Philosophers
38 philosophers from every tradition, from the Buddha, Confucius and the Presocratics to the twentieth century. Each has a page with key ideas, works you can read free, and where to start. See them in order on the timeline.
A
- Akṣapāda GautamaUncertain. The Nyāya Sūtra is usually dated to about the 2nd century CE (c. 150–200), though estimates range from the 6th century BCE to the 3rd century CE.Traditional author of the Nyāya Sūtra, the founding text of the Nyāya school of Indian logic and epistemology, which lists four means of knowledge and sixteen categories of inquiry and treats debate as a discipline.
- Aristotle384–322 BCEGreek philosopher and polymath, pupil of Plato and tutor of Alexander the Great, who founded the Lyceum and gave the first systematic account of logic, with lasting theories of substance, causes, the soul, virtue and the city.
B
- Baruch Spinoza24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish descent who argued that God or Nature is the one substance of which everything is a part, that all things follow necessarily, and that freedom lies in understanding.
- Bertrand Russell18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970British philosopher, logician and public intellectual, a founder of analytic philosophy, who found the paradox that bears his name, co-wrote Principia Mathematica, gave the theory of descriptions, and campaigned for pacifism and nuclear disarmament.
- The BuddhaTraditionally 623–543 BCE (Theravāda); older scholarship c. 563–483 BCE; many scholars now place his death within about twenty years of 400 BCEIndian teacher of the sixth or fifth century BCE and founder of Buddhism, who taught the Four Noble Truths, the middle way, not-self and dependent origination, and the practice that leads to freedom from suffering.
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- G. E. Moore1873–1958English philosopher at Cambridge who, with Russell, broke from British idealism and helped found analytic philosophy; known for the open question argument against defining good, his defence of common sense, and Moore’s paradox.
- G. W. F. Hegel27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831German idealist philosopher who argued that mind, or spirit, develops through history and that reason, freedom and reality are one process, which his dialectical method traces.
- George Berkeley12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop who argued that there is no material substance, only minds and the ideas they perceive, so that for ordinary things to be is to be perceived.
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz1 July 1646 (21 June, Old Style) – 14 November 1716German polymath who invented the calculus independently of Newton and built a rationalist system of monads, sufficient reason and pre-established harmony, arguing that this is the best of all possible worlds.
- Gottlob Frege1848–1925German mathematician and philosopher who invented modern logic and the distinction between sense and reference, tried to derive arithmetic from logic, and is often called the father of analytic philosophy.
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- JaiminiUncertain: estimates for the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra range from the 4th century BCE to the 1st century CEAncient Indian sage, traditionally the author of the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra and founder of Mīmāṃsā, the school that holds dharma to be known only through Vedic injunction and builds a method for interpreting the Vedic texts.
- Jean-Paul Sartre21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980French philosopher, novelist, playwright and political activist, the leading voice of existentialism, who argued in Being and Nothingness that humans are radically free and responsible for what they make of themselves.
- John Locke1632–1704English philosopher and physician, a founder of British empiricism and of liberalism, who argued that all ideas come from experience, that government rests on consent and natural rights, and that the state may not coerce belief.
- John Stuart Mill20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873 (some sources give 8 May)English philosopher, economist and politician who refined utilitarianism, defended individual liberty with the harm principle in On Liberty, argued for the equality of women, and gave an empiricist account of logic and scientific method.
K
- KaṇādaUncertain. The Vaiśeṣika Sūtra is dated between the 6th century BCE and the 1st or 2nd century CE; the Stanford Encyclopedia gives c. 1st century CE.Traditional author of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra, the founding text of the Vaiśeṣika school, which sorts reality into six categories and explains the material world by eternal atoms, in one of the earliest atomist theories.
- KapilaLegendary; no firm dates (handbooks place him in the 7th or 6th century BCE)Legendary Indian sage, traditionally the founder of Sāṃkhya, the school of dualism that explains the world by two ultimate realities, consciousness (puruṣa) and nature (prakṛti), and treats liberation as knowing them apart.
- Karl Marx5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883German philosopher, social theorist and revolutionary socialist who, with Friedrich Engels, developed historical materialism and a critique of capitalism built on alienation, class struggle and exploitation, and whose ideas gave rise to Marxism.
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- Madhva1238–1317 (the dating most often given); some scholars place him c. 1199–1278Indian monk and philosopher of the thirteenth century, founder of Dvaita Vedānta, who taught that God (Viṣṇu), souls and matter are eternally and really different, and that liberation comes only through God’s grace.
- Mahatma Gandhi2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948Indian lawyer and political ethicist who developed satyagraha, nonviolent resistance grounded in truth, and led much of the campaign for India’s independence; his writings on swaraj, nonviolence and modern civilisation are still widely studied.
- MahāvīraTraditionally 599–527 BCE (Śvetāmbara dating; the Digambara tradition puts his death in 510 BCE). Many historians place him later, with his death in the 5th century BCE, perhaps c. 477–425 BCE.Indian ascetic of the sixth or fifth century BCE, the twenty-fourth and last Tīrthaṅkara of the Jain tradition, whose teaching of non-violence, the soul bound by karma and the many-sidedness of reality shaped Jain philosophy.
- Martin Heidegger26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976German philosopher whose Being and Time (1927) asked what it means for anything to be, analysed human existence as Dasein, and shaped phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics, while his support for Nazism remains a lasting problem for his readers.
- Menciusc. 372–289 BCE (some sources give c. 371 for his birth)Chinese Confucian philosopher of the Warring States period who argued that human nature is good, that virtue grows from innate sprouts of compassion, shame, deference and judgement, and that a ruler who loses the people’s support loses the right to rule.
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- PatañjaliUncertain: the Yoga Sūtras are dated between the 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE (c. 400 CE on Philipp Maas's argument); the grammarian Patañjali, mid-2nd century BCEThe name attached to the Yoga Sūtras, the classic Sanskrit text of Yoga philosophy, whose author, of uncertain date, taught that yoga is the stilling of the mind, so that consciousness rests apart in its own nature.
- Platoc. 428–347 BCEAthenian philosopher, pupil of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, who founded the Academy and wrote dialogues on knowledge, the soul, justice and the ideal city, built around his theory of Forms.
R
- RāmānujaTraditionally 1017–1137; recent scholarship c. 1077–1157South Indian teacher of Śrī Vaiṣṇavism and founder of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, who held that Brahman is a personal God, Viṣṇu, with souls and the world as his body, and that devotion, not undifferentiated knowledge, frees the self.
- René Descartes1596–1650French philosopher, mathematician and scientist who made methodical doubt the starting point of modern philosophy, argued that the thinking self is the first certainty and that mind and body are distinct, and founded analytic geometry.
S
- Śaṅkara8th century CE (c. 788–820 in older scholarship; c. 700–750 in some recent work)Indian monk and teacher, probably of the eighth century CE, whose commentaries on the Upaniṣads, Brahma Sūtras and Gītā gave Advaita Vedānta its classic form: the self is Brahman, and ignorance of this binds us.
- Socratesc. 470–399 BCEAthenian philosopher who wrote nothing and is known through Plato and Xenophon; his questioning, his admission of ignorance and his care for the soul began Western ethics, and he was executed in 399 BCE.
- Søren Kierkegaard5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855Danish philosopher, theologian and writer, often called the first existentialist, who argued that truth in religion and ethics is lived by a single individual, and who explored anxiety, despair, faith and commitment, often under pseudonyms.
- Sri Aurobindo15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950Indian philosopher, poet, yogi and nationalist who, after a career in Bengal’s independence movement, withdrew to Pondicherry and taught Integral Yoga: the evolution of consciousness through mind to a divine Supermind, in a world that is real.
- Swami Vivekananda12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902Bengali monk and teacher, chief disciple of Ramakrishna, who presented Advaita Vedānta and yoga to the West at the 1893 Parliament of Religions and taught a practical Vedānta of the divinity of the soul and service to others.
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