philology

From Middle French philologie, from Ancient Greek φιλολογία (philología, “love of argument or reasoning, love of learning and literature”), from φίλος (phílos, “loved, beloved, dear, friend”) + λόγος (lógos).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: fĭlŏʹləjĭ, IPA^(key): /fɪˈlɒlədʒɪ/

philology (countable and uncountable, plural philologies)

1. (linguistics) The humanistic study of historical linguistics.
   • Kim, Alan, "Paul Natorp", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL=>.

     ...his early philosophical studies converged with his original love of philology as he pursued the “prehistory” of Kantian critique in Descartes, Galileo, and Copernicus, back to Plato.

2. (philosophy) Love and study of learning and literature, broadly speaking.[1]
   • Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661. [2]

     Indeed philology properly is terse and polite learning...; being that florid skill containing only the roses of learning, without the prickles thereof, in which narrow sense thorny philosophy is discharged, as no part of philology. But we take it in the larger notion, as inclusive of all human liberal studies...

3. (culture) Scholarship and culture, particularly classical, literary and linguistic.[1]
   • Pritchard, John Paul. On Interpretation and Criticism. University of Oklahoma Press, 1968

     Philology and philosophy are treated as reciprocal. They exist on equal footing, and neither functions satisfactorily without the other. Their methods ... are opposite; philology attains to knowledge through induction, whereas philosophy starts from a concept. To formulate his concepts soundly, the philosopher needs an adequate fund of knowledge or data; too many philosophers ... lack a basis in knowledge or tradition

• philosophy
• classical studies

• higher criticism
• literary criticism
• lower criticism
• textual criticism

• philology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia