Todd asked:

Who came up with the five branches of philosophy? — metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics,
and esthetics? I first encountered this division in my studies of Objectivism. A friend, in explaining
something to me about Objectivism, told me that these were "The Five Branches" as if this were set
in stone.

I decided to investigate for myself, but have so far found nothing. It wasn't Aristotle, which was my
guess. It couldn't have been Plato. If it was then Aristotle would have used a classificatory scheme
that would been at least a little similar to his teacher's scheme. I'm guessing it must have been
someone since then.

It has occurred to me that this arbitrary classification might not be the most useful of systems, but I
figured that somebody somewheremust have thought it was, since everyone (that I talk to) knows of
it.

============

There was a question a while ago asking what the five branches are — and to my knowledge no-one
answered. Now we know! The five branches were probably drawn up within the American educational
system, since they are not recognised in England and they don't seem to be very adequate as they
fail to include one of the most important subjects in philosophy which is logic.

Rachel Browne