Philosophy is the mental and emotional quest for wisdom and understanding of life and its values. Principally based on reflection, philosophy entails questions of the "why" and the "how." Humankind has an intense desire to comprehend the meaning behind the act or the reasoning for the event or effect. What we perceive to be true, philosophy asks why is it true? Philosophy also urges one to theorize why things happen the way they do, and what causes these things to happen and what we can do to transform these occurrences. Philosophy answers riddles of life.
One of history's iconic philosophers was Aristotle. His philosophy was to approach a problem by examination, inductive reasoning and then figuring out what lies beneath the problem. This still proves useful today, however, modern philosophy would find Aristotle arrogant due to his pompous attitude that there was nothing he did not know.
Philosophy is far greater than what meets the naked eye. Through philosophy, we study to find the truth. And then, we study some more. There truly never is a definite, single answer to philosophical reasoning as each person has his/her own opinion of what philosophy transpires to be. In the days of Columbus, mankind feared the world was flat and ships would fall from the face of the earth. This was, one form of philosophy. But many sea-faring captains formed their own philosophy and so lead to the discovery of the "New World."
In any event, philosophy does not merely imply that only scientists and great philosophers have the intelligence to reason and find meaning. Philosophy is what is beyond that what we can conceive, and conception is forbidden knowledge that man still pursues today and in centuries to come.
Philosophy - Metaphysics