Etymology

• The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia  (φιλοσοφία), which literally means "love of wisdom".
• • The word Philosophy 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.
• Some sources say that the term was coined by the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras, but this is not certain
• • Before the modern age, the term philosophy was used in a wide sense.
  • It included most forms of rational inquiry, such as the individual sciences, as its subdisciplines.
  • For instance, natural philosophy was a major branch of philosophy.
  • This branch of philosophy encompassed a wide range of fields, including disciplines like physics, chemistry, and biology.
  • 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.
• • 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.
• • Philosophy is distinguished from other disciplines of rational inquiry such as the empirical sciences and mathematics