I dislike the word and concept of metaphysics. I dislike it, first of all, because how can you ask about the nature of what exists before you even answer the question of what exists. Secondly, we can never know directly the nature of what exists whether we are talking about the others (the external world and its objects) or the self (this internal world entity).

The nature of what exists will always be secondhand knowledge even for the self. I say this for two main reasons. First, I am not assuming the self is the mind or consciousness (in fact, I am concluding it is not). Secondly, if I conclude that the self is body or at least dependent upon the body then my privileged access should give me greater knowledge of “me”.

But obviously it does not. We have psychologists and other medical doctors to tell us what is right or wrong with us. In other words, I know as much about my bodily self only slightly more than knowing things apparently external to me.

For this reason ontology (the study of what exists) is a more relevant branch of philosophy in my opinion than metaphysics.

Besides, metaphysics was named so because it was simply after the “physics” chapter in the collated and collected works of Aristotle.