S
Samsa
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Fast said:It was, to the classical french and the ancient greeks (it's hard to figure out if it's more classical or more ancient).
The modern lexicographers have it a little differently. They say it is "the branch of knowledge or academic study devoted to the systematic examination of basic concepts such as truth, existence, reality, causality, and freedom."
I'm not looking to play semantics. But the definition you stated above seems to me quite different from this one you gave earlier:
Fast said:Fundamentally, philosophy is metacognition, a sort of figuring out how and why we figure stuf out the way we do.
The OAD defines metacognition as "awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes" which is rather different from systematic study of truth, reality, existence, etc., which (prior to Descartes at least) means extra-mental reality. Thought processes are mental reality... Now, I could see how metacognition could be PART of philosophy; but to say that philosophy is FUNDAMENTALLY metacognition would be to take side with the post-Cartesians.
And regardless of what the lexicographers say, the etymologists still say philosophy = philosophia = love of wisdom.