[ SECRET POST #2548 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2548 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

REMINDER: For people who needed extra time to finish for the FS Secret Santa - today's the last day to get in your gifts! Gifts go out tomorrow!

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #363.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

In American English, a philosopher is someone who studies philosophy. It has nothing to do with magic/wizards.

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't typically mean that in British English too though? It's the title of a single magical item in a magical universe, people borrow words for that purpose in various media all the time with less reason since it was also used in alchemy.

I haven't thought about it in awhile, but again it makes no sense to change the title.

Is this maybe an American extreme Conservatism thing? As in the same people that claimed reading the books actually taught you witchcraft? Sorcerer is a blatantly magical word whereas philosopher is not, which therefore made it threatening in some way?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, it means the same thing in British English. They just thought Americans were too stupid to understand "Philosopher's Stone" and realise it was a book about magic.

[(Anonymous)]

...just like in British english? The title is a direct reference to a legendary alchemical substance, which was named like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone

[(Anonymous)]

Um. That's what philosopher means in British English as well. The stone is called the philosophers stone because the original basis for the idea came from Greek philosophy, and later on it was mostly pursued as part of alchemy, which was considered a science and/or 'natural philosophy' for much of the medieval and early modern periods.

[kamino_neko]

In American English, a philosopher is someone who studies philosophy.

That's what it means in all dialects and all times.

It's just that the definition of 'philosophy' (which translates to 'love of knowledge/wisdom') has narrowed in the past few hundred years.

In addition to what we call 'philosophy', the word philosophy used to include what we would call 'science'...and 'pseudo-science', such as alchemy. Alchemists were considered philosophers not in the fashion of Kant or Bentham, but in the fashion of Newton or Galileo.

[(Anonymous)]

Precisely. The conceptual distinctions between philosophy, theology, mathematics, natural science, and what we today would call magic really didn't finally firm up until the 17th century. Part of that is that things simply hadn't really separated themselves out - natural science was a subfield of philosophy, and would remain one until it became clear that it was able to obtain consistent and coherent factual results - but a lot of it is a question of the nature of the world and the interrelation between the disciplines, which in some sense were frequently regarded simply as different ways of looking at a larger whole. Philosophy reveals through reason what theology tells us about God; natural science reveals truths about the created world; geometry is the study of the logical relationships in creation; and magic is the application of the truths learned from geometry, theology, philosophy, and natural science about the laws which govern the magico-theological connections of the world.

So it made sense for Newton and Galileo to still continue to do alchemy and magic, because it was still of a body with the rest of their pursuits - when Newton is looking at the nature of light, that's completely coherent with the pursuit of alchemy. And it's interesting to note how many of the people who created the modern separation of disciplines, and thereby made it finally impossible to take this approach if you were at all serious, who caused this fundamental change, themselves still regarded the world in the old way. There's something poignant about that, to me.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Arguably, it was more the 19th century that they started separating properly. It was only with Lyell and Deep Time, followed by Darwin, that theology and science and philosophy started to really draw apart. Even into the 1800s 'natural philosophy' covered an awful lot of sins.