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Etymology
The prefix comes from the Greek preposition and prefix meta- () which meant “after”, “beside”, “among”, “with” (with respect to the preposition, some of these meanings were distinguished by case marking). Meta- (along with Meso-, also borrowed as a prefix into English: e.g. “Mesoamerica”) is cognate with English “mid-“. Its use in English is the result of back-formation from the word “metaphysics”. In origin Metaphysics was just the title of one of the principal works of Aristotle; it was so named (by Andronicus of Rhodes) simply because in the customary ordering of the works of Aristotle it was the book following Physics; it thus meant nothing more than “[the book that comes] after [the book entitled] Physics”. However, even Latin writers misinterpreted this as entailing that metaphysics constituted “the science of what is beyond the physical”. The use of the prefix was later extended to other contexts based on this.
Quine and Hofstadter
The OED cites uses of the meta- prefix as “beyond, about” (such as meta-economics and meta-philosophy) going back to 1917. However, these formations are directly parallel to the original “metaphysics” and “metaphysical”, that is, as a prefix to general nouns (fields of study) or adjectives. Going by the OED citations, it began to be used with specific nouns in connection with mathematical logic sometime before 1929. (In 1920 David Hilbert proposed a research project in what was called “metamathematics.”)
A notable early citation is Quine’s 1937 use of the word “metatheorem”, where meta- clearly has the modern meaning of “an X about X”. (Note that earlier uses of “meta-economics” and even “metaphysics” do not have this doubled conceptual structure, they are about or beyond X but they do not themselves constitute an X). Note also that this modern meaning allows for self-reference, since if something is about the category to which it belongs, it can be about itself; it is therefore no coincidence that we find Quine, a mathematician interested in self-reference, using it.
Douglas Hofstadter, in his 1979 book Gdel, Escher, Bach (and in the sequel, Metamagical Themas), popularized this meaning of the term. This book, which deals extensively with self-reference and touches on Quine and his work, was influential in many computer-related subcultures, and is probably largely responsible for the popularity of the prefix, for its use as a solo term, and for the many recent coinages which use it. Hofstadter uses the meta as a stand-alone word, both as an adjective and as a directional preposition (“going meta”, a term he coins for the old rhetorical trick of taking a debate or analysis to another level of abstraction, as in “This debate isn’t going anywhere.”). This book is also probably responsible for the direct association of “meta” with self-reference, as opposed to just abstraction. The sentence “This sentence contains thirty-six letters,” and the sentence it is embedded in, are examples of sentences that reference themselves in this way.
Words using the term ‘meta’ or ‘meta-‘
Common uses of the English prefix include:
Meta-analysis
Metadata
<meta> (or <META>), an HTML tag
Metacharacter
Metacognition
Meta- (chemistry)
Meta-communication
Meta-discussion
Meta-emotion
Meta-ethics
Metafiction
Metafilm
Metagaming
Metagenomics
Metageography
Metaheuristics
Metahuman
Meta-joke
Metakinesis
Meta-advertising
Metaknowledge
Metalanguage
Metalogic
Metamaterial
Metamathematics
Metamechanics
Metamedia
Metameme
Metamerism
Metamodeling
Metanarrative
Metaphilosophy
Metaphysics
Metapolitics
Metaprogramming
Metarealism
Metastable
Metatheatre
Metaverse
Metawidget
Meta-Intelligence
Metanational
Other uses more closely follow the Greek meaning. For example:
Metabolism
Metacarpus
Metamaterial
Metamorphosis
Metaphase
Metaphor
Metaphysics
Metastasis
Metatarsus
Metathesis
Metaxy
References
^ Entry “metaphysics” Online Etymology Dictionary.
Categories: Epistemology | Abstraction | Fictional technologyHidden categories: Articles needing cleanup from May 2009 | All pages needing cleanup | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from July 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2008
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