Metaphysics is defined as ... > "The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things or reality, including questions about being, substance, time and space, causation, change, and identity (which are presupposed in the special sciences but do not belong to any one of them); theoretical philosophy as the ultimate science of being and knowing", ... in the Oxford English Dictionary.
"It is not easy to say what metaphysics is", says the [entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/). The sections in that article outline the "old" metaphysics going back to ancient Greeks, and "new" metaphysics developed in the 20th century: > 2. The Problems of Metaphysics: the “Old” Metaphysics >> 2.1 Being As Such, First Causes, Unchanging Things >> 2.2 Categories of Being and Universals >> 2.3 Substance > 3. The Problems of Metaphysics: the “New” Metaphysics >> 3.1 Modality >> 3.2 Space and Time >> 3.3 Persistence and Constitution >> 3.4 Causation, Freedom and Determinism >> 3.5 The Mental and Physical
"The _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ itself seems ambivalent" on the question ["Is there 'Metaphysics' in Chinese Philosophy?"](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-metaphysics/#TheMetChi) . Starting from Aristotelean definitions would be misguided. * "[The Cosmogenic Turn](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-metaphysics/#CosTur)" occurred around 4 BCE. > > Sometime probably in the middle of the fourth century BCE, a radical shift in vocabulary, concerns, and visions of the human took place.[3] This new position has long been known from the Laozi, but recent archaeological discoveries show that the Laozi was just one of a number of positions that together constitute what we might call “a cosmogonic turn.”[4] These texts are the first we know of to directly question how the diverse things of the world arise and take form. [....] >> This break with anthropocentrism went along with a shift away from humanistic values like rightness (yi 義) or ritual propriety (li 禮) and toward concerns with maintaining life, reducing desires, and acting spontaneously. * This source does see "Shared Intellectual Contexts" between Chinese Philosophy and Chinese Medicine.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn't have an entry for metaphysics, but instead a [category for metaphysics](https://iep.utm.edu/category/m-and-e/metaphysics/).
Metaphilosophy is related to, and may be confused with metaphysics.