How would you define Philosophy?

Question

I need more than a single sentence definition of Philosophy so please clarify this form of study for me. Give me as much detailed information as possible. Also, why would an individual major in this subject?
Thank you.

Answer 1

Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom through the application of logic, reason and knowledge. Philosophy guides us to a better understanding of the human mind and the world around us. It has applications in Medicine, Religion, Psychology, the sciences, and many other fields.

Answer 2

Philosophy the word means the love of wisdom. Philosophy the practice means the study of every-thing and even no-thing. All of it. However, it is a science because it follows a method and has principles and rules (um... which excludes so-called philosophers who sit in coffee shops smoking and acting existential). This science examines all things through the use of its tool: logic - rational activity of the intellect.

It is an art because it is experienced via speech, discourse, and writing and can be displayed in many forms including, but not exclusive to: film, theatre, literature, political rhetoric, business, and ethics.

A person would go to college and major in philosophy if: They are very intelligent and love reading. They do not expect to get a well-paying, highly-desirable job, and they enjoy being confused for any person who ever had a fancy thought in their life (cp. earlier example of coffee-shop thinkers.)

Answer 3

Since d_r_siva gave the long and excellent answer, I'll keep mine short:
philosophy is the faculty of epistemology working on the cognitive processes of the mind to evaluate and prove their content and then to apply those evaluations to metaphysics, ethics, poly sci, and aesthetics, among many disciplines.

Answer 4

Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).

Answer 5

Philosophy is the quest which propels man towards understanding different aspects of life.

Answer 6

1. examination of basic concepts: the branch of knowledge or academic study devoted to the systematic examination of basic concepts such as truth, existence, reality, causality, and freedom

2. school of thought: a particular system of thought or doctrine

3. guiding or underlying principles: a set of basic principles or concepts underlying a particular sphere of knowledge

4. set of beliefs or aims: a precept, or set of precepts, beliefs, principles, or aims, underlying somebody's practice or conduct

5. calm resignation: restraint, resignation, or calmness and rationality in somebody's behavior or response to events

[14th century. Via French and Latin< Greek philosophia< philosophos ]

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861725603

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=philosophy

the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. 2 the theories of a particular philosopher. 3 a theory or attitude that guides one’s behaviour. 4 the study of the theoretical basis of a branch of knowledge or experience.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/philosophy?view=uk

1 a (1): all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts (2): the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology (3): the 4-year college course of a major seminary b (1)archaic : physical science (2): ethics c: a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
2 a: pursuit of wisdom b: a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c: an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs
3 a: a system of philosophical concepts b: a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought
4 a: the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group b: calmness of temper and judgment befitting a philosopher

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=philosophy

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=59385&dict=CALD

An academic discipline that is often divided into five major branches: logic; metaphysics; epistemology; ethics; and aesthetics.
A comprehensive system of belief.
A view or outlook regarding fundamental principles underlying some domain.
A general principle (usually moral).

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Philosophy

Definition 1. the study of the nature and principles of knowledge, truth, existence, and moral and aesthetic values.
Definition 2. any system of ideas and theories based on such study.
Definition 3. a set of personal or cultural beliefs or values, esp. of a practical nature.

http://www.wordsmyth.net/live/home.php?script=search&matchent=philosophy&matchtype=exact

1. the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.
2. any of the three branches, namely natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy, that are accepted as composing this study.
3. a system of philosophical doctrine: the philosophy of Spinoza.
4. the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science.
5. a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs.
6. a philosophical attitude, as one of composure and calm in the presence of troubles or annoyances.

http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/philosophy

1. Any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation; "my father's philosophy of child-rearing was to let mother do it." 2. The rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics.

http://ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/index.html?service=ee&text=philosophy

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=philosophy*1+0&dict=A

1. Literally, the love of, including the search after, wisdom; in actual usage, the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws. &hand; When applied to any particular department of knowledge, philosophy denotes the general laws or principles under which all the subordinate phenomena or facts relating to that subject are comprehended. Thus philosophy, when applied to God and the divine government, is called theology; when applied to material objects, it is called physics; when it treats of man, it is called anthropology and psychology, with which are connected logic and ethics; when it treats of the necessary conceptions and relations by which philosophy is possible, it is called metaphysics. &hand; Philosophy has been defined: tionscience of things divine and human, and the causes in which they are contained; -- the science of effects by their causes; -- the science of sufficient reasons; -- the science of things possible, inasmuch as they are possible; -- the science of things evidently deduced from first principles; -- the science of truths sensible and abstract; -- the application of reason to its legitimate objects; -- the science of the relations of all knowledge to the necessary ends of human reason; -- the science of the original form of the ego, or mental self; -- the science of science; -- the science of the absolute; -- the scienceof the absolute indifference of the ideal and real." Sir W. Hamilton.

2. A particular philosophical system or theory; the hypothesis by which particular phenomena are explained.

[Books] of Aristotle and his philosophie. Chaucer.
We shall in vain interpret their words by the notions of our philosophy and the doctrines in our school. Locke.
3. Practical wisdom; calmness of temper and judgment; equanimity; fortitude; stoicism; as, to meet misfortune with philosophy.

Then had he spent all his philosophy. Chaucer.
4. Reasoning; argumentation.

Of good and evil much they argued then, . . . Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy. Milton.
5. The course of sciences read in the schools. Johnson.

6. A treatise on philosophy. Philosophy of the Academy, that of Plato, who taught his disciples in a grove in Athens called the Academy. -- Philosophy of the Garden, that of Epicurus, who taught in a garden in Athens. -- Philosophy of the Lyceum, that of Aristotle, the founder of the Peripatetic school, who delivered his lectures in the Lyceum at Athens. -- Philosophy of the Porch, that of Zeno and the Stoics; -- so called because Zeno of Citium and his successors taught in the porch of the Poicile, a great hall in Athens.

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=philosophy

1. Literally, the love of wisdom. But in modern acceptation, philosophy is a general term denoting an explanation of the reasons of things; or an investigation of the causes of all phenomena both of mind and of matter. When applied to any particular department of knowledge, it denotes the collection of general laws or principles under which all the subordinate phenomena or facts relating to that subject, are comprehended. Thus, that branch of philosophy which treats of God, &c. is called theology; that which treats of nature, is called physics or natural philosophy; that which treats of man is called logic and ethics, or moral philosophy; that which treats of the mind is called intellectual or mental philosophy, or metaphysics.

The objects of philosophy are to ascertain facts or truth, and the causes of things or their phenomena; to enlarge our views of God and his works, and to render our knowledge of both practically useful and subservient to human happiness.

True religion and true philosophy must ultimately arrive at the same principle.

2. Hypothesis or system on which natural effects are explained.

We shall in vain interpret their words by the notions of our philosophy and the doctrines in our schools.

3. Reasoning; argumentation.

4. Course of sciences read in the schools.

http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,philosophy

[Gr.,=love of wisdom], study of the ultimate reality, causes, and principles underlying being and thinking. It has many aspects and different manifestations according to the problems involved and the method of approach and emphasis used by the individual philosopher. This article deals with the nature and development of Western philosophical thought. Eastern philosophy, while founded in religion, contains rigorously developed systems; for these, see Buddhism; Confucianism; Hinduism; Islam; Jainism; Shinto; Taoism; Vedanta; and related articles. 1

Distinguishing Characteristics
This search for truth began, in the Western world, when the Greeks first established (c.600 B.C.) inquiry independent of theological creeds. Philosophy is distinguished from theology in that philosophy rejects dogma and deals with speculation rather than faith. Philosophy differs from science in that both the natural and the social sciences base their theories wholly on established fact, whereas philosophy also covers areas of inquiry where no facts as such are available. Originally, science as such did not exist and philosophy covered the entire field, but as facts became available and tentative certainties emerged, the sciences broke away from metaphysical speculation to pursue their different aims. Thus physics was once in the realm of philosophy, and it was only in the early 20th cent. that psychology was established as a science apart from philosophy. However, many of the greatest philosophers were also scientists, and philosophy still considers the methods (as opposed to the materials) of science as its province.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/ph/philsphy.html

PHILOSOPHY (Gr. 4 LXos, fond of, and a001a, wisdom), a general term whose meaning and scope have varied very considerably according to the usage of different authors and different ages. It can best be explained by a survey of the steps by which philosophy differentiated itself, in the history of Greek thought, from the idea of knowledge and culture in general. These steps may be traced in the gradual specification of the term. The tradition which assigns the first employment of the Greek word 4aAoa041a to Pythagoras has hardly any claim to be regarded as authentic; and the somewhat self-conscious modesty to which Diogenes Laertius attributes the choice of the designation is, in all probability, a piece of etymology crystallized into narrative. It is true that, as a matter of fact, the earliest uses of the word (the verb /xXoa04Eiv occurs in Herodotus and Thucydides) imply the idea of the pursuit of knowledge; but the distinction between the aogios, or wise man, and the 4nXoaoa50s, or lover of wisdom, appears first in the Platonic writings, and lends itself naturally to the so-called Socratic irony. The same thought is to be found in Xenophon, and is doubtless to be attributed to the historical Socrates. But the word soon lost this special implication. What is of real interest to us is to trace the progress from the idea of the philosopher as occupied with any and every department of knowledge to that which assigns him a special kind of knowledge as his province.

A specific sense of the word first meets us in Plato, who defines the philosopher as one who apprehends the essence or reality of things in opposition to the man who dwells in appearances and the shows of sense. The philosophers, he says, "are those who are able to grasp the eternal and immutable"; they are "those who set their affections on that which in each case really exists" (Rep. 480). In Plato, however, this distinction is applied chiefly in an ethical and religious direction; and, while it defines philosophy, so far correctly, as the endeavour to express what things are in their ultimate constitution, it is not yet accompanied by a sufficient differentiation of the subsidiary inquiries by which this ultimate question may be approached. Logic, ethics and physics, psychology, theory of knowledge and metaphysics are all fused together by Plato in a semi-religious synthesis. It is not till we come to Aristotle - the encyclopaedist of the ancient world - that we find a demarcation of the different philosophic disciplines corresponding, in the main, to that still current. The earliest philosophers, or "physiologers," had occupied themselves chiefly with what we may call cosmology; the one question which covers everything for them is that of the underlying substance of the world around them, and they essay to answer this question, so to speak, by simple inspection. In Socrates and Plato, on the other hand, the start is made from a consideration of man's moral and intellectual activity; but knowledge and action are confused with one another, as in the Socratic doctrine that virtue is knowledge. To this correspond the Platonic confusion of logic and ethics and the attempt to substitute a theory of concepts for a metaphysic of reality. Aristotle's methodic intellect led him to separate the different aspects of reality here confounded. He became the founder of logic, psychology, ethics and aesthetics as separate sciences; while he prefixed to all such (comparatively) special inquiries the investigation of the ultimate nature of existence as such, or of those first principles which are common to, and presupposed in, every narrower field of knowledge. For this investigation Aristotle's most usual name is "first philosophy" or, as a modern might say, "first principles"; but there has since been appropriated to it, apparently by accident, the title "metaphysics." "Philosophy," as a term of general application, was not, indeed restricted by Aristotle or his successors to the disciplines just enumerated. Aristotle himself includes under the title, besides mathematics, all his physical inquiries. It was only in the Alexandrian period, as Zeller points out, that the special sciences attained to independent cultivation. Nevertheless, as the mass of knowledge accumulated, it naturally came about that the name "philosophy" ceased to be applied to inquiries concerned with the particulars as such. The details of physics, for example, were abandoned to the scientific specialist, and philosophy restricted itself in this department to the question of the relation of the physical universe to the ultimate ground or author of things. This inquiry which was long called "rational cosmology," may be said to form part of the general subject of metaphysics, or at all events a pendant to it. By the gradual sifting out of the special sciences philosophy thus came to embrace primarily the inquiries grouped as "metaphysics" or "first philosophy." These would embrace, according to the Wolffian scheme long current in philosophical textbooks, ontology proper, or the science of being as such, with its three-branch sciences of (rational) psychology, cosmology and (rational or natural) theology, dealing with the three chief forms of being - the soul, the world and God. Subsidiary to metaphysics, as the central inquiry, stand the sciences of logic and ethics, to which may be added aesthetics, constituting three normative sciences - sciences, that is, which do not, primarily, describe facts, but rather prescribe ends or set forth ideals. It is evident, however, that if logic deals with conceptions which may be considered constitutive of knowledge as such, and if ethics deals with the harmonious realization of human life, which is the highest known form of existence, both sciences must have a great deal of weight in the settling of the general question of metaphysics.

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Philosophy

Although most religions and spiritual beliefs are
clearly distinct from science on both a
philosophical and methodological level, the two
are not generally considered to be mutually
exclusive. A majority of humans hold a mix of both
scientific and religious views. The distinction
between philosophy and religion, on the other
hand, is at times less clear.