Literally love of wisdom, a subject which deals with the most general questions about the universe and our place in it. Is the world entirely physical in its composition and processes? Is there any purpose to it? Can we know anything for certain? Are we free? Are there any absolute values? Philosophy differs from science, in that its questions cannot be answered empirically, by observation or experiment; and from religion, in that its purpose is entirely intellectual, and allows no role for faith or revelation. Philosophy tends to proceed by an informal but rigorous process of conceptual analysis and reasoning. Its major branches are metaphysics, epistemology (or theory of knowledge), ethics, and logic (especially the theory of meaning, formal logic now being regarded more as part of mathematics). Philosophy is thus concerned with the common core of human knowledge and experience but also with the concepts, modes of argument, and foundations of other special subjects, so that there are, for example, philosophies of science, history, art (aesthetics), politics, and religion.

Western philosophy is conventionally divided into several overlapping periods or traditions: Greek and Roman, from the 6th-c BC to the 6th-c AD, with Plato and Aristotle setting the agenda for almost all that follows; Mediaeval, from Augustine in the 4th-c to the 15th-c, a period when Muslims, Jews, and Christians all tried to relate the classical inheritance, particularly from Aristotle, to their different religious traditions; Renaissance, the humanism of the 14th-c to the 16th-c; Early Modern, 16th-c and 17th-c, when such figures as Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz began to work out the philosophical implications of the scientific revolution; Enlightenment, the consequent liberalism and empiricism of the 18th-c; and Modern, the 19th-c and 20th-c, marked by the separation from philosophy of separate sciences, such as logic and psychology, and the professionalism of the subject around the core questions of epistemology, metaphysics, and the theory of meaning. There are of course other non-Western philosophical traditions, some of which intersected at various points with Western philosophy (Islam, Judaism) and some of which take quite separate paths (Indian, Chinese).

Philosophy is a field of study in which people question, and create theories about, the nature of reality. Philosophers concern themselves with such fundamental and mysterious topics as the existence or lack thereof of a divine being, the nature of being and the universe, the pursuit of truth, the nature of consciousness, and the morality of actions. The fundamental method of western philosophy is the use of reasoning to evaluate arguments. However, the methodology of philosophy is itself debated, and varies according to the philosophical and cultural traditions of people all over the world.

Origin

The term philosophy comes from the Greek word Φιλοσοφία (philo-sophia), which means "love of wisdom." However, the term is notoriously difficult to define today (see definition of philosophy) because of the diverse fields of study to which it has been popularly applied. It goes on to observe that philosophy differs from science in that philosophy's questions cannot be answered empirically, and from religion in that philosophy allows no place for faith or revelation. However, these points are called into question by the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, which states: "the late 20th-century spirit of the subject [...] prefers to see philosophical reflection as continuous with the best practice of any field of intellectual enquiry" . Indeed, many of the speculations of early philosophers in the field of natural philosophy eventually formed the basis for several kinds of modern scientific explanation.

Branches of philosophy

There is no universal agreement about which subjects are the main branches of philosophy. Nevertheless, there are many places where these subjects overlap, and there are many philosophical ideas that cannot be placed neatly into only one of these categories.

Each branch has its own particular questions. feminism" as the "dramatis personae of political philosophy".

Outside these five broad categories are other areas of philosophical inquiry such as religion or theology.

History of philosophy

The history of Western philosophy is traditionally divided into three eras: Ancient philosophy, Medieval philosophy, and Modern philosophy. Eastern philosophy has been, for most of its history, independent of Western philosophy. Some philosophers have argued that human civilization has passed into a new, "post-modern" period. Others believe that there is a distinction between "Modern" philosophy and Contemporary philosophy, but there is great disagreement about the content of this difference.

Western philosophy

Greco-Roman philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy may be divided into the pre-Socratic period, the Socratic period, and the post-Aristotelian period. The Socratic period is named in honor of the most recognizable figure in Western philosophy, Socrates, who, along with his pupil Plato, revolutionized philosophy through the use of the Socratic method, which developed the very general philosophical methods of definition, analysis, and synthesis. Plato's writings are often considered basic texts in philosophy as they defined the fundamental issues of philosophy for future generations.

Medieval philosophy

The medieval period of philosophy came with the collapse of Roman civilization and the dawn of Christianity, Islam, and rabbinic Judaism. The medieval period brought Christian scholastic philosophy, with writers such as Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, Anselm, Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Nicholas of Cusa, and Francisco Suárez. The philosophers in the scholastic Christian tradition and philosophers in the other major Abrahamic religions (such as the Jewish philosophers Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, and the Muslim philosophers Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, and Averroes) were each aware of the others' works. The philosophy of this period is characterized by analysis of the nature and properties of God; and logic and the philosophy of language.

Many of these philosophers took as their starting point the theories of Plato or Aristotle. Others, however, such as Tertullian, rejected Greek philosophy as antithetical to revelation and faith.

Modern Western philosophy

Modern philosophy is generally considered to begin with the work of René Descartes. His work was greatly influenced by questioning from his correspondences with other philosophers.

Medieval philosophy had been concerned primarily with argument from authority, and the analysis of ancient texts using Aristotelian logic. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) wrote in favor of the methods of science in philosophical discovery.

Analytic and Continental

The late modern period in philosophy, beginning in the late 19th century and lasting to the 1950s, was marked by a developing schism between the "Continental" tradition and the "Analytic" tradition associated with many English-speaking countries.

What underlies the analytic tradition, especially the early analytic tradition, is the view (originally defended by Ockham) that much philosophical error arises from misunderstandings generated by language. According to some analytic philosophers, the true meaning of ordinary sentences is "concealed by their grammatical form", and we must translate them into their true form (understood as their logical form) in order to clarify them. Some philosophers (beginning with Frege and Bertrand Russell) have argued that first-order logic shows us the true logical form of ordinary sentences. Other analytic philosophers, such as the late Wittgenstein, rejected the idea of logical form; and this issue of logical form figured prominently in early analytic philosophy. These debates over logical form are no longer as central to analytic philosophy as they used to be, and analytic philosophy now tends to address the full range of philosophical problems with all available philosophical methods. Today analytic philosophy's essence lies more in a style of writing and argumentation (that is, it aims to be clear and rigorous) than in its subject matter or ideas.

"Continental" philosophy is most closely identified with the phenomenological movement inaugurated by Edmund Husserl and the various reactions to and modifications of Husserl's work. The phenomenological method is an important alternative to the way that analytic philosophy typically proceeds. Instead of taking linguistic data as the starting point and linguistic analysis as the primary method of philosophy, phenomenology takes conscious experience as the starting point and the detailed analysis of such experience – that is, "phenomenological analysis" – as its method. Some important figures in the analytic tradition such as Wilfrid Sellars and Hector-Neri Castaneda have argued that linguistic analysis is actually a kind of phenomenological investigation because it appeals to our experience as language users to answer philosophical questions. In effect, they have argued that analytic philosophy is but one kind of phenomenology, the implication being that analytic philosophy can ignore the tradition that commences with phenomenology only to its detriment.

While Husserl placed great emphasis on consciousness and took up an idealist position motivated largely by a firm distinction between a conscious ego and its objects, the subject-object disinction was deeply critiqued by Husserl's student, Martin Heidegger. Heidegger's 1927 book Being and Time was not only a critique of Husserl, but of a way of thinking that he believed infected the entire Western philosophical tradition of which Husserl was the latest expression. Arguably, Being and Time was the single most revolutionary work of twentieth century philosophy. Together, hermeneutics – the theory of interpretation in the most general sense – and phenomenology constitute the main concerns of continental philosophy. These concerns tend to require a great deal of systematic thinking to make progress in them, and thus continental philosophy tends to look more often at the "big picture" and to deal more directly with everyday human concerns than does analytic philosophy – though like any stereotype, this generalization admits of many exceptions and should not be read to the letter.

Eastern philosophy

Many societies have considered philosophical questions and built philosophical traditions based upon each other's works. Eastern and Middle Eastern philosophical traditions have influenced Western philosophers. Russian, Jewish, Islamic and recently Latin American philosophical traditions have contributed to, or been influenced by, Western philosophy, yet each has retained a distinctive identity.

The differences between traditions are often based on their favored historical philosophers, and varying stress on ideas, procedural styles, or written language.

"Eastern philosophy" refers to the broad traditions that originated or were popular in India, Persia, China, Japan, and to an extent, the Middle East (which overlaps with Western philosophy due to being the origin of the Abrahamic religions).

Indian philosophy

Further information: Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and Jainism

Hindu philosophy constitutes an integral part of the culture of Southern Asia, and is the first of the Dharmic philosophies which were influential throughout the Far East.

The origins of Hindu philosophy are to be traced in Vedic deliberations about the universe and Rta ("universal order"), the first of which was the Rig-Veda, composed in the 2nd millennium BC. Other major texts with philosophical implications include the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutra, from circa 1000 BCE to 500 BCE. The Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana also cover Indian philosophy in much depth. It is notable that the Vedanta schools of Hindu philosophy are still living traditions today.

Hindu philosophy is traditionally seen through the prism of six different systems (called darshanas in Sanskrit).

Buddhist philosophy is a system of beliefs based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince later known as the Buddha, derived from the Sanskrit 'bud', 'to awaken'.

From its inception, Buddhism has had a strong philosophical component.

Most Buddhist sects believe in karma, a cause-and-effect relationship between all that has been done and all that will be done.

Jaina philosophy, founded by Mahavira (599-527 BCE), is based upon eternal, universal truths, according to its followers.

Anekantavada is a basic principle of Jainism positing that reality is perceived differently from different points of view, and that no single point of view is completely true.

Persian philosophy

See also: Zoroastrianism and Islamic philosophy

The teachings of Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) appeared in Persia at some point during the period between 1000-588 BCE. His wisdom became the basis of the religion Zoroastrianism, and generally influenced the development of the Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian philosophy. He espoused an ethical philosophy based on the primacy of good thoughts (humata), good words (hukhata), and good deeds (hvarshatra).

Zarathushtra was known as a sage, magician and miracle-worker in post-Classical Western culture, though almost nothing was known of his ideas until the late eighteenth century.

In 2005, the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy ranked Zarathushtra number two in the chronology of philosophical events. The Greeks later used a similar word to the Iranian one – the word "philosophy" in Greek literally means "love of wisdom".

Throughout Iranian history, due to Greek and Arabic influence, a wide spectrum of schools of thoughts showed a variety of views on philosophical questions extending from Old Iranian and Zoroastrian traditions, to schools appearing in the late pre-Islamic era, to various Islamic schools. Iranian philosophy after the Arab invasion of Persia is characterized by different interactions with the Old Iranian philosophy with Greek and Islamic philosophy. The Illumination School and the Transcendent Philosophy are regarded as two of the main philosophical traditions of that era in Persia.

Manicheism, founded by Mani, was influential from North Africa in the West, to China in the East. An important principle of Manicheism was its dualistic cosmology/theology, which it shared with Mazdakism, a philosophy founded by Mazdak.

In the Islamic era, various Persian philosophers contributed to Islamic philosophy. Al-Farabi discussed the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle elaborately. This philosophy had an impact on centralizing then divided Feudal societies.

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) wrote extensively on the subjects of philosophy, logic, ethics, metaphysics and other disciplines. He wrote two encyclopaedic treatises dealing with philosophy, known as the Al-Shifa (Sanatio in Latin) and An-najat (Liberatio in Latin). Arabic philosophy flourished after Avicenna's death, emerging from Avicenna's inflammatory pronouncements on all matters within the world, whether physical or metaphysical, such as the works of the post-Avicennian Baghdadi Peripatetics and anti-Peripatetics.

Chinese philosophy

Philosophy has had a tremendous effect on Chinese civilization, and East Asia as a whole. Many of the great philosophical schools were formulated during the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, and came to be known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. (It should be noted that Eastern thought, unlike Western philosophy, did not express a clear distinction between philosophy and religion.) Like Western philosophy, Chinese philosophy covers a broad and complex range of thought, possessing a multitude of schools that address every branch and subject area of philosophy.

In China, the Tao Te Ching (Dào dé jīng, in pinyin romanisation) of Lao Tzu (Lǎo zǐ) and the Analects of Confucius (Kǒng fū zǐ;

Of all the Chinese philosophies, however, it is quite safe to say Confucianism has had the greatest impact throughout East Asia. His philosophy focused in the fields of ethics and politics, emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, traditionalism, and sincerity.

Throughout history, Chinese philosophy has been molded to fit the prevailing school of thought in China. The Chinese schools of philosophy, except during the Qin Dynasty, have been relatively tolerant of one another.

During the Industrial and Modern Ages, Chinese philosophy had also began to integrate concepts of Western philosophy, as steps toward modernization. There have been attempts to incorporate democracy, republicanism, and industrialism into Chinese philosophy, notably by Sun Yat-Sen (Sūn yì xiān, in one Mandarin form of the name) at the beginning of the 20th century. Although, officially, the Communist Party of China does not encourage, and have even forbid, some of the philosophical practices of Imperial China, the influences of past are still deeply ingrained in the Chinese culture. As in Japan, philosophy in China has become a melting pot of ideas.

Chinese philosophy has spread around the world in forms such as the so-called New Confucianism and New Age ideas (see for example Chinese traditional medicine). Many in the academic community of the West remain skeptical, and only a few assimilate Chinese philosophy into their own research, whether scientific or philosophical.

See also: Yin-Yang, Qi, Tao, Li, I Ching

Related Topics: Korean philosophy, Bushido, Zen, The Art of War, Asian Values

African philosophy

Other philosophical traditions, such as African philosophy, are rarely considered by foreign academia. Since emphasis is mainly placed on western philosophy as a reference point, the study, preservation and dissemination of valuable, but lesser known, non-Western philosophical works face many obstacles. The Kebra Negast contains not only a source of the Kings of Ethiopia but a window into African philosophy, as the text undergirds the beliefs of Ethiopian Christians and Rastafarians.

Philosophical topics

List of philosophical topics

Metaphysics and epistemology

Rationalism and empiricism

René Descartes, who is often called the father of modern philosophy, proposed that philosophy should begin with a radical skepticism about the possibility of obtaining reliable knowledge. He chose as the foundation of his philosophy the famous statement Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am").

In response to the popularity of rationalism, John Locke wrote An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1689, developing a form of naturalism and empiricism on roughly scientific principles.

During this era, religious ideas played a mixed role in the struggles that preoccupied secular philosophy. The restricted interests of many of the philosophers of the time foreshadow the separation and specialization of different areas of philosophy that would occur in the twentieth century.

Kantian philosophy and the rise of idealism

Immanuel Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) in an attempt to reconcile the conflicting approaches of rationalism and empiricism and establish a new groundwork for studying metaphysics.

Kant's philosophy, known as transcendental idealism, would later be made more abstract and more general, in the movement known as German idealism, a type of absolute idealism. In that work, Hegel asserts that the aim of philosophy is to spot the contradictions apparent in human experience (which arise, for instance, out of the recognition of the self as both an active, subjective witness and a passive object in the world) and to get rid of these contradictions by making them compatible.

American Pragmatism

The late nineteenth century brought about the rise of a new philosophy in the Americas.

The prominence of logic

Gottlob Frege and the early Edmund Husserl were interested in the philosophy of mathematics.

Frege, and to a lesser extent, Husserl, influenced the logicians Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. After the latters published Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), many philosophers took a renewed interest in the problems of mathematical logic. Philosophers such as Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, along with the members of the Vienna Circle in general, considered only verifiable claims to be genuine philosophy; Karl Popper's insistence upon the role of falsification in the philosophy of science was a reaction to the logical positivists.

Phenomenology and hermeneutics

At the same time that the analytic movement was coming to prominence in America and Britain, a separate movement occurred in continental Europe.

Heidegger expanded the study of phenomenology to elaborate a philosophical hermeneutics. Heidegger stressed two new elements of philosophical hermeneutics: that the reader brings out the meaning of the text in the present, and that the tools of hermeneutics can be used to interpret more than just texts (e.g.

Existentialism

In the mid-twentieth century, existentialism developed in Europe, particularly in France and Germany. The most prominent exponent of existentialism is Jean-Paul Sartre, although existentialist thought received major impetus from the nineteenth century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom pre-date existentialism and whose contributions extend beyond existentialist thought.

Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher generally considered the "Father of Existentialism", argued that "truth is subjectivity", meaning that what is most important to an existing being are questions dealing with an individual's inner relationship to existence.

Drawing on these ideas, existentialism rejects the notion of a human essence, instead trying to draw out the ability of each person to live authentically, which is to say that each person is able to define and determine his or her own life. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, and other literary figures, although not usually considered philosophers, have also contributed greatly to this thought.

The Analytic tradition

The tenor of mid-twentieth century philosophy in Anglo- nations was not as united behind a major philosophical idea as it had been in the past. Still, a general philosophical method can be abstracted from the philosophy that was going on at the time.

Analytic philosophy developed as a reaction against obscure, vague, and neologistic pronouncements by Hegel and his followers. At the time, he understood most of the problems of philosophy as mere puzzles of language, which could be solved by clear thought. Investigations encouraged the development of "ordinary language philosophy", which was developed by Gilbert Ryle, J. The "ordinary language philosophy" thinkers shared a common outlook with many older philosophers (Jeremy Bentham, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Stuart Mill), and it was the philosophical inquiry that characterized English-language philosophy for the second half of the twentieth century.

The implied outlook for "ordinary language philosophy" is that problems in one area of philosophy can be solved independently of problems in other areas of philosophy. Philosophy is thus not a unified whole but a set of unrelated problems.

Since then, a plurality of new movements has passed through English-language philosophy. Drawing on the metaphilosophical observation made by Wittgenstein in his second major work, Philosophical Investigations, in which he notes that a good approach to philosophy must itself be based on a careful examination of the meaning of language, a new group of philosophers have adopted a methodological skepticism. The group's concerns converge on the ideas of naturalism, holism (in opposition to most of what is considered analytic philosophy), instrumentalism, and the denial of Platonic universals. In any case, most analytic philosophers currently working do not consider themselves affiliated with any particular school of thought, such as logical positivism or ordinary-language philosophy, and approach philosophy and its problems in a more piecemeal manner than earlier philosophers did.

Ethics and political philosophy

Human nature and political legitimacy

From ancient times, and well beyond them, the roots of justification for political authority were inescapably tied to outlooks on human nature. In The Republic, Plato declared that the ideal society would be run by an aristocracy of philosopher-kings, since those best at philosophy are best able to realize the good.

Two millennia later, Niccolò Machiavelli, rejected Aristotle's (and Thomas Aquinas') view as unrealistic.

Many in the Enlightenment were unsatisfied with existing doctrines in political philosophy, which seemed to marginalize or neglect the possibility of a democratic state.

Following the doctrine of the fact-value distinction, due in part to the influence of David Hume, appeals to human nature for political justification were weakened. Nevertheless, many political philosophers, especially moral realists, still make use of some essential human nature as a basis for their arguments.

Consequentialism, deontology, and the aretaic turn

One debate that has dominated the attention of ethicists in the history of the modern era has been between consequentialism (the idea that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgement about that action) and deontology (that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering one's duties and the rights of others).

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are famous for propagating utilitarianism, which is the idea that the fundamental moral rule is to strive toward the "greatest happiness for the greatest number".

In contrast to consequentialism, Immanuel Kant argued that moral principles were simply products of reason.

More recent works have emphasized the role of character in ethics, a movement known as the aretaic turn.

G.E.M. Anscombe, in an influential paper, "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958), revived virtue ethics, inspired by Aristotle's ethics, as an alternative to what was seen as the entrenched positions of Kantianism and consequentialism.

Applied philosophy

Though often seen as a wholly abstract field, philosophy is not without practical applications. The most obvious applications are those in ethics – applied ethics in particular – and in political philosophy. The political philosophies of Confucius, Kautilya, Sun Zi, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Niccolò Machiavelli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Mahatma Gandhi, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls have shaped and been used to justify the existence of governments and their actions.

In the field of the philosophy of education, progressive education as championed by John Dewey has had a profound impact on educational practices in the United States in the twentieth century. Descendents of this movement include the current Philosophy for Children efforts. Carl von Clausewitz's political philosophy of war has had a profound effect on statecraft, international politics and military strategy in the 20th century, especially in the years around World War II.

Other important applications can be found in epistemology, which aid in understanding the notions of what knowledge, evidence, and justified belief are. The philosophy of science discusses the underpinnings of the scientific method. The work of Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd shows how the philosophy of J.L.

In general, the various "philosophies of..." such as the philosophy of law, can provide workers in their respective fields with a deeper understanding of the theoretical or conceptual underpinnings of their fields.

Often philosophy is seen as an investigation into an area not understood well enough to be its own branch of knowledge.

Confines of Philosophy

What should, and what should not, be counted as philosophy – and who counts as a philosopher – has been heavily debated. Historically, philosophy has been associated with certain subjects.

Metaphilosophical relativists may claim that any statement can be counted as a philosophical statement, as there is no objective way to disqualify it of being so. Also, the very open-minded nature of philosophy makes many people skeptical when it comes to limiting the concept of philosophy to something tangible and not something open-ended. However, several philosophers or philosophical directions have had ideas about what philosophy is and what it should not be.

Plato, or the protagonist in his dialogues, Socrates, held up a number of virtues for philosophers. Amongst other things, he rejected that rhetorics had a place in philosophy (most famously in Gorgias).

The logical positivists denied the soundness of metaphysics and traditional philosophy, and affirmed that statements about metaphysics, religion and ethics are devoid of cognitive meaning and thus nothing but expression of feelings or desires.

What constitutes sound philosophical work is sometimes summed up by the term Philosophical method. If a branch of philosophy at some point fully can start following the norms of the scientific method, it is no longer termed philosophy, but science.

Disparaging terms have been created in order to provide examples of non-philosophers and non-philosophy.

Philosophers on Philosophy

What is philosophy? on the other hand, it has also been said that "philosophy is the study of its own history" (viz., its own literature). However, some noted philosophers have attempted to address these issues central to philosophy's subject matter and how it is treated:

...

—Plato, Euthydemus, 288d.

... [that] philosophy only is the true one which reproduces most faithfully the statements of nature, and is written down, as it were, from nature's dictation, so that it is nothing but a copy and a reflection of nature, and adds nothing of its own, but is merely a repetition and echo.

—Francis Bacon, The Enlargement of Science, 1. 3

To repeat abstractly, universally, and distinctly in concepts the whole inner nature of the world, and thus to deposit it as a reflected image in permanent concepts always ready for the faculty of reason, this and nothing else is philosophy.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, §68

Philosophy is the science by which the natural light of reason studies the first causes or highest principles of all things – is, in other words, the science of things in their first causes, in so far as these belong to the natural order.

—Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, 69

The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. The result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical propositions’, but to make propositions clear. Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.112

...

—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers, §5

To grasp the limits of reason – only this is truly philosophy.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (book), §55

Philosophy, being nothing but the study of wisdom and truth...

—George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, §1

...for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

—Plato, Theaetetus, 155

philosophy - Origin, Branches of philosophy, History of philosophy, Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy, African philosophy, Metaphysics and epistemology