Introduction: The Origins of Philosophia
Introduction: The Origins of Philosophia
A History of Philosophia, Not of Philosophy
This introductory chapter presents a brief overview of the history of philosophia—the Greek name, and the discipline that it came to name. It shows that, beginning around 500 BCE, the coinage of a “love of wisdom” was met with a wry verbal slight. But a century and a half later, the term is revealed in the maturity of an institution that is continuous with today's departments of philosophy. This phenomenon—accommodating a name-calling name and consolidating a structured group around it—recurs through history, as the cases of the Quakers, Shakers, Freaks, and queer activists illustrate. A norm-policing name, at first distasteful, gets appropriated, facilitates a new and ennobling self-understanding, and then governs a productive and tight-knit social enterprise. The chapter argues that such is the origin of philosophia.
Keywords: philosophia, philosophy, etymology, philosophos, ancient Greece, philosophoi, Pythagoras, Heraclides
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.