Since man has been a man, he has sat down to reflect on the origin of the universe, the meaning of things and on his own existence. That's what we talk about when we refer to philosophy, which etymologically means "love of wisdom" and which constitutes the methodical practice of these reflections. Although it shares the ultimate questioning of human existence with religion, philosophy is based on critical and systematized reasoning, open to debate and reformulation. However, it has been debated whether The philosophy as a science, given the absence of the experimental or empirical contents that characterize the traditional factual sciences.
However, it should be noted that philosophy can be practiced in any context, but its most systematic execution is what we know today when we study it as science. Although some attribute the origin of the philosophical study to the Egyptians, the first philosophers who have been had real reference are, of course, Greeks and are known as the "pre-Socratics." From now on and following different currents, we will meet Plato, a disciple of Socrates (of whom no written document is preserved and is only known by Platonic references), who will find a first philosophical opposition in Aristotle. Platonic texts have made it possible to recognize the systematization of Socratic knowledge, typical of the early splendor of Athens, in contrast to the complete Aristotelian works that marked much of the philosophical concepts of the ancient world, including the later Roman Empire.
The Middle Ages was certainly a dark period for the practice of these meditations, although one of its highest representatives was Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Christian religious who, in addition, wanted to prove the existence of God through critical examination. It is appropriate to emphasize that St. Thomas tried with remarkable success to apply the Aristotle mode in light of his faith in Christianity, giving rise to the call Thomistic philosophy, which even today is one of the pillars most applied by this science in the West.
It is likely that, when you hear about philosophy, this discipline is associated with the most modern study of this science. Perhaps you heard something about Descartes, Locke, Hume or Kant, all of them great exponents of the philosophy that is based on either reason (and that is why some are called rationalists), or experience (and these are called empiricists). Both currents have marked paths with varied convergences or divergences during the Modern Age, whose repercussions are still perceived in the philosophical knowledge of the current times. However, late modern philosophy comes closer to us and is one that includes German thinkers such as Hegel, Engels, and Nietzsche. The latter began the existentialist phase of the discipline, becoming a revolutionary philosopher, often misinterpreted, especially by the totalitarian European movements of the 20th century. It was precisely in that century that the segmentation of philosophy into much more specific branches such as phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism and poststructuralism predominated. This progressive complexity of the doctrines has motivated that different aspects of The philosophy They have today become sciences with their own entity, and among them can be counted metaphysics, ontology, cosmology, logic, gnoseology, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics, among many others. Philosophy has also found its application in the study of mathematics, social sciences and many others, especially in those disciplines in which purely empirical scientific content is fused with an accentuated component of a moral or cultural nature, as is the case with medicine. .
In turn, it is worth mentioning here that the history of philosophy As we know it, it is traced from the steps that this science has traveled in the West. Therefore, to address philosophy in all its fullness, we must also deal with everything that happened during these centuries in the East, where we can find great philosophers such as the Chinese Confucius. Thus, numerous religious and mystical movements in Asia have given rise to extensive philosophical currents, such as the aforementioned Confucianism and different aspects that, with different nuances, originated in Japan or China. On the other hand, the Indian subcontinent is undoubtedly a deep philosophical cradle, in which different cultures gave rise to complex schools of philosophy that marked the culture of India and neighboring nations for centuries.
