What Is Philosophy?

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Philosophy is the devotion to freedom.

There is no distance between the philosopher and the person.

The good life is the morally defensible life and to live such a life is the proper role of the philosopher.
 
Philosophy is a study of the part in the light of the whole, and its first lesson is that we are very small parts of a very large whole. The harmony of the part with the whole may be the best definition of health, beauty, truth, wisdom, morality, and happiness. --Will Durant

Philosophy is a higher occupation of the spirit, a luxury and diversion from often monotonous and arduous procedure of the science.

Is philosophy an opportunity, of which we occasionally avail ourselves, to widen our view out from the narrow field of a particular science for a picture of whole? Does this mean that we just create a vantage point for ourselves, so that we can be better placed as observers?

Schopenhauer actually indicates as the criterion of philosophical ability the occasional ability to view men and things as mere phantoms or dream image. He is a close and willing observer, for these images afford him an interpretation of life, and by reflecting on these processes, he train himself for life.

最早使用philosophia（爱智慧）和philosophos（爱智者）这两个词语的是毕达戈拉斯（Pythagoras)。据蓬托斯的赫拉克利德在《论无生物》中记载，当 毕达戈拉斯在同西库翁或弗里阿西亚的僭主勒翁交谈时，第一次使用了philosophia（爱智慧）的词语，并且把他自己称作philosophos（爱智者）。毕达戈拉斯还说，在生活中，一些奴性的人生来是名利的猎手，而philosophos（爱智者）生来寻求真理。他明确地把爱智者归到了自由人的行列，也把自由和真理联系在了一起。追求真理的人，也就是追求智慧的人。

中国的哲人把哲学定义为：关于宇宙和人生的基本思考。

胡适在他的《中国哲学史大纲》指出：“凡研究人生且要的问题，从根本上着想，要寻求一个且要的解决”，这样的学问叫做哲学。

冯友兰在《中国哲学简史》中提出自己的哲学定义：“就是对于人生的有系统的反思的思想”。
中外哲学的产生皆起源于疑虑与惊讶。