The article examines the evolution of the concept of “metaphysics” in the history of culture. Metaphysics as the “first philosophy” of Aristotle has gone through a historically variable path as a consequence of the pluralistic nature of the very nature of philosophical knowledge. Solidarizing in the main thing - metaphysics is an understanding of the fundamental, fundamental principles of being - each independently thinking philosopher takes as a basis as principles different understandings of substances and its attributes. Questions of the relationship between the concepts of “metaphysics” and “ontology” in various historical and philosophical discourses are discussed. Based on this, metaphysical concepts in specific philosophical teachings and doctrines are quite variable in the history of culture, up to the positivist desire to expel metaphysics from science. The modern understanding of metaphysics in collaboration with the philosophy of science makes it possible to reveal the dialectical connection between metaphysics and science and, in particular, metaphysics and fundamental physics.
Philosophy of Science as First Philosophy: The Liberal Polemics of Ernest Nagel
