Portal:Philosophy/Intro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philosophy has almost as many definitions as there have been philosophers, both as a subject matter and an activity, and no simple definition can do it justice. The issue of the definition of philosophy is thus a controversial subject that is nowadays tackled by Metaphilosophy (or the philosophy of philosophy). The word is derived from the ancient Greek words philo-, to love or to befriend, and -sophia, wisdom. Modern usage of the term is much broader; the concept of philosophy encompasses all of knowledge and all that can be known, including the means by which such knowledge can be acquired. However, in the contemporary English-speaking academic world, the term is often used implicitly to refer to analytic philosophy and, in non-English speaking countries, it often refers implicitly to a different, European strain, continental philosophy.
The ancient Greeks organized the subject into five basic categories: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. This organization of the subject is still largely in use in Western philosophy today.
RELATED PORTALS:
- Epistemology · Ethics · Logic · Metaphysics · Mind and Brain · Religion · Spirituality · Thinking
