this: Meta (disambiguation)

Meta (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent"), is a prefix used in English in order 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). Similarly, 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.Fact: date=July 2007. In medicine, a meta-placebo refers to a placebo of a placebo.

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). A meta-answer is not a real answer but a reply, such as: "this is not a good question", "I suggest you ask your professor"Fact: date=August 2008. Here, we have such concepts as meta-reasoning and meta-knowledge.

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 addition to a prefix, "meta" is sometimes used as an adjective ("that statement was meta").

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).

The term meta also refers back to Roman Times. A "meta" was a structure mounted on the ends of the central spina in Roman chariot races. In many of the Romance languages, the term "meta" is basically an aim or goal. Roman Charioteers would aim their chariots for this pole-like structure during their races, in order to stay on track.

__TOC__

Etymology

The prefix comes from the Greek preposition and prefix meta- (μετά) 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 so named (by Andronicus of Rhodes) simply because it followed the book on physics in the customary ordering of the works of Aristotle; it thus meant nothing more than "book that comes after book on 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.