Natural Philosophy
<p><b>Natural philosophy</b> or <b>philosophy of nature</b> (from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin" title="Latin">Latin</a> <i>philosophia naturalis</i>) was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy" title="Philosophy">philosophical</a> study of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature" title="Nature">nature</a> and the physical <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe" title="Universe">universe</a> that was dominant before the development of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_science" class="mw-redirect" title="Modern science">modern science</a>. It is considered to be the precursor of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_science" title="Natural science">natural sciences</a>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
From the ancient world, starting with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a>, to the 19th century, the term "natural philosophy" was the common term used to describe the practice of studying nature. </p>
<p>
It was in the 19th century that the concept of "science" received its modern shape with new titles emerging such as "biology" and "biologist", "physics" and "physicist" among other technical fields and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred.<sup id="cite_ref-Cahan_Natural_Philosophy_1-0" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy#cite_note-Cahan_Natural_Philosophy-1">[1]</a></sup> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton" title="Isaac Newton">Isaac Newton</a>'s book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophiae_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica" class="mw-redirect" title="Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica">Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica</a> (1687), whose title translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", reflects the then-current use of the words "natural philosophy", akin to "systematic study of nature". Even in the 19th century, a treatise by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kelvin" class="mw-redirect" title="Lord Kelvin">Lord Kelvin</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Guthrie_Tait" class="mw-redirect" title="Peter Guthrie Tait">Peter Guthrie Tait</a>, which helped define much of modern physics, was titled <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatise_on_Natural_Philosophy" title="Treatise on Natural Philosophy">Treatise on Natural Philosophy</a> (1867).</p>
<p>
In the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_philosophy" title="German philosophy">German tradition</a>, <i>Naturphilosophie</i> (philosophy of nature) persisted into the 18th and 19th century as an attempt to achieve a speculative unity of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature" title="Nature">nature</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit" title="Spirit">spirit</a>. Some of the greatest names in German philosophy are associated with this movement, including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe" class="mw-redirect" title="Goethe">Goethe</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegel" class="mw-redirect" title="Hegel">Hegel</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schelling" title="Schelling">Schelling</a>.</p>