Western Philosophy
European philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies.
Historically, the term was recently invented to refer to the philosophical thinking of Western civilization, beginning with Greek philosophy in ancient Greece, and eventually covering a large area of the globe. The word philosophy itself originated in ancient Greece: philosophia (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" (φιλεῖν — philein "to love" and σοφία - sophia "wisdom", in the sense of knowledge).
Read more about Western Philosophy: Origins, Western Philosophical Subdisciplines, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words western and/or philosophy:
“It is fatally easy for Western folk, who have discarded chastity as a value for themselves, to suppose that it can have no value for anyone else. At the same time as Californians try to re-invent “celibacy,” by which they seem to mean perverse restraint, the rest of us call societies which place a high value on chastity “backward.””
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“La superstition met le monde entier en flammes; la philosophie les éteint. Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)