哲学

See also: 哲學

Chinese

For pronunciation and definitions of 哲学 – see 哲學 (“philosophy; homosexual”). (This term is the simplified form of 哲學).

Notes: Simplified Chinese is mainly used in Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Traditional Chinese is mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

Japanese

Kanji in this term
哲	学
てつ Grade: S	がく Grade: 1
on'yomi

Alternative spelling
哲學 (kyūjitai)

Etymology

By surface analysis, 哲(てつ) (tetsu, “clear, wise, sage”) + 学(がく) (-gaku, “study”). Coined by Nishi Amane in his 1874 百一新論 as a translation of English philosophy or Dutch filosofie. Nishi's kanji spelling 希哲學 (hirosohi) is literally calqued from Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophía, “pursuit of wisdom”, literally “love of knowledge”), apparently from the Chinese morphemes 希 (xī, “to long for”) and 哲 (zhé, “wisdom”), before he later settled with 哲學 (modernly spelt 哲学).

Nishi also used the transcriptions ヒロソヒ, ヒロソヒー (hirosohī) and 斐鹵蘇比.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [te̞t͡sɨɡa̠kɯ̟]
• (Tokyo) てつがく [tètsúꜜgàkù] (Nakadaka – [2])
• (Tokyo) てつがく [tètsúgákú] (Heiban – [0])

Noun

哲(てつ)学(がく) • (tetsugaku) 

1. philosophy

Derived terms

• 哲(てつ)学(がく)者(しゃ) (tetsugakusha, “philosopher”)
• 道(どう)徳(とく)哲(てつ)学(がく) (dōtoku tetsugaku, “moral philosophy”)

References

• Ineko Kondō, Fumi Takano, Mary E. Althaus, et al. (2002), Shogakukan Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary, third edition, Tokyo: Shōgakukan, →ISBN

• “哲学”, in 漢字ぺディア [Kanjipedia]‎^[2] (in Japanese), The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, 2015–2026