PHILOSOPHY
Etymology
The word "philosophy" comes from the ancient Greek words φίλος (philos: "love") and σοφία (sophia: "wisdom").[1][2][3]
Some sources say that the term was coined by the Presocratic philosopher Pythagoras, but this is not certain.[4][5]
The word entered the English language primarily from Old French and Anglo-Norman starting around 1175 CE.
The French philosophie is itself a borrowing from the Latin philosophia.
The term philosophy acquired the meanings of "advanced study of the speculative subjects (logic, ethics, physics, and metaphysics)", "deep wisdom consisting of love of truth and virtuous living", "profound learning as transmitted by the ancient writers", and "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, and the basic limits of human understanding".[6][1]
Before the modern age, the term philosophy was used in a wide sense. It included most forms of rational inquiry, like the individual sciences, as its subdisciplines.[1][7][8]
For instance, natural philosophy was considered a major branch of philosophy.[9][10][11][12]
This branch of philosophy encompassed a wide range of fields, including disciplines like physics, chemistry, and biology.[1][13]
An example of this usage is the 1687 book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton.
This book referred to natural philosophy in its title, but it is today considered a book of physics.[11][12][14]
The meaning of philosophy changed toward the end of the modern period when it acquired the more narrow meaning common today.
In this new sense, the term is mainly associated with philosophical disciplines like metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
Among other topics, it covers the rational study of reality, knowledge, and values.
However, it is distinguished from other disciplines of rational inquiry like the empirical sciences and mathematics.[15]