Philosophers

Stoicism

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

Zeno of Citium

Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BC), a Phoenician who lost everything in a shipwreck, founded Stoicism in

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), last of Rome's Five Good Emperors, wrote his Meditations in wartime ca

Posidonius

Greek Stoic polymath (c. 135-51 BC), called the most learned of his age by Strabo. Based in Rhodes,

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Hierocles

Roman Stoic of the second century AD, known almost entirely through one papyrus recovered at Hermopo

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Gaius Musonius Rufus

Roman Stoic philosopher (c. 30-101 AD), teacher of Epictetus, the man three emperors banished and co

Panaetius

Greek Stoic (c. 185-109 BC), last head of the Athenian Stoa. He reformed strict early Stoicism into

Cato the Younger

Roman senator (95-46 BC) and the most uncompromising Stoic of the late Republic, remembered as the m

Ancient Greek

Heraclitus

Born in Ephesus in Asia Minor around the 6th century BCE, Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic philosopher

Hypatia

A Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician in late-fourth-century Alexandria. She taught across fa

Plotinus

Born around 205 CE in Roman Egypt, Plotinus developed Plato's thought into a grand metaphysical syst

Parmenides

A pre-Socratic philosopher born in the late 6th century BCE in the Greek colony of Elea in southern

Pythagoras

Ancient Greek thinker from Samos (c. 570 BC) who led a religious community in Croton. He linked stri

Democritus

Born around 460 BCE in Abdera, Thrace, Democritus was an ancient Greek natural philosopher who, toge

Socrates

Fifth-century BC Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing yet transformed Western thought. Through que

Aristotle

Ancient Greek philosopher born in 384 BC in Stagira. He studied under Plato for twenty years, then b

Plato

Ancient Greek philosopher born c. 427 BC in Athens. Shaken by Socrates' execution, he founded the Ac

Diogenes of Sinope

Born around 412 BCE in the Black Sea port of Sinope, Diogenes was the quintessential Cynic philosoph

Epicurus

Born on the island of Samos around 341 BCE, Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded th

Antisthenes

Greek philosopher (c. 446-366 BC), pupil of Socrates, traditional founder of Cynicism. He taught tha

Pyrrho

Greek philosopher (c. 360-270 BC), founder of Pyrrhonist scepticism. He marched with Alexander to In

Iamblichus

Born c. 245 in Chalcis, Syria, Iamblichus turned Neoplatonism from contemplation toward ritual. A pu

Proclus

Born 412 in Constantinople, Proclus was the last great philosopher of late antiquity, head of the At

Porphyry

Born c. 234 in Tyre, Porphyry was a Phoenician Neoplatonist who edited Plotinus into the Enneads. Hi

Crates of Thebes

Theban Cynic philosopher (c. 365-285 BC) who renounced wealth to live on the streets of Athens with

Eastern

Nagarjuna

A second-century South Indian monk who founded the Madhyamaka school by systematizing the doctrine o

Tetsuro Watsuji

Born in 1889 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, Watsuji Tetsuro was an ethicist who charted an original pat

Kitarō Nishida

Born in 1870 in Kaga Province (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture), Nishida Kitaro was the pioneer of m

D. T. Suzuki

Born in 1870 in Kanazawa, Japan, D. T. Suzuki was the Buddhist scholar who brought Zen to the Englis

Zhuang Zhou

Born in the state of Song during China's Warring States period (4th century BCE), Zhuangzi was the g

Xunzi

A Confucian scholar born in the state of Zhao during the late Warring States period, 3rd century BCE

Confucius

Born c. 551 BCE in Lu, Confucius built a moral system on ren, li, and xiao. The Analects became East

Laozi

Semi-legendary Chinese philosopher of the 6th century BC who taught wu wei -- effortless action alig

Wang Yangming

Born in 1472 in Zhejiang during China's Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming was a Confucian scholar and mili

Mencius

Born c. 372 BC in China's Warring States era, Mencius held that human nature is inherently good. He

Zhu Xi

Southern Song Confucian (1130-1200), the systematizer of Neo-Confucianism. His Four Books commentari

Mozi

Founder of Mohism in Warring States China (c. 470-390 BCE). Impartial care (jian ai) and non-aggress

Dōgen

Japanese Zen monk (1200-1253), founder of the Sōtō school. After studying in Song China under Tianto

Han Fei

Warring States philosopher (c.280-233 BC) and great synthesiser of Legalism. He integrated Shang Yan

Shinran

Founder of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism (1173-1263). After twenty years on Mt Hiei he joined Honen's nembut

Kūkai

Founder of Shingon Buddhism in Japan (774-835). He sailed to Tang China in 804 and studied esoteric

Modern Western

Karl Marx

Born in 1818 in Trier, Prussia, Karl Marx inverted Hegelian dialectics into materialism and construc

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

René Descartes

French philosopher-mathematician born in 1596 who launched modern thought with "I think, therefore I

Benedictus de Spinoza

Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Baruch de Spinoza was a heretical philosopher who was excommunicated from

Friedrich Nietzsche

Prussian philosopher born in 1844 who became a Basel professor at 24, resigned due to illness, and p

Arthur Schopenhauer

Born in 1788 in Danzig (now Gdansk), Arthur Schopenhauer constructed in The World as Will and Repres

George Berkeley

Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher (1685-1753) whose dictum "to be is to be perceived" launched mode

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Born in Stuttgart in 1770, Hegel crowned German idealism by unifying history, spirit, and state thro

Immanuel Kant

Born in Konigsberg in 1724, Kant never left home yet redrew Western philosophy. His Critique of Pure

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Major figure of German Idealism (1775-1854). At Tubingen aged fifteen with Hegel and Holderlin, he m

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Founder of German Idealism (1762-1814). Dropping Kant's thing-in-itself, Fichte derived experience f

Thomas Hobbes

English philosopher (1588-1679) born prematurely as the Armada approached. "My mother gave birth to

Blaise Pascal

French mathematician, physicist, philosopher (1623-1662). Inventor of the mechanical calculator, fou

David Hume

Scottish philosopher (1711-1776), master of British empiricism. His Treatise of Human Nature (1739)

Francis Bacon

Born 1561 in London, Francis Bacon rose to Lord Chancellor under James I and laid the philosophical

Erasmus

Born 1466 (or 1469) in Rotterdam, Erasmus was the leading humanist of the Northern Renaissance and a

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Born 1646 in Leipzig, Leibniz was the last of the great rationalists alongside Descartes and Spinoza

Michel de Montaigne

Born 1533 in the Perigord region of France, Montaigne invented the modern essay. He retired from his

Hugo Grotius

Dutch jurist (1583-1645), father of international law. His De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625) grounded th

Existentialism

Simone de Beauvoir

Existentialist philosopher and feminist pioneer born in Paris in 1908. In The Second Sex she argued

Jean-Paul Sartre

France's foremost existentialist, Sartre held that existence precedes essence: we are defined by our

Søren Kierkegaard

Born in 1813 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Kierkegaard challenged Hegel's grand system-philosophy from the

Albert Camus

Born in French Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus grew up in poverty amid the Mediterranean light and the

Contemporary Western

Tralalero Tralalá

One of the most influential French philosophers of the 20th century, Michel Foucault exposed how pow

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Austrian philosopher born in 1889 who gave away his fortune and twice redrew the map of philosophy.

Jacques Derrida

A French philosopher of Sephardic Jewish origin, born in French Algeria. Derrida exposed the logocen

Jürgen Habermas

Born in 1929 in Germany, Juergen Habermas is a philosopher and social theorist representing the seco

Bertrand Russell

Born in Britain in 1872 into the aristocratic Russell family, Bertrand Russell was a philosopher, lo

William James

Born in New York in 1842, William James laid the intellectual foundations of both psychology and phi

Wilhelm Dilthey

German philosopher and historian (1833-1911) who founded the methodology of the human sciences. Agai

Hannah Arendt

Born in 1906, Hannah Arendt fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. The Origins of Totalitarianism dissected

Simone Weil

Born in Paris in 1909, Simone Weil died at 34, leaving behind a body of thought that defies conventi

Edmund Husserl

Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician (1859-1938), founder of phenomenology. His "phenomenol

Martin Heidegger

German philosopher (1889-1976), among the most influential in twentieth-century continental thought.

Alfred North Whitehead

British mathematician turned philosopher (1861-1947). With Russell he co-authored Principia Mathemat

G. E. Moore

Cambridge philosopher (1873-1958), with Russell and Wittgenstein a founder of analytic philosophy. P

Willard Van Orman Quine

American logician (1908-2000), Harvard's Edgar Pierce Professor 1956-1978. Two Dogmas of Empiricism

Henri Bergson

Leading French philosopher (1859-1941). His durée, élan vital and intuition broke with mechanistic t

Martha Nussbaum

Leading American ethicist and classicist (1947- ), Distinguished Service Professor at Chicago. Co-ar

Charles Taylor

Canadian political philosopher (1931- ), professor emeritus at McGill, a leading communitarian. Sour

Hilary Putnam

American philosopher (1926-2016) who reshaped late-20th-century analytic philosophy. Founder of func

John Rawls

American political philosopher (1921-2002) whose 1971 A Theory of Justice revived Anglophone politic

Karl Popper

Austrian-British philosopher (1902-1994), a leading philosopher of science. He proposed falsifiabili

Thomas-kun

American historian and philosopher of science (1922-1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (

Peter Singer

Australian-born ethicist (1946- ), bioethics professor at Princeton. Animal Liberation (1975) launch

Charles Sanders Peirce

Founder of pragmatism and modern semiotics (1839-1914). Barred from Harvard and a Coast Survey scien

John Dewey

American pragmatist philosopher and educator (1859-1952). Guided by learning by doing, he founded th

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

French phenomenologist (1908-1961). Friend and rival of Sartre, he turned Husserlian phenomenology t

Hans-Georg Gadamer

German philosopher (1900-2002), central figure of twentieth-century hermeneutics. Truth and Method (

Islamic

Averroes

Born in 12th-century Cordoba in Andalusia, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) was a philosopher, jurist, and physi

Farabi

Born around 870 CE in the Farab region of Central Asia, al-Farabi was a pioneering figure in Islamic

Medieval

Thomas Aquinas

Born c. 1225 near Roccasecca in southern Italy, Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar and the greates

Anselm of Canterbury

Born 1033 in Aosta, Anselm rose from Benedictine monk to Archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109). Calle

Augustine of Hippo

Latin Church Father (354-430). After detours through Manichaeism and Neoplatonism he converted at 32

Moshe ben Maimon

Born 1135 in Cordoba under Islamic rule, Maimonides was the medieval Sephardi rabbi, philosopher, an

Boethius

Born c. 480 in Rome, Boethius rose to consul and magister officiorum under Theodoric the Great. The