Definitions and Branches of Philosophy

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Definition of Philosophy
The definition of philosophy - judging, at least, from very nearly every philosophy dictionary on the planet - has confounded philosophers for many centuries, the concept being too large, it is sometimes said, to properly convey in a concise fashion. Yet, at the same time, in all branches of philosophy, minutia is cataloged to complete weariness.
This annoying problem is really nothing more than skepticism and its little bitch postmodernism running amok again. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, for instance, a thoroughly postmodern compilation, says this: "Some readers might be surprised to find that there is no entry simply on philosophy itself. This is partly because no short definition will do." That statement - and all others like it - is flatly false.
The definition of philosophy is as follows: Philosophy: the science of rudiments and foundations; the study of fundamentals. A philosophy is an organized system of ideas and arguments.
Etymologically, the word, as you know, comes from the Greek term philia (meaning love) or philos (meaning friend or lover); and sophia (meaning wisdom).
A fellow by the name of Diogenes Laertius claims that the term philosopher was coined by Pythagoras, in place of the word sophist, which meant "wise man." But Diogenes Laertius was squirrelly, and his Pythagorean claim is therefore dubious.
Oxford - evidently not as equivocal as Cambridge - defines philosophy thus: "The investigation of the most general and abstract features of the world and the categories with which we think, in order to lay bare their foundations and presuppositions."
Not bad; better still, however, is Penguin's philosophy dictionary, which says that philosophy studies "the most fundamental and general concepts and principles involved in thought, action, and reality."
And yet the best of them all comes not from a philosophy dictionary, exactly, but a man named Désiré-Félicien-François-Joseph Mercier - a.k.a. Cardinal Mercier - the late nineteenth-century thinker, who spoke well when he spoke thus: "[Philosophy] does not profess to be a particularized science [but] ranks above them, dealing in an ultimate fashion with their respective objects, inquiring into their connexions and relations of these connexions."
Philosophy, he continues, "deserves above all to be called the most general science" (A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy).
Lexically, here's all you really need to know: Philosophy comes first, and last. Philosophy is the alpha and the omega; it is the most fundamental science because it studies the foundations of all subsequent knowledge, and that is why all the other sciences depend upon it: because knowledge forms a hierarchy.
For humans, to live is to think; our life is in large part our consciousness: we are defined by the entirety of our actions, but our actions are shaped by our thoughts. Thinking, as stated once before, is the human quiddity. Philosophy provides the gauge for, and also defines the limits (or lack) of, all human knowledge, as well as systematizing the proper methods by which we are able to know. That is the definition of philosophy.
Branches of Philosophy
Three major branches grow upon the ancient tree of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. From these three branches spring two secondary and one tertiary. The two secondary limbs are politics, a sub-branch of ethics, and aesthetics (also known as art), a sub-branch of epistemology. One limb alone grows from the sub-branch of politics, and that is called economics. In the tradition of Greek philosophy, then, we may properly classify philosophy's branches, in order of hierarchical importance, like so:
• Metaphysics: the study of reality.
• Epistemology: the study of knowledge.
• Ethics: the study of human action.
• Politics: the study of government.
• Economics: the study of production and exchange.
• Aesthetics: the study of art.
These are the six main branches of philosophy, none of which, incidentally, are luxuries but human necessities. (Note: up until the time of Rene Descartes, epistemology was called Logic.) There are, however, in addition to these, a great many smaller limbs that grow on the tree of philosophy, a very partial listing of which might, in no particular order, look something like this:
• Ontology: the branch of metaphysics that studies entities.
• Philosophy of mind: the branch of epistemology that studies the putative dichotomy between brain and body and includes the soft science of psychology.
• Philosophy of language: the branch of epistemology that studies linguistic meaning and linguistic evolution.
• Philosophy of law: the branch of politics, and also ethics, that studies specific implementations of justice, rights, property, governmental procedure, and so on.
• Philosophy of education: the branch of epistemology that studies the devilish intricacies of pedagogy.
• Philosophy of mathematics: the branch of epistemology that studies critical problems raised by math.
• Hermeneutics: the branch of aesthetics that studies textual interpretation.
• Critical theory: the branch of ethics - and to some extent politics and aesthetics as well - that studies so-called underlying social practices.
Obviously this list is far from exhaustive, but a full compendiation here isn't the point. The point is this: Each sub-branch of philosophy and each sub-sub-branch is a species of either metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics. In the same way that philosophy forms the foundations of all knowledge, so metaphysics (the study of reality) forms the foundation of all philosophy.
All knowledge is built hierarchically, from the ground up. Thus, knowledge forms a unity wherein one thing leads logically to another, which leads to another, and so on. In this way, knowledge is interwoven and therefore entirely contextual.
In the house of knowledge, there are many mansions, but it's all built upon one foundation: and that foundation is philosophy.