Definition of "philology"

[…] his early philosophical studies converged with his original love of philology as he pursued the “prehistory” of Kantian critique in Descartes, Galileo, and Copernicus, back to Plato.

2016, Alan Kim, “Paul Natorp”, in Edward N. Zalta, editor, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy‎

Indeed philology properly is terse and polite learning...; being that florid skill containing only the roses of learning, without the prickles thereof, in which narrow sense thorny philosophy is discharged, as no part of philology. But we take it in the larger notion, as inclusive of all human liberal studies...

a. 1662, Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England

Philology and philosophy are treated as reciprocal. They exist on equal footing, and neither functions satisfactorily without the other. Their methods ... are opposite; philology attains to knowledge through induction, whereas philosophy starts from a concept. To formulate his concepts soundly, the philosopher needs an adequate fund of knowledge or data; too many philosophers ... lack a basis in knowledge or tradition

1968, John Paul Pritchard, On Interpretation and Criticism, University of Oklahoma Press