepting some forms of metaphysics and rejecting others. For a good book on this, see Lowe's follow up book Metaphysics or Michael Loux's Metaphysics, or the Routledge Companion to Metaphysics (which just came out in paperback).

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