Pretty much the title - What was the reasoning for Verditius to utilise Philosophiae?
I'm curious as it makes Verditius that pursue improving their Verditius Runes rather adept academics, where-as the write up in HOH:MC seems to gives the overall feel more of tradesmen than scholars - fyi, I've never got round to reading A&A, so I use the term academics loosely 
Cheers
Kal
Verditii considering themselves more craftsmen than academics can always specialize in (ArM5 p.66f) natural philosophy: the way of medieval scholars to study nature.
(A&A p.67ff) Experimental Philosophy applies natural philosophy to practical problems: not magic but still often happening in a lab, likely to appeal to most (HoH:MC p.135f) Verditius Forge-Companions and even some Verditii.
Cheers
Philosophiae includes Natural philosophy - the more you know of the properties of objects, the more you can bring out their inner nature.
Yes, this does mean you get the situation where studying Augustine's City of God and studying Aristotle's works both make you equally good at this sort of thing, while making you also good at ethics and metaphysics. The same thing happens when people try to become great ritual casters and learn lots of Artes Liberales and Philosophiae, and end up reading books of music theory and ethics just to get the extra bonus.