Both Uses of

metaphysical
in
Ulysses, by James Joyce

The hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of the metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for, envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic development at some stage antecedent to the human.†
Chpt 14 *

metaphysical = relating to questions that cannot be answered with the scientific method

Lastly at the head of the board was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours of pedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socratic discussion, while to right and left of him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelible dishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come.†
Chpt 14

Definitions:

(1) (metaphysical)
relating to beliefs not proven with the scientific method

or:

without material form or substance

or:

highly abstract and overly theoretical

or:

relating to metaphysics (the philosophical study of being and knowing)
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

More rarely, metaphysical can reference a 17th-century style of British poetry.