philosophize, v.
(fɪˈlɒsəfaɪz)
[f. Gr. ϕιλόσοϕ-ος philosopher: see philosoph and -ize 1.]
1. a. intr. To play the philosopher; to think, reason, or argue philosophically; to speculate, theorize; to moralize.
| 1594 Carew Huarte's Exam. Wits (1616) 27 To the end the reasonable soule may discourse and Philosophize. 1653 H. More Antid. Ath. iii. xii. (1662) 125 My intent is not to Philosophize concerning the nature of Spirits, but onely to prove their Existence. 1690 Burnet Th. Earth iii. 44 It is a great question whether..Moses did either philosophize or astronomize in that description. 1785 Reid Intell. Powers i. iii. 234 When men first began to Philosophize it was very natural for them to indulge conjecture. 1836–7 Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. iv. (1859) I. 65 Man philosophises as he lives. He may philosophise well or ill, but philosophise he must. 1841 D'Israeli Amen. Lit. (1867) 654 Bacon..presumed not to establish a philosophy, but to show how we should philosophize. |
b. trans. To bring (into) by philosophizing.
| 1737 Wks. of Learned I. 67 He endeavoured to philosophize himself into a Belief, that Animals were mere Machines. 1844 North Brit. Rev. I. 71 To philosophize our starving operatives into a quiet endurance. |
2. trans. To render philosophic; to conform to the principles of philosophy; to explain, treat, or construct philosophically; also, to say or comment philosophically.
| 1800 Coleridge in C. K. Paul W. Godwin (1876) II. 10, I wish you to philosophize Horne Tooke's system. 1806 Fessenden Democr. I. 72 To kill one half mankind were best, And then philosophize the rest. 1818 Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1836) I. 154 [Dante] philosophized the religion and Christianized the philosophy of Italy. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. iii. iv. 77 This endeavour to philosophise superstition. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 203 The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will's widow, is the will to die. 1977 J. Wainwright Do Nothin' vi. 97 ‘It takes all sorts,’ I philosophise. |
Hence phiˈlosophized ppl. a., phiˈlosophizing vbl. n. and ppl. a.; phiˈlosophizer, one who philosophizes.
| 1594 Carew Huarte's Exam. Wits (1616) 95 This manner of Philosophising will not sticke much in the soul. 1676 H. More Remarks Contents, The fond humour of the Philosophizers of this age. Ibid. xxxvii. 148 Nothing else but a certain modified mass of Philosophizing matter. 1772 Nugent tr. Hist. Friar Gerund I. 544 That philosophised orator who suspected [etc.]. 1805 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. III. 250 Simplicity of expression in which these French philosophizers excel. 1850 Maurice Mor. & Met. Philos. (1854) 27 This early form of..philosophized Christianity. 1855 Milman Lat. Chr. ix. viii. (1864) V. 380 No philosophising Christian ever organised or perpetuated a sect. 1856 Masson Ess. 455 The philosophizings of a Spinoza. |