Abhinav Saxena
Philosophy

Timeline

Philosophy's traditions side by side, in the order their thinkers were born. Ancient dates are often uncertain; each page says how uncertain. Choose a tradition to follow it alone.

Before 500 BCE

  1. Traditionally 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.MahāvīraIndianIndian 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.
  2. Traditionally 623–543 BCE (Theravāda); older scholarship c. 563–483 BCE; many scholars now place his death within about twenty years of 400 BCEThe BuddhaIndianIndian 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.
  3. c. 551–479 BCE (traditional dates; 552 is sometimes given for his birth)ConfuciusChineseChinese teacher and thinker of the Spring and Autumn period whose sayings, collected in the Analects, made moral self-cultivation, ritual, family obligation and government by virtue the core of Confucianism.
  4. Legendary; no firm dates (handbooks place him in the 7th or 6th century BCE)KapilaIndianLegendary 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.

500 BCE to the common era

  1. c. 470–399 BCESocratesWesternAthenian 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.
  2. c. 428–347 BCEPlatoWesternAthenian 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.
  3. 384–322 BCEAristotleWesternGreek 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.
  4. c. 372–289 BCE (some sources give c. 371 for his birth)MenciusChineseChinese 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.

1 to 500

  1. c. 150 – c. 250 CENāgārjunaIndianIndian Buddhist monk and philosopher of about the second or third century CE, founder of the Madhyamaka school, who argued in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā that nothing exists by its own nature, so that all things are empty and dependently arisen.

500 to 1000

  1. 8th century CE (c. 788–820 in older scholarship; c. 700–750 in some recent work)ŚaṅkaraIndianIndian 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.

1000 to 1500

  1. Traditionally 1017–1137; recent scholarship c. 1077–1157RāmānujaIndianSouth 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.
  2. 1238–1317 (the dating most often given); some scholars place him c. 1199–1278MadhvaIndianIndian 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.

1500 to 1700

  1. 1596–1650René DescartesWesternFrench 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.
  2. 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677Baruch SpinozaWesternDutch 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.
  3. 1632–1704John LockeWesternEnglish 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.
  4. 1 July 1646 (21 June, Old Style) – 14 November 1716Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizWesternGerman 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.
  5. 12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753George BerkeleyWesternAnglo-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.

The eighteenth century

  1. 1711–1776David HumeWesternScottish philosopher, historian and essayist of the Enlightenment, the most thoroughgoing of the British empiricists, whose arguments about causation, induction, the self, testimony and morality still set the terms of debate.
  2. 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804Immanuel KantWesternGerman philosopher of the Enlightenment who argued that the mind structures all experience, so that we know appearances and not things in themselves, and that morality is a law of reason binding every rational agent.
  3. 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831G. W. F. HegelWesternGerman 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.

The nineteenth century

  1. 20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873 (some sources give 8 May)John Stuart MillWesternEnglish 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.
  2. 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855Søren KierkegaardWesternDanish 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.
  3. 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883Karl MarxWesternGerman 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.
  4. 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900Friedrich NietzscheWesternGerman philosopher and classical philologist who criticised Christian morality and the idea of objective truth, announced the death of God, and asked how life can be affirmed afterwards, with ideas such as perspectivism, will to power and eternal recurrence.
  5. 1848–1925Gottlob FregeWesternGerman 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.
  6. 1859–1938Edmund HusserlWesternPhilosopher and mathematician, born in Moravia and working in Germany, who founded phenomenology, the study of conscious experience, and shaped Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and much twentieth-century thought.
  7. 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902Swami VivekanandaIndianBengali 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.
  8. 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948Mahatma GandhiIndianIndian 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.
  9. 18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970Bertrand RussellWesternBritish 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.
  10. 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950Sri AurobindoIndianIndian 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.
  11. 1873–1958G. E. MooreWesternEnglish 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.
  12. 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951Ludwig WittgensteinWesternAustrian-born philosopher of logic and language whose Tractatus held that propositions picture facts, and whose Philosophical Investigations, published after his death, ties meaning to use in language-games; one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century.
  13. 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976Martin HeideggerWesternGerman 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.

The twentieth century

  1. 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980Jean-Paul SartreWesternFrench 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.