PHILOSOPHY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Philosophy

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/fəlˈɑsəfi/ Listen

noun

Philosophy n. (pl. philosophies)

Literally, the love of, inducing the search after, wisdom; in actual usage, the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws. Note: 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. Note: "Philosophy has been defined: the science 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 science of the absolute indifference of the ideal and real."

A particular philosophical system or theory; the hypothesis by which particular phenomena are explained. "(Books) of Aristotle and his philosophie." "We shall in vain interpret their words by the notions of our philosophy and the doctrines in our school."

Practical wisdom; calmness of temper and judgment; equanimity; fortitude; stoicism; as, to meet misfortune with philosophy. "Then had he spent all his philosophy."

Reasoning; argumentation. "Of good and evil much they argued then,... Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy."

The course of sciences read in the schools.

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.

See images of 'Philosophy'

Etymology of 'Philosophy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Philosophy" Quotes from Famous Books

... Morton took possession of the place and dubbed it "Ma-re-mount." And then began the pranks which shook the Colony to its foundations. Picture to yourself a band of sworn triflers, dedicated to the wildest philosophy of pleasure, teaching bears to dance, playing blind-man's buff, holding juggling and boxing matches, and dancing. According to Hawthorne, on the eve of Saint John they felled whole acres of forests to make bonfires, and crowned themselves with flowers and threw the blossoms ...

— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... in the decision now rendered, that in a complex modern society there is such interdependence of its members that the activities of most of them are necessary to the activities of most others. But I think that Congress did not make that philosophy the basis of the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It did not, by a 'house-that-Jack-built' chain of causation, bring within the sweep of the statute the ultimate causa causarum which result in the production of goods for commerce. Instead it defined production as a physical ...

— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... surprising, at a time when almost all kinds of poetry are cultivated with little success, to find that we have done no great matters in this. Many causes may be assigned for our present weakness in that oldest and most excellent branch of philosophy, poetical learning, and particularly in what regards the theatre. I shall here only consider what appears to me to be one of these causes: I mean the wrong notion of the art itself, which begins to grow fashionable, especially among people of an elegant turn of mind with ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... vanity, and love of pleasure; his head without habits of activity or principles of judgment, a whirlpool where fantasies and hallucinations and 'fragments of science' were chaotically jumbled to and fro. But he could babble college-latin; and talk with a trenchant tone about the 'revolutions of Philosophy.' Such accomplishments procured him pardon from his parents: the precentorial spirit of his father was more than reconciled on discovering that Daniel could also preach and play upon the organ. The good old people still loved ...

— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... Continuing her philosophy of success, Phoebe proceeded to initiate me into the first process of my job, which consisted in pasting slippery, sticky strips of muslin over the corners of the rough brown boxes that were piled high about us in frail, tottering towers reaching to the ceiling, which was trellised over ...

— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

More quotes...