id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
www-britannica-com-3694		Western philosophy | Britannica			.html	text/html	2503	185	52	This article has three basic purposes: (1) to provide an overview of the history of philosophy in the West, (2) to relate philosophical ideas and movements to their historical background and to the cultural history of their time, and (3) to trace the changing conception of the definition, the function, and the task of philosophy. But a first attempt in this direction might be to define philosophy either as "a reflection upon the varieties of human experience" or as "the rational, methodical, and systematic consideration of those topics that are of greatest concern to humankind." Vague and indefinite as such definitions are, they do suggest two important facts about philosophizing: (1) that it is a reflective, or meditative, activity and (2) that it has no explicitly designated subject matter of its own but is a method or type of mental operation (like science or history) that can take any area or subject matter or type of experience as its object.	./cache/www-britannica-com-3694.html	./txt/www-britannica-com-3694.txt