Meta
Encyclopedia
Meta- is a prefix
used in English
(and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction
from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.
In epistemology, the prefix meta is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on). Also, metamemory
in psychology means an individual's knowledge
about whether or not they would remember something if they concentrated on recalling it. Furthermore, metaemotion in psychology means an individual's emotion about his/her own basic emotion, or somebody else's basic emotion.
Another, slightly different interpretation of this term is "about" but not "on" (exactly its own category). For example, in linguistics a grammar is considered as being expressed in a metalanguage
, or a sort of language for describing another language (and not itself).
Any subject can be said to have a meta-theory which is the theoretical consideration of its meta-properties, such as its foundations, methods, form and utility
.
In Greek, the prefix meta- is generally less esoteric than in English; Greek meta- is equivalent to the Latin words post- or ad-. The use of the prefix in this sense occurs occasionally in scientific English
terms derived from Greek. For example: the term Metatheria
(the name for the clade
of marsupial
mammals) uses the prefix meta- merely in the sense that the Metatheria
occur on the tree of life adjacent to the Theria
(the placental mammals).
"Meta" is also gaining currency as an adjective, as well as a prefix, as in the work of Douglas Hofstadter (see below).
preposition and prefix meta- (μετά-), from μετά, which meant "after", "beside", "with", "among" (with respect to the preposition, some of these meanings were distinguished by case marking). The Greek preposition is cognate
with the Old English preposition mid "with", still found as a prefix in midwife. 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". Nonetheless, Aristotle's Metaphysics enunciates those considerations of natures above physical realities which can be known through this particular part of philosophy, e.g., the existence of God. The use of the prefix was later extended to other contexts based on the understanding of metaphysics to mean "the science of what is beyond the physical". The earliest attested form of the word "meta" is the Mycenaean Greek me-ta, written in Linear B
syllabic script.
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).
Douglas Hofstadter
, in his 1979 book Gödel, 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 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 when somebody says "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 "metasentences" that reference themselves in this way. Randall Munroe
jokingly offered a six-word biography of Hofstadter, the acronym "I'm So Meta, Even This Acronym," which spells "IS META."
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
used in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.
In epistemology, the prefix meta is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on). Also, metamemory
Metamemory
Metamemory, one component of metacognition, is about one’s memory capabilities and strategies that can aid memory, as well as the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This self-awareness of memory has important implications for how people learn and use memories...
in psychology means an individual's knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
about whether or not they would remember something if they concentrated on recalling it. Furthermore, metaemotion in psychology means an individual's emotion about his/her own basic emotion, or somebody else's basic emotion.
Another, slightly different interpretation of this term is "about" but not "on" (exactly its own category). For example, in linguistics a grammar is considered as being expressed in a metalanguage
Metalanguage
Broadly, any metalanguage is language or symbols used when language itself is being discussed or examined. In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to make statements about statements in another language...
, or a sort of language for describing another language (and not itself).
Any subject can be said to have a meta-theory which is the theoretical consideration of its meta-properties, such as its foundations, methods, form and utility
Utility
In economics, utility is a measure of customer satisfaction, referring to the total satisfaction received by a consumer from consuming a good or service....
.
In Greek, the prefix meta- is generally less esoteric than in English; Greek meta- is equivalent to the Latin words post- or ad-. The use of the prefix in this sense occurs occasionally in scientific English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
terms derived from Greek. For example: the term Metatheria
Metatheria
Metatheria is a grouping within the animal class Mammalia. First proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1880, it is nearly synonymous with the earlier taxon Marsupialia though it is slightly wider since it also contains the nearest fossil relatives of marsupial mammals.The earliest known...
(the name for the clade
Clade
A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...
of marsupial
Marsupial
Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, with the remaining 100 found in the Americas, primarily in South America, but with thirteen in Central...
mammals) uses the prefix meta- merely in the sense that the Metatheria
Metatheria
Metatheria is a grouping within the animal class Mammalia. First proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1880, it is nearly synonymous with the earlier taxon Marsupialia though it is slightly wider since it also contains the nearest fossil relatives of marsupial mammals.The earliest known...
occur on the tree of life adjacent to the Theria
Theria
Theria is a subclass of mammals that give birth to live young without using a shelled egg, including both eutherians and metatherians . The only omitted extant mammal group is the egg-laying monotremes....
(the placental mammals).
"Meta" is also gaining currency as an adjective, as well as a prefix, as in the work of Douglas Hofstadter (see below).
Etymology
The prefix comes from the GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
preposition and prefix meta- (μετά-), from μετά, which meant "after", "beside", "with", "among" (with respect to the preposition, some of these meanings were distinguished by case marking). The Greek preposition is cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
with the Old English preposition mid "with", still found as a prefix in midwife. Its use in English is the result of back-formation
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889...
from the word "metaphysics". In origin Metaphysics
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
Metaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and...
was just the title of one of the principal works of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
; it was so named (by Andronicus of Rhodes
Andronicus of Rhodes
Andronicus of Rhodes was a Greek philosopher from Rhodes who was also the eleventh scholarch of the Peripatetic school.He was at the head of the Peripatetic school at Rome, about 58 BC, and was the teacher of Boethus of Sidon, with whom Strabo studied...
) simply because in the customary ordering of the works of Aristotle it was the book following Physics
Physics (Aristotle)
The Physics of Aristotle is one of the foundational books of Western science and philosophy...
; 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". Nonetheless, Aristotle's Metaphysics enunciates those considerations of natures above physical realities which can be known through this particular part of philosophy, e.g., the existence of God. The use of the prefix was later extended to other contexts based on the understanding of metaphysics to mean "the science of what is beyond the physical". The earliest attested form of the word "meta" is the Mycenaean Greek me-ta, written in Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
syllabic script.
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 HilbertDavid Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
proposed a research project in what was called "metamathematics
Metamathematics
Metamathematics is the study of mathematics itself using mathematical methods. This study produces metatheories, which are mathematical theories about other mathematical theories...
.")
A notable early citation is Quine's
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
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).
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
, in his 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is a book by Douglas Hofstadter, described by his publishing company as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll"....
(and in the sequel, Metamagical Themas
Metamagical Themas
Metamagical Themas is a collection of eclectic articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s by Douglas Hofstadter, and published together as a book in 1985 by Basic Books ....
), 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 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 when somebody says "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 "metasentences" that reference themselves in this way. Randall Munroe
Randall Munroe
Randall Patrick Munroe is an American webcomic author and former NASA roboticist as well as a programmer, best known as the creator of the webcomic xkcd...
jokingly offered a six-word biography of Hofstadter, the acronym "I'm So Meta, Even This Acronym," which spells "IS META."
External links
- List of ancient Greek words starting with meta-, on Perseus