philosophicaladj.n.

a1425 (c1385) G. Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde (1987) v. 1857 O moral Gower, this book I directe To the and to the, philosophical [v.rr. Philosifical; sophistical] Strode, To vouchen sauf..to correcte.

1532 (c1385) Usk's Test. Loue in Wks. G. Chaucer iii. f. ccclix^v Myne owne trewe seruaunt, the noble philosophical poete..in a treatise y^t he made of my seruant Troylus, hath this mater touched.

1553 R. Eden in tr. S. Münster Treat. Newe India Pref. sig. aavij^v The same to a philosophical head is apparent by suche ryches & presentes.

1570 J. Dee in H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. Math. Præf. sig. *iiij^v Such as haue modest and earnest Philosophicall mindes.

a1616 W. Shakespeare All's Well that ends Well (1623) ii. iii. 2 They say miracles are past, and we haue our Philosophicall persons, to make moderne and familiar things supernaturall and causelesse. View more context for this quotation

1662 E. Stillingfleet Origines Sacræ iii. i. §12 Some of the wisest and most Philosophical men of Greece and Rome.

a1732 F. Atterbury Serm. Several Occas. (1734) I. 224 One of those Great and Philosophical Minds, who stand upon their Terms with God.

1798 (title) The philosophical magazine.

1813 H. Davy Elements Agric. Chem. i. 23 A philosophical chemist would probably make a very unprofitable business of farming.

1838 C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece (new ed.) II. xii. 137 He also attacked several doctrines of his philosophical contemporaries or predecessors.

1870 Nature 5 May 9/1 We may hope to see their [sc. fossils'] story told in due time with suitable illustrations in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’.

1920 T. S. Eliot Sacred Wood 145 The early philosophical poets, Parmenides and Empedocles.

1969 New Scientist 20 Nov. 389/1 The Cambridge Philosophical Society has just celebrated its sesquicentenary.

2004 San Diego Business Jrnl. (Nexis) 17 May 41 Nancy D. Cartwright..has been named to membership in the American Philosophical Society's humanities category.

1638 T. Herbert Some Yeares Trav. (rev. ed.) 203 His patience was more Philosophicall than his Intellect.

1717 A. Pope Corr. June (1956) I. 406 What with ill health & ill fortune, I am grown so stupidly philosophical as to have no thought about me that deserves the name of warm or lively.

1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones III. viii. iv. 171 This Disappointment might have put many a philosophical Temper into a Passion. View more context for this quotation

1833 H. Martineau Charmed Sea ii. 18 Alexander gazed with a grave countenance of philosophical curiosity.

1855 A. Trollope Warden xv. 228 ‘I can't help that, and am prepared for it.’ ‘That's philosophical; it's quite refreshing to hear a man talking of his hundreds in so purely indifferent a manner.’

1897 H. G. Wells Invisible Man viii. 65 The phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished.

1946 ‘M. Innes’ From London Far i. v. 42 The girl was philosophical. ‘I asked for it, all right.’

1989 I. Taylor George Eliot (1990) viii. 90 It had never been Marian's plan to share a man with others, but she was philosophical about that; anything was better than nothing.

2004 Star (Sheffield) (Nexis) 16 June At the end of the day, when push comes to shove, I'm fairly philosophical about it now.

1691 A. Wood Athenæ Oxonienses I. 10 John Colet..spent seven years in Logicals and Philosophicals.

1716 M. Davies Athenæ Britannicæ II. 328 He was educated in Grammaticals in Wikeham-School near Winchester, in Logicals and Philosophicals in New College Oxon.

1850 J. Murdock tr. J. E. Le Boys des Guays True Syst. Relig. Philos. 220 They who think from the affirmative principle, may confirm themselves in things spiritual and celestial..by philosophicals, as far as lies in their power.

1759 A. Gerard tr. J. L. D'Alembert in Ess. on Taste 236 The true philosophical analysis consists, therefore, in distinguishing well these various sources, and keeping them separate from each other.

1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. ii. ii. 238 Philosophical analysis confirms the indication of common sense, that the function of names is but that of enabling us to remember and to communicate our thoughts.

1887 S. H. Hodgson Let. 8 Apr. in R. B. Perry Thought & Char. W. James (1935) I. 642 What is ‘the mind’?.. I suspect it is a mere façon de parler..which has a basis neither in psychological construction nor in philosophical analysis.

1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. iv. 42 The correctness of our philosophical analysis of a proposition may..be usefully checked by..assigning the meaning of each word in the sentence expressing the proposition.

1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic ii. 62 The possibility of philosophical analysis is independent of any empirical assumptions.

1956 J. O. Urmson (title) Philosophical analysis: its development between the two world wars.

2002 A. I. Goldman & J. Pust in A. I. Goldman Pathways to Knowl. iv. 92 We have argued that the natural kinds approach is an inappropriate account of many of the targets of philosophical analysis.

1747 F. Watkins Particular Acct. Electr. Exper. 63 To make a philosophical candle with three ingredients, neither of which will burn separately.

1822 T. Webster Imison's Elem. Sci. & Art (new ed.) 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.

1861 M. Faraday Hist. Candle 88 There is the hydrogen burning. There is our philosophical candle.

1660 R. Boyle New Exper. Physico-mechanicall xx. 144 A great Glass-bubble, with a long neck; (such as Chymists..call a Philosophical Egg).

1865 B. Silliman Princ. Physics 562 This apparatus is called the electrical or philosophical egg.

1992 Guardian 21 Feb. 25 All given symbolic names such as the philosophical egg, the maternal stomach, the nuptial chamber, the pelican, the sphere, etc.

1799 G. Adams Lect. Nat. & Exper. Philos. 567 By the combination of inflammable air and electricity, a curious philosophical lamp.

1824 A. H. Ritter in Encycl. Americana (1851) 516/2 Scheme of a philosophical logic.

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.

1967 P. F. Strawson Philos. Logic 1 Wittgenstein's suggestion does not itself belong to formal logic. It belongs to philosophical logic.

1991 M. Sainsbury (title) Logical forms: an introduction to philosophical logic.

?a1600 Coronation of Nature (MS B.L. Sloane 12) f. 41 Lett it putrefie in ye belly of a horse, According to ye Philosophicall month (to witt) forty days.

1765 tr. G. van Swieten Comm. Aphorisms Boerhaave (ed. 2) I. 393 His sight returned by degrees, and within a philosophical month became more acute than ever.

1988 Amer. Anthropologist 90 406/2 The flesh was to be dried, and smoked for a ‘philosophical month’.

1750 tr. E. Jourdan de Pellerin Treat. Venereal Maladies ii. i. vii. 323 Mixed with an equal quantity of quicksilver, extinguished with spittle, and a little philosophical oil.

1783 tr. T. Bergman Ess. Usefulness Chem. 108 If these oils are forced over in distillation by a stronger heat, they acquire a burnt smell and taste, and become soluble in spirit of wine; in this state they are called empyreumatic, and sometimes philosophical oils.

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

1952 E. Farber Evol. Chem. viii. 105 Repeated distillation of actual oils yielded the true and philosophical oil, the oil principle.

1834 J. S. Mill in Monthly Repos. 8 174 Those who aspire to be..distinguished as the instructed and philosophical Radicals.

1945 B. Russell Hist. Western Philos. (1946) iii. xxi. 746 The romantic revolt..passes on, somewhat softened, to the philosophical radicals in England.

1991 J. Kingdom Local Govt. & Politics in Brit. xiv. 231 The reforms of the Philosophical Radicals in poor law and public health administration were relentlessly centralising.

1839 N. Amer. Rev. July 68 Regarding a system of philosophical radicalism as a mere cover for an attack on all the principles of government and social order.

1872 Proc. Royal Geogr. Soc. 16 313 Wearied with the want of sympathy which the Reformed Parliament showed for his 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.

1999 Public Opinion Q. 63 324 Having been converted to the democratic movement known as philosophical radicalism.

1581 R. Norman Newe Attractiue Ded. sig. A.iij^v Diuerse other rare effectes that followe this Philosophicall Stone.

1638 Marcombes in Lismore Papers (1888) 2nd Ser. III. 283 Euery one thinks y^t because I belong to my Lord of Corke I must haue y^e Philosophical stone.

1791 I. D'Israeli Curiosities of Lit. 1st Ser. I. 28 The Quadrature of the Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology.

1881 Science 30 July 354/2 It has always been supposed that the hermetic or philosophical stone must be luminous.

1994 Observer (Nexis) 23 Jan. 14 A note on the door, saying: ‘It's true that the philosophical stone can't be found, but it's good to look for it.’

1703 G. Wilson Compl. Course Chymistry (ed. 2) i. 23 The Philosophical Tree is a Crystallization of the dissolved Metals.

1799 J. Anderson Recreations in Agric. I. 127 Other crystallizations resemble vegetables..in the shape and configuration of parts, of which what has been called the philosophical tree, produced by a solution of silver, is a noted example.

1936 Speculum 11 373 Another alchemical work is ascribed to Galen which, from a reference in its opening words to the philosophical tree, would seem to have been composed after..De secretis naturae.

1998 L. Abraham Dict. Alchemical Imagery 151 The philosophical tree is said to grow in various habitats, including the sea (either in the sea, on the sea, or on an island in the sea).

1694 W. Salmon Pharmacopœia Bateana i. xiii. 729/2 That Vinegar which Quercetan calls in his Writings, Philosophical Vinegar.

a1775 J. H. Hampe Exper. Syst. Metall. (1777) 38 Extracted with a philosophical Vinegar.

1771 J. Keir tr. P. J. Macquer Dict. Chem. II. 854 These are called flowers of zinc, and philosophical wool [Fr. laine philosophique].

1850 C. J. Hempel New Homœopathic Pharmacopœia 275 Flowers of Zinc, Philosophical Wool.

1851 Encycl. Americana XIII. 329/2 It flies up in the form of white flowers, which are called flowers of zinc, or philosophical wool.

1876 J. Thomas Comprehensive Med. Dict. 205/2 Oxide of zinc, or philosophical wool.