philosophical

philosophical, a. (n.)
  (fɪləʊˈsɒfɪkəl)
  [f. as prec. (perh. immediately from F. philosophique) + -al¹: see -ical.]
  A. adj.
  1. a. Of or pertaining to a philosopher or philosophy; of the nature of, consonant with, or proceeding from philosophy or learning; in earlier usage including ‘scientific’, but now restricted in the same way as philosopher and philosophy, q.v.

1500–20 Dunbar Poems lxv. 11 The naturall science philosophicall. 1530 Palsgr. 320/2 Phylosophycall, belongyng to a phylosopher, philosophal. 1538 Starkey England i. i. 21 Phylosophycal resonys out of nature drawne. 1570 Dee Math. Pref. *iij, This most subtile and frutefull, Philosophicall Conclusion. 1617 Moryson Itin. i. 32 In the valley..towards the City [Heidelberg], is a pleasant walk, of the sweetnes called the Phylosophicall way. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 299 Capable of being stated and fixed according to a Philosophical method. 1728 Pemberton Newton's Philos. 1 The manner, in which Sir Isaac Newton has published his philosophical discoveries. 1736 Butler Anal. Diss. i. 303 A strict and philosophical Manner of Speech. 1775 Johnson Western Isl. Wks. X. 406 The cuddy is a fish of which I know not the philosophical name. 1830 Coleridge Table-t. 30 Apr., My mind is in a state of philosophical doubt as to animal magnetism. 1880 McCarthy Own Times IV. lxvii. 537 He has treated history on a large scale and in the philosophical spirit.

  b. Pertaining to, or used in the study of, natural philosophy, or some branch of physical science; physical, scientific. Now Obs. or arch.

1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. Pref. iv. in Ashm. Theat. Chem. Brit. (1652) 125 The second Water phylosophycall. 1594 Plat Jewell-ho. ii. 17 A philosophicall contrition of oiles. 1651 tr. Glauber (title) Description of New Philosophical Furnaces, or a New Art of Distilling. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. I. 110 This we must..call pure water; but even this is far short of the pure, unmixed, philosophical element. 1843 Penny Cycl. XXVII. 136/2 note, Young Watt..exhibiting a box of philosophical toys to the students..at Glasgow. Mod. A Philosophical Instrument-maker.

  2. Of persons, or their faculties, etc.: Skilled in or devoted to philosophy or learning (formerly including science); learned.
  Formerly common, and still retained in the titles of scientific societies, institutions, journals, etc., e.g. the Philosophical Transactions (of the Royal Society), the American Philosophical Society, the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, a Literary and Philosophical Institution, etc.

c 1374 Chaucer Troylus v. 1857 (Campsall MS.) O moral Gower, þis boke I directe To þe, and þe Philosophical Strode. 1553 Eden Treat. Newe Ind. (Arb.) 8 The same to a philosophical head is apparent by suche ryches and presentes. 1570 Dee Math. Pref. *iv b, Such as haue modest and earnest Philosophicall mindes. 1601 Shakes. All's Well ii. iii. 2 They say miracles are past, and we haue our Philosophicall persons, to make moderne and familiar things supernaturall and causelesse. 1662 Stillingfl. Orig. Sacr. iii. i. §12 Some of the wisest and most Philosophical men of Greece and Rome. 1798 (title) The Philosophical Magazine. a 1810 in Sir J. Sinclair's Corr. (1831) II. 43 Like our American Philosophical Society, it is voluntary, and unconnected with the public. 1813 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. i. (1814) 26 A philosophical chemist would probably make a very unprofitable business of farming. 1838 Thirlwall Greece II. xii. 137 He also attacked several doctrines of his philosophical contemporaries or predecessors.

  3. Characterized by practical philosophy or wisdom; befitting or characteristic of a philosopher; wise; calm; temperate; frugal.

1638 Sir T. Herbert Trav. (ed. 2) 203 His patience was more Philosophicall than his Intellect. 1717 Pope Let. to Lady M. W. Montagu June, What with ill-health and ill-fortune, I am grown so stupidly philosophical as to have no thought about me that deserves the name of warm or lively. 1833 H. Martineau Charmed Sea ii. 18 Alexander gazed with a grave countenance of philosophical curiosity.

  4. In special collocations: philosophical logic, logic pertaining to philosophy (opp. mathematical logic); philosophical radical (also with capital initials), a member of a group of early 19th-century radicals whose advocacy of reform was based on the utilitarian theories of Bentham and James Mill; hence philosophical radicalism.
  † philosophical candle or philosophical lamp, a lighted jet of hydrogen; † p. egg, a kind of alembic or retort; † p. oil = brick oil (brick n.¹ 3); † p. stone = philosophers' stone; † p. tree = Tree of Diana: see Diana 2, arbor 2; † p. vinegar = philosophers' vinegar: see philosopher 5 b; p. wool: see wool n. 2 b.

1822 J. Imison Sc. & Art II. 51 On this principle is constructed the *philosophical candle, which cannot be easily blown out. Fill with hydrogen gas, a bell glass, furnished with a capillary tube; compress the gas,.. apply a lighted taper to the upper extremity of the tube; the gas will take fire, and exhibit a candle, which will burn till all the gas is exhausted. [1893 Syd. Soc. Lex., Philosophic candle.] [1611 Cotgr. s.v. Oeuf, Oeuf des Philosophes, the vessell wherein Alchymists put the stuffe which they hope will yeeld the Philosophers stone.]

1660 Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. xx. 144 A great Glass-bubble, with a long neck; (such as Chymists..call a *Philosophical Egg). 1704 J. Harris Lex. Techn. I.

1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. ii. 32 It remains a question for *philosophical logic whether there is not a quite different notion of the disjunction of individuals. 1921 C. K. Ogden Let. 5 Nov. in B. Russell Autobiogr. (1968) II. ii. 121, I am still a little uneasy about the title [of Wittgenstein's Tractatus] and don't want to feel that we decided in a hurry on Philosophical Logic. 1952 Mind LXI. 57 That philosophical logic is concerned with form is the traditional and still prevalent view. 1967 P. Strawson Philos. Logic 1 Wittgenstein's suggestion does not itself belong to formal logic. It belongs to philosophical logic.

1807 T. Thomson Chem. (ed. 3) II. 443 Oil, thus distilled, was formerly distinguished by the name of *philosophical oil.

1834 J. S. Mill in Monthly Repos. VIII. 174 Those who aspire to be..distinguished as the instructed and *philosophical Radicals. 1855 in T. Woollcombe Notices of Late Sir W. Molesworth (1857) 36 They were generally known by the rather ambitious title of philosophical radicals. 1873 H. Grote Personal Life G. Grote vi. 56 The ‘Philosophical Radicals’ as the followers of Bentham were designated. 1885 W. Harris Hist. Radical Party vii. 130 The so-called Philosophical Radicals, following the methods and sharing the conclusions of Bentham, performed the duty of proving that the political reforms..were not the mere creations of disaffected ignorance, but were founded on great moral and social laws. 1945 B. Russell Hist. Western Philos. (1946) iii. xxi. 746 The romantic revolt..passes on, somewhat softened, to the philosophical radicals in England. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XII. 197/2 The Westminster Review..was the organ of the philosophical radicals.

1910 Ibid. V. 351/2 Carlyle had some expectation of the editorship of the London Review.., an organ of *philosophical radicalism. 1935 A. Huxley Let. 13 Jan. (1969) 390 Bertrand Russell's book on 19th century history..was excellent if regarded as a series of essays on different aspects of the time—Marxism, Philosophical Radicalism and so forth. 1966 F. Copleston Hist. Philos. VIII. i. i. 3 The philosophical radicalism which is associated with the name of Jeremy Bentham and which had already been expressed by him in the closing decades of the eighteenth century.

1638 Marcombes in Lismore Papers (1888) Ser. ii. III. 283 Euery one thinks y{supt} because I belong to my Lord of Corke I must haue y⊇ *Philosophical stone. 1791–1823 D'Israeli Cur. Lit., Six Follies Sc., The Quadrature of the Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology.

1706 Phillips, *Philosophical Tree. See Diana's Tree.

1694 Salmon Bate's Dispens. (1713) 568/2 That Vinegar which Quercetan calls in his Writings, *Philosophical Vinegar.

  † B. n. (in pl.) The subjects of study in a course of philosophy. Cf. logicals. Obs.

1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. I. 10 John Colet..spent seven years in Logicals and Philosophicals. 1716 M. Davies Athen. Brit. II. 328 He was educated in Grammaticals in Wikeham-School near Winchester, in Logicals and Philosophicals in New College Oxon.

Oxford English Dictionary