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A superficial or narrow pretender to philosophy; a sham philosopher.

Of or pertaining to Pythagoras (a Greek philosopher, born about 582 b. c.), or his philosophy. The central thought of the Pythagorean philosophy is the idea of number, the recognition of the numerical and mathematical relations of things. Encyc. Brit. Pythagorean proposition (Geom.), the theorem that the square describ…

mé, better known as Ramus, a celebrated French scholar, who was professor of rhetoric and philosophy at Paris in the reign of Henry II., and opposed the Aristotelians.

Relating to reason; not physical; mental. Moral philosophy was his chiefest end; for the rational, the natural, and mathematics . . . were but simple pastimes in comparison of the other. Sir T. North.

That which is received. [Obs.] "Receptaries of philosophy." Sir T. Browne.

his own or other's secrets. Ray. Others, accustomed to retired speculations, run natural philosophy into metaphysical notions. Locke.

A Hindoo system of philosophy which refers all things to soul and a rootless germ called prakriti, consisting of three elements, goodness, passion, and darkness. Whitworth.

Skepticism; skeptical philosophy. [R.] Among their products were the system of Locke, the scepsis of Hume, the critical philosophy of kant. J. martineau.

Atterbury. Arguments . . . sufficient to support and demonstrate a whole scheme of moral philosophy. J. Edwards. The Revolution came and changed his whole scheme of life. Macaulay.

vines of the Middle Ages (see Schoolman); as, scholastic divinity or theology; scholastic philosophy. Locke.

The method or subtitles the schools of philosophy; scholastic formality; scholastic doctrines or philosophy. The spirit of the old scholasticism . . . spurned laborious investigation and slow induction. J. P. Smith.

re characterized by academical disputations and subtilties of reasoning. At Cambridge the philosophy of Descartes was still dominant in the schools. Macaulay.

y on anything to come to pass. Hammond. Shakespeare's deep and accurate science in mental philosophy. Coleridge.

es) Duns Scotus, the Franciscan scholastic (d. 1308), who maintained certain doctrines in philosophy and theology, in opposition to the Thomists, or followers of Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican scholastic.

ially, in modern times, a party dissenting from an established church; a denomination; in philosophy, the disciples of a particular master; a school; in society and the state, an order, rank, class, or party. He beareth the sign of poverty, And in that sect our Savior saved all mankind. Piers Plowman. As of the sect of…

ian; a member or adherent of a sect; a follower or disciple of some particular teacher in philosophy or religion; one who separates from an established church; a dissenter. I never knew that time in England when men of truest religion were not counted sectaries. Milton.

One who, in philosophy, holds to sensism.

reams. Milton. A sip is all that the public ever care to take from reservoirs of abstract philosophy. De Quincey.

That branch of philosophy which treats of the constitution, phenomena, and development of human society; social science. H. Spencer.

The philosophy or the method of Socrates.