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Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') was the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural sciences. From the ancient world, starting with Aristotle, to the 19th century, the term "natural philosophy" was the common term used to describe the practice of studying nature. It was in the 19th century that the concept of "science" received its modern shape with new titles emerging such as "biology" and "biologist", "physics" and "physicist" among other technical fields and titles; institutions and communities were founded, and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred. Isaac Newton's book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), whose title translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", reflects the then-current use of the words "natural philosophy", akin to "systematic study of nature". Even in the 19th century, a treatise by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait, which helped define much of modern physics, was titled Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867). In the German tradition, ''naturphilosophie'' or nature philosophy persisted into the 18th and 19th century as an attempt to achieve a speculative unity of nature and spirit. Some of the greatest names in German philosophy are associated with this movement, including Spinoza, Goethe, Hegel and Schelling. ==Origin and evolution of the term== The term ''natural philosophy'' preceded our current ''natural science'' (i.e. empirical science). Empirical science historically developed out of philosophy or, more specifically, natural philosophy. Natural philosophy was distinguished from the other precursor of modern science, natural history, in that natural philosophy involved reasoning and explanations about nature (and after Galileo, quantitative reasoning), whereas natural history was essentially qualitative and descriptive. In the 14th and 15th centuries, natural philosophy' was one of many branches of philosophy, but was not a specialized field of study. The first person appointed as a specialist in Natural Philosophy ''per se'' was Jacopo Zabarella, at the University of Padua in 1577. Modern meanings of the terms ''science'' and ''scientists'' date only to the 19th century. Before that, ''science'' was a synonym for ''knowledge'' or ''study'', in keeping with its Latin origin. The term gained its modern meaning when experimental science and the scientific method became a specialized branch of study apart from natural philosophy.〔.The naturalist-theologian William Whewell was the one who coined the term "scientist." The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' dates the origin of the word to 1834.〕 From the mid-19th century, when it became increasingly unusual for scientists to contribute to both physics and chemistry, "natural philosophy" came to mean just ''physics'', and the word is still used in that sense in degree titles at the University of Oxford. In general, chairs of Natural Philosophy established long ago at the oldest universities, are nowadays occupied mainly by physics professors. Isaac Newton's book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), whose title translates to "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", reflects the then-current use of the words "natural philosophy", akin to "systematic study of nature". Even in the 19th century, a treatise by Lord Kelvin and Peter Guthrie Tait, which helped define much of modern physics, was titled ''Treatise on Natural Philosophy (1867). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「natural philosophy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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