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: tionscience 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 scienceof the absolute indifference of
the ideal and real.'' --Sir W. Hamilton.
2. A particular philosophical system or theory; the
hypothesis by which particular phenomena are explained.
[Books] of Aristotle and his philosophie. --Chaucer.
We shall in vain interpret their words by the
notions of our philosophy and the doctrines in our
school. --Locke.
3. Practical wisdom; calmness of temper and judgment;
equanimity; fortitude; stoicism; as, to meet misfortune
with philosophy.
Then had he spent all his philosophy. --Chaucer.
4. Reasoning; argumentation.
Of good and evil much they argued then, . . . Vain
wisdom all, and false philosophy. --Milton.
5. The course of sciences read in the schools. --Johnson.
6. 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.