Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Xxii. Philosophical Meaning, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

As we have seen, philosophy was one of the major contributions of Greek Civilization. It was the Greeks who gave it its first major impetus as well as its name, "the love of learning." This very phrase embodies the most important aspects of their contribution to the West: the love of the best or most excellent; the search for something beyond a description of immediate experience; and the attempt to grasp, in some comprehensive fashion, both the actual and the ideal, both the given and the possible. In order to accomplish this task philosophy has, as we have seen, traditionally …