There's a splendid term that has largely gone out of use during the past few centuries: "natural philosophy". It literally just means "science" — the study of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and so forth.
But "natural philosophy" has so much nicer a ring to it! "Natural" suggests Nature, the universe of phenomena — but it also adds in nuances of innateness, normalcy, intrinsic quality (with echoes of R. Crumb's "Mr. Natural" if one grew up with underground comix in the '60s (^_^)!). "Philosophy" in turn means the love of wisdom, almost by definition the highest goal of human life. Putting them together, who wouldn't want to be a Natural Philosopher?
Monday, May 17, 1999 at 21:13:21 (EDT) = 1999-05-17
(correlates: OntologyRecapitulatesPhilology, Mind-Body Connection, EatingOnesOwnCooking, ...)