An Enquiry into the Nature of Being investigates metaphysics and epistemology by accruing maximal certainties which remain open to formal falsification. In this manner, it builds upon a perpetually compounding foundation of solid ontological givens while, all throughout, maintaining the philosophical principle of fallibilism.

This philosophy’s novel approach upholds the otherwise scientific principle of falsifiability for all its pivotal conclusions: All obtained conclusions that affirm to be of a falsifiable epistemic certainty are thereby certainties devoid of any known justifiable alternatives, and can each be formally falsified as being an epistemic certainty simply via the provision of any justifiable alternative to that which it claims. Standing in contrast to epistemic certainties which are supposed to be infallible (hence, impossible to be in any way wrong), such falsifiable epistemic certainties constitute a newly discerned form of maximal certainty, one which this philosophy uncovers and, for ease of expression, coins “unfalsified certainty” (see Chapter 1). The first-person unfalsified certainty of “I—as a first-person point of view—am whenever I am in any way aware” then both serves a) as an example of unfalsified certainties in general (for no one here concerned can so far provide a justifiable alternative to their occurrence as a first-person point of view while in any way aware of anything, including while being aware of any such supposedly justifiable alternative (this as is addressed with greater detail in Chapter 4)) and b) as the second unfalsified certainty this philosophy provides upon which the three volumes of this work are founded (the first unfalsified certainty provided being that we must uphold the law of noncontradiction without exception if reasoning is to be in any way rationally deemed efficacious for us (this as is established in Chapter 3)).

The cumulative philosophical worldview of this work, then, will be found to coincide with many aspects of C. S. Peirce’s notions regarding objective idealism; to rationally support what in Neo-Platonism is termed “the Good”; to evidence what in Aristotelianism is termed “the unmoved mover” of all that exists, and this within a teleological cosmos; to logically confirm the reality of our metaphysical free will; to comprehensively explain meta-ethics together with the problem of evil; to clarify how the immaterial mind is determined by, and can in turn influence, the material body; to self-consistently justify the three basic laws of thought (the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle) via the ontological nature of the world as previously derived in the work; to provide a satisfactory explanation of what epistemological subjects such as those of reasoning, correctitude, justification, and knowledge consist of; to provide a stringent metaphysical grounding for the necessity of biological evolution; and—among the work’s many other merits—to provide means for analytically addressing the possibility of spiritual realms in logical manners while, likewise, providing solid metaphysical support and explanation for physical objectivity as well as, subsequently, providing solid epistemological grounding for the scientific method and its results.

I, the author of the work, am in the process of rewriting this philosophy (which was initially written by me in far less analytical manners over a decade past) so as to improve its rigor—and am freely uploading first-edit versions of Volume One's newly written chapters on this website as they become available. It is currently anticipated that, upon finalization of this work's first volume, additional revisions will be made prior to the volume’s formal publication in book format. All contents of this website are offered as public domain under the CC-0 license. The reader, just as much as the author, thereby has the right to copy, modify, and do with the content as they see fit. (Indeed, if interested, the reader is encouraged to copy and share this website’s contents at will.)

Uploaded sections are denoted with a bullet (•) in the table of contents. Sections not yet uploaded are provisionally listed for reference and are subject to substantial change.

Due to time constraints and the increased ease of administration, for the foreseeable future, this MediaWiki-based website will be closed to public modification.

If you have questions, if you have criticisms of what's been uploaded and would like to share these with the author, or if you would otherwise like to be informed of newly uploaded chapters via email, please contact me—Michael W Moiceanu, the author of this work—at michael@anenquiry.com.

— Update (March 4, 2026):

As might be no surprise, the possibility of solipsism is an extremely difficult thing to disprove, especially with the standard of unfalsified certainty (it hasn’t been done yet in the history of humanity, so—right up there with the unfalsifiedly certain proof that we have metaphysical free will (already provided in Chapter 11)—very close attention to proper argumentation is to be expected).

In the process of writing, I’ve discovered that to suitably address the impossibility of solipsism, I must first properly address our sense of agency together with our sense of ownership—which, in turn, requires that I must first formally address the bundled nature of mind (what Chapter 15 terms the animana). This, then, mandates that I incorporate certain portions of what was planned for Part 5 into Part 4 of this work. (Which will in turn require that I will eventually realign the presentation of the already uploaded Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 to reflect these changes within the overall work.)

The currently envisioned revisions to Part 4 and Part 5 have already been uploaded within the Table of Contents below.

No promises, but, given the quantity of new chapters added to Part 4, I might start uploading them one at a time, rather than all of them at once, as their first draft versions become finalized. And this sooner than previously anticipated.

Please revisit in a month or two for further updates to the work.

An Enquiry into the Nature of Being

Michael W Moiceanu (User: MWMoiceanu)

michael@anenquiry.com

• Preface

• Preface Stub

Volume One: Certainty, Awareness, Will, Mind, and Selfhood

Chapter : The Animana - A Bundle Theory of Mind

Chapter: The Sense of Agency and the Sense of Ownership

Chapter: An Eidem’s Discernment of Its Unianthood

Chapter: Of Physicalism, Non-physicalism, and P-Zombies

Chapter: On Dream States, Waking States, and the Possibility of Spiritual Realms

Chapter: The Impossibility of Being the Sole Self in Existence

Part 5: Reevaluations

Chapter: The Prototelos and Choice Making

Chapter: Concerning Thought

Chapter: Concerning Memory

Chapter: Concerning Forethought

Chapter: Concerning Expectations

Chapter: Selfhood Revisited

Chapter: Self-Awareness Revisited

Chapter: The Anima and Animus Revisited

Chapter: Happiness and Suffering Revisited

Volume Two: Formations, Objectivity, Compatibilism, Truth, and Value

Part 8: Formational Determinacy

Chapter: Formational Determinacy Revisited

Chapter: Four Jointly Exhaustive Formation Possibilities

Chapter: Of Relations between Body and Mind

Part 9: Deriving the Metaphysics of Objectivity

Chapter: Requisite Concurrences of Eidems

Chapter: Four Jointly Exhaustive Types of Reality

Chapter: Concerning the Two Types of Objective Reality

Chapter: Retroactive Compatibilism

Chapter: Progressive Uniformitarianism

Chapter: Concerning Nature and the Possibility of the Supernatural

Part 10: Concerning Truth and Belief

Chapter: Four Truth Types

Chapter: Of Trust and Belief

Chapter: Enactive, Learned, and Innate Trust

Part 11: Value Theory

Chapter: Deriving What Should be from that Euteleion which Is

Chapter: The Apeiroson (be it Static, Dynamic, or else Negative)

Chapter: The Turannon

Chapter: The Permanon

Chapter: The Material-Nihilon

Chapter: The Dysteleion

Chapter: Compound Teloi and Teloi Concessions

Chapter: Competition between Teloi

Chapter: The Personal-Identity-Preservation Drive

Volume Three: Reasoning, Epistemology, Spacetime, Aesthetics, and Science

Part 12: Reasoning

Chapter: Logical Identity, Noncontradiction, and the Excluded Middle

Chapter: Of Form and Determinative Information

Chapter: Of Reasoning and its Correctitude

Chapter: Of Pre-Socratic Logos and the Notion of Karma

Chapter: Abductions, Inductions, and Deductions

Chapter: Of Quantity, Numbers, and Mathematics

Part 13: Epistemology

Chapter: Justification

Chapter: Knowledge

Chapter: Understanding

Part 14: Spacetime

Chapter: The Intrareal Extended Present Moment

Chapter: The Equireal Present Moment

Chapter: Intra-, Inter-, and Equi-syncretic Spacetime

Part 15: Aesthetics

Chapter: Biological Fairness

Chapter: Psychological Fairness

Chapter: Conceptual Fairness

Part 16: Science

Chapter: Validating the Scientific Method

Chapter: The Entailment of Evolution via Natural Selection

Chapter: Implications for Behavioral Evolution Among Lifeforms

Chapter: On Laws of Thermodynamics and Entropy

Chapter: On the Emergence of Life from Nonlife and Panpsychism

Chapter: Concerning the Beginning and End of the Universe