In contemporary philosophy, specialties within the field are more commonly divided into metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics (the latter two of which together comprise axiology).
This position emerged as a response to what was called the problem of universals, which was an ancient problem in metaphysics about whether universals exist.
He attacked surmise and unexamined premises wherever he found them, and his skepticism pointed out metaphysics in areas that other empiricists had assumed were material.
