On Synthesis Philosophy

This is a book on philosophy. So we have to discuss the problem: what is philosophy?

In ancient China there was philosophic thinking ,but there wasn’t the term —Philosophy. The term “ Philosophia” came from ancient Greece. The original meaning was loving (philem) wisdom (Sophia).So the earliest meaning of Philosophy was loving and pursuing wisdom or knowledge.

In more than 2000 years later, philosophers presented many different explanations or definitions of Philosophy.

This book is not a text book of Philosophy. So it is not necessary to discuss the definition of Philosophy in detail.

Here , I like to introduce the explanation of the term Philosophy from two authoritative books.

Famous German philosopher Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915) wrote in his Textbook of History of Philosophy:

Philosophy, according to the conventional understanding, is the elaboration of general problem of the outlook of Cosmos and human life

Famous British philosopher Bertrand Russell（1872-1970）wrote in his book The History of Western Philosophy as the first sentence

The conceptions of life and the world which we call “philosophy” are a product of two factors.

The two factors he mentioned : one is religious and ethical conceptions ;the other is science.

From the elaborations of these two worldwide famous philosophers ,it may be said that Philosophy is the knowledge of the Outlook of the World and Human Life. Some book on philosophy mentioned Methodology. Recent Western philosophy paid much attention to Epistemology or Methodology of Man’s Understanding. But ,Methodology discusses the method to understand the world. It may be included in the concept of Outlook of the World .