Philosophers
Stoicism
Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BC), a Phoenician who lost everything in a shipwreck, founded Stoicism in
Chrysippus of Soli
Born c. 279 BC in Soli, Chrysippus became the Stoic school's third head and systematized its logic,
Epictetus
Epictetus (c. 50-135 AD), born a slave in Phrygia, never wrote a word. His Discourses and Enchiridio
Seneca
Seneca (c. 4 BC - 65 AD), Stoic philosopher and Nero's advisor, wrote on time, anger, and adversity
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), last of Rome's Five Good Emperors, wrote his Meditations in wartime ca
Ancient Greek
Parmenides
A pre-Socratic philosopher born in the late 6th century BCE in the Greek colony of Elea in southern
Aristotle
Ancient Greek philosopher born in 384 BC in Stagira. He studied under Plato for twenty years, then b
Pythagoras
Ancient Greek thinker from Samos (c. 570 BC) who led a religious community in Croton. He linked stri
Diogenes of Sinope
Born around 412 BCE in the Black Sea port of Sinope, Diogenes was the quintessential Cynic philosoph
Plato
Ancient Greek philosopher born c. 427 BC in Athens. Shaken by Socrates' execution, he founded the Ac
Socrates
Fifth-century BC Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing yet transformed Western thought. Through que
Epicurus
Born on the island of Samos around 341 BCE, Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded th
Heraclitus
Born in Ephesus in Asia Minor around the 6th century BCE, Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic philosopher
Democritus
Born around 460 BCE in Abdera, Thrace, Democritus was an ancient Greek natural philosopher who, toge
Plotinus
Born around 205 CE in Roman Egypt, Plotinus developed Plato's thought into a grand metaphysical syst
Hypatia
A Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician in late-fourth-century Alexandria. She taught across fa
Eastern
Nagarjuna
A second-century South Indian monk who founded the Madhyamaka school by systematizing the doctrine o
Laozi
Semi-legendary Chinese philosopher of the 6th century BC who taught wu wei -- effortless action alig
Zhuang Zhou
Born in the state of Song during China's Warring States period (4th century BCE), Zhuangzi was the g
D. T. Suzuki
Born in 1870 in Kanazawa, Japan, D. T. Suzuki was the Buddhist scholar who brought Zen to the Englis
Kitarō Nishida
Born in 1870 in Kaga Province (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture), Nishida Kitaro was the pioneer of m
Tetsuro Watsuji
Born in 1889 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, Watsuji Tetsuro was an ethicist who charted an original pat
Wang Yangming
Born in 1472 in Zhejiang during China's Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming was a Confucian scholar and mili
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Xunzi
A Confucian scholar born in the state of Zhao during the late Warring States period, 3rd century BCE
Mencius
Born c. 372 BC in China's Warring States era, Mencius held that human nature is inherently good. He
Confucius
Born c. 551 BCE in Lu, Confucius built a moral system on ren, li, and xiao. The Analects became East
Modern Western
John Locke
Born in 1632 in England, John Locke is known as the 'father of British empiricism' and the 'father o
John Stuart Mill
Born in London in 1806, John Stuart Mill was a 19th-century British philosopher, political economist
Benedictus de Spinoza
Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Baruch de Spinoza was a heretical philosopher who was excommunicated from
René Descartes
French philosopher-mathematician born in 1596 who launched modern thought with "I think, therefore I
Arthur Schopenhauer
Born in 1788 in Danzig (now Gdansk), Arthur Schopenhauer constructed in The World as Will and Repres
Karl Marx
Born in 1818 in Trier, Prussia, Karl Marx inverted Hegelian dialectics into materialism and construc
Friedrich Nietzsche
Prussian philosopher born in 1844 who became a Basel professor at 24, resigned due to illness, and p
Immanuel Kant
Born in Konigsberg in 1724, Kant never left home yet redrew Western philosophy. His Critique of Pure
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Born in Stuttgart in 1770, Hegel crowned German idealism by unifying history, spirit, and state thro
Existentialism
Søren Kierkegaard
Born in 1813 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Kierkegaard challenged Hegel's grand system-philosophy from the
Jean-Paul Sartre
France's foremost existentialist, Sartre held that existence precedes essence: we are defined by our
Simone de Beauvoir
Existentialist philosopher and feminist pioneer born in Paris in 1908. In The Second Sex she argued
Albert Camus
Born in French Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus grew up in poverty amid the Mediterranean light and the
Contemporary Western
William James
Born in New York in 1842, William James laid the intellectual foundations of both psychology and phi
Hannah Arendt
Born in 1906, Hannah Arendt fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. The Origins of Totalitarianism dissected
Bertrand Russell
Born in Britain in 1872 into the aristocratic Russell family, Bertrand Russell was a philosopher, lo
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Austrian philosopher born in 1889 who gave away his fortune and twice redrew the map of philosophy.
Jürgen Habermas
Born in 1929 in Germany, Juergen Habermas is a philosopher and social theorist representing the seco
Simone Weil
Born in Paris in 1909, Simone Weil died at 34, leaving behind a body of thought that defies conventi
Jacques Derrida
A French philosopher of Sephardic Jewish origin, born in French Algeria. Derrida exposed the logocen
Michel Foucault
One of the most influential French philosophers of the 20th century, Michel Foucault exposed how pow
