Phi-lŏs'o-phy, n.
n. [Gr. φιλοσοφία, Lat. & Pr. philosophia, Fr. philosophie, Sp. & It. filosofia. See PHILOSOPHER.]
Sense 1. Literally, the love of, or search after, wisdom; in actual usage, the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws.
☞ When applied to any particular department of knowledge, it 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, including natural philosophy and natural history; 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.
☞ “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.” Sir W. Hamilton.
Sense 2. A particular philosophical system or theory.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Shak.
We shall in vain interpret their words by the notions of our philosophy and the doctrines in our schools. Locke.
Sense 3. Reasoning; argumentation. Milton.
Sense 4. Course of sciences read in the schools.
Philosophy of the Garden, that of Epicurus, who instructed his pupils in a garden in Athens which he bought for the purpose.—Philosophy of the Porch, that of Zeno and the Stoics;—so called because Zeno of Citium and his successors taught in the porch or piazza of the Poecile, a great hall 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 Academy, that of Plato, who taught his disciples in a grove in Athens called the Academy.