A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Top Ten Philosophers

Plato​
Plato​

Plato (429?–347 B.C.E.) is, by any reckoning, one of the most dazzling writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy.

Aristotle​
Aristotle​

Aristotle, Greek Aristoteles, (born 384 bce, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece—died 322, Chalcis, Euboea), ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history.

Socrates​
Socrates​

Socrates always emphasized the importance of the mind over the relative unimportance of the human body. This credo inspired Plato’s philosophy of dividing reality into two separate realms, the world of the senses and the world of ideas, declaring that the latter was the only important one.

source: biography.com
Immanuel ​Kant​
Immanuel ​Kant​

Immanuel Kant (/ k æ n t /; German: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl kant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is a central figure in modern philosophy.

F. Nietzsche​
F. Nietzsche​

H. L. Mencken produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and in 1910 a book of translated paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in the United States. Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to expressionism, existentialism, and postmodernism.

René ​Descartes​
René ​Descartes​

René Descartes is often credited with being the “Father of Modern Philosophy.” This title is justified due both to his break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy prevalent at his time and to his development and promotion of the new, mechanistic sciences.

source: iep.utm.edu
Karl Marx​
Karl Marx​

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary of the 19th Century. Both a scholar and a political activist, Marx is often called the father of Communism, and certainly his Marxist theory provided the intellectual base for various subsequent forms of Communism.

John Locke​
John Locke​

John Locke FRS (/ˈlɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism".

Confucius​
Confucius​

Confucius (551?-479? BCE), according to Chinese tradition, was a thinker, political figure, educator, and founder of the Ru School of Chinese thought.

image: glogster.com
David Hume​
David Hume​

David Hume (/ h juː m /; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism.

image: slate.com
Ludwig ​Wittgenstein​
Ludwig ​Wittgenstein​

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (/ ˈ v ɪ t ɡ ən ʃ t aɪ n,-s t aɪ n /; German: [ˈvɪtgənˌʃtaɪn]; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Thomas ​Aquinas​
Thomas ​Aquinas​

Saint Thomas Aquinas OP (/ ə ˈ k w aɪ n ə s /; Italian: Tommaso d'Aquino, lit. 'Thomas of Aquino'; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church.

Jean-Paul ​Sartre​
Jean-Paul ​Sartre​

Jean-Paul Sartre, (born June 21, 1905, Paris, France—died April 15, 1980, Paris), French novelist, playwright, and exponent of Existentialism—a philosophy acclaiming the freedom of the individual human being.

Epicurus​
Epicurus​

Epicurus the Sage is a two-part comic book by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth portraying Epicurus as "the only sane philosopher" by anachronistically bringing him together with many other well-known Greek philosophers.

Jean-Jacques ​Rousseau​
Jean-Jacques ​Rousseau​

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of Enlightenment. His Political Philosophy, particularly his formulation of social contract theory (or Contractarianism), strongly influenced the French Revolution and the development of Liberal, Conservative and Socialist theory.

Georg ​Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel​
Georg ​Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel​

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (/ˈheɪɡəl/; German:; August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher and an important figure of German idealism. He achieved wide renown in his day and, while primarily influential within the continental tradition of philosophy, has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well.

Martin ​Heidegger​
Martin ​Heidegger​

Heidegger's intuition about the question of Being is thus a historical argument, which in his later work becomes his concern with the "history of Being", that is, the history of the forgetting of Being, which according to Heidegger requires that philosophy retrace its footsteps through a productive destruction of the history of philosophy.

B. Spinoza​
B. Spinoza​

Baruch Spinoza (/ b ə ˈ r uː k s p ɪ ˈ n oʊ z ə /; Dutch: [baːˈrux spɪˈnoːzaː]; born Benedito de Espinosa, Portuguese: [bɨnɨˈðitu ðɨ ʃpiˈnɔzɐ]; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677, later Benedict de Spinoza) was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin.

Søren ​Kierkegaard​
Søren ​Kierkegaard​

Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy has been a major influence in the development of 20th-century philosophy, especially existentialism and postmodernism. Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher who has been called the "Father of Existentialism".

Bertrand ​Russell​
Bertrand ​Russell​

— Bertrand Russell, Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, pg. 60 This quote has been used by many theologians over the years, such as by Louis Pojman in his Philosophy of Religion, who wish for readers to believe that even a well-known atheist-philosopher supported this particular argument for God's existence.

image: flashbak.com
Thomas ​Hobbes​
Thomas ​Hobbes​

Thomas Hobbes (/ h ɒ b z /; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), in some older texts Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, was an English philosopher who is considered one of the founders of modern political philosophy.

image: flickr.com
Simone de ​Beauvoir​
Simone de ​Beauvoir​

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris on 9 January, 1908. Her parents were Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a legal secretary who once aspired to be an actor, and Françoise de Beauvoir (née Brasseur), a wealthy banker's daughter and devout Catholic.

Albert Camus​
Albert Camus​

Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a journalist, editor and editorialist, playwright and director, novelist and author of short stories, political essayist and activist—and, although he more than once denied it, a philosopher.

image: youtube.com
Arthur ​Schopenhauer​
Arthur ​Schopenhauer​

Arthur Schopenhauer (/ ˈ ʃ oʊ p ən h aʊ. ər / SHOH-pən-how-ər; German: [ˈaɐ̯tʊɐ̯ ˈʃoːpm̩ˌhaʊ̯ɐ]; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will.

John Stuart ​Mill​
John Stuart ​Mill​

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873) was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory and political economy.

Voltaire​
Voltaire​

Voltaire (real name François-Marie Arouet) (1694 - 1778) was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of Enlightenment. His intelligence, wit and style made him one of France's greatest writers and philosophers, despite the controversy he attracted.

Michel ​Foucault​
Michel ​Foucault​

Paul-Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984), generally known as Michel Foucault (French: [miʃɛl fuko]), was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and literary critic.

Augustinus​
Augustinus​

In 1999 alone, there appeared, among numerous other works, a 900 page encyclopedia devoted to Augustine as a religious and philosophical figure [Fitzgerald, 1999] and a volume of essays by several prominent philosophers in the analytic tradition exploring Augustine's relation to a variety of topics including consequentialism, Kantian moral philosophy, and just war theory (an important issue which unfortunately falls outside the scope of the present discussion) [Matthews 1999].

Gottfried ​Wilhelm Leibniz​
Gottfried ​Wilhelm Leibniz​

PsyDok ZPID The influence of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on the Psychology, Philosophy, ... Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. 4.

Jacques ​Derrida​
Jacques ​Derrida​

Jacques Derrida (/ ˈ d ɛr ɪ d ə /; French: [ʒak dɛʁida]; born Jackie Élie Derrida; July 15, 1930 – October 9, 2004) was a French Algerian-born philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology.

Avicenna​
Avicenna​

Avicenna’s most important work of philosophy and science is Kitāb al-shifāʾ, which is a four-part encyclopaedia covering logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. Since science was equated with wisdom, Avicenna attempted a broad unified classification of knowledge.

Niccolò ​Machiavelli​
Niccolò ​Machiavelli​

Machiavelli's evaluation of the chances for creating a new, psychologically flexible type of character is extremely guarded, and tends to be worded in conditional form and in the subjective mood: “If it were possible to change one's nature to suit the times and circumstances, one would always be successful” (Machiavelli 1965, 91, trans. altered).

William ​James​
William ​James​

William James, (born Jan. 11, 1842, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 26, 1910, Chocorua, N.H.), American philosopher and psychologist, a leader of the philosophical movement of Pragmatism and of the psychological movement of functionalism.

Heraclitus​
Heraclitus​

A Greek philosopher of the late 6th century BCE, Heraclitus criticizes his predecessors and contemporaries for their failure to see the unity in experience. He claims to announce an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense.

source: iep.utm.edu
image: livius.org
Gautama ​Buddha​
Gautama ​Buddha​

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Buddha was an ancient Indian philosopher and spiritual leader born in Northern India in the 6th century BC. After becoming “enlightened” while sitting under a Bodhi tree, Buddha realized that human suffering is caused by the desire for permanence in a world where everything is impermanent and constantly changing.

Edmund ​Husserl​
Edmund ​Husserl​

"Edmund Husserl: Formal Ontology and Transcendental Logic." Resource guide on Husserl's logic and formal ontology, with annotated bibliography. The Husserl Circle. Cartesian Meditations in Internet Archive; Ideas, Part I in Internet Archive; Edmund Husserl on the Open Commons of Phenomenology.

Laozi​
Laozi​

The name “Laozi” is best taken to mean “Old (lao) Master (zi),” and Laozi the ancient philosopher is said to have written a short book, which has come to be called simply the Laozi, after its putative author, a common practice in early China.

Hannah ​Arendt​
Hannah ​Arendt​

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations.

Francis Bacon​
Francis Bacon​

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, PC KC (/ ˈ b eɪ k ən /; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England.

John Dewey​
John Dewey​

John Dewey, (born Oct. 20, 1859, Burlington, Vt., U.S.—died June 1, 1952, New York, N.Y.), American philosopher and educator who was a founder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the progressive movement in education in the United States.

Marcus ​Aurelius​
Marcus ​Aurelius​

Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic. In fact, his magnificent work, "Meditations" was the primary treatise popularizing Stoicism. His philosophy is derivative of the philosophy of Epictetus, generally considered to be the founder of Stoicism.

source: quora.com
Pythagoras​
Pythagoras​

Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 - 490 B.C.) was an early Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher and mathematician from the Greek island of Samos. He was the founder of the influential philosophical and religious movement or cult called Pythagoreanism, and he was probably the first man to actually call himself a philosopher (or lover of wisdom).

Daniel ​Dennett​
Daniel ​Dennett​

Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

Seneca the ​Younger​
Seneca the ​Younger​

Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65), fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca and also known simply as Seneca (/ ˈ s ɛ n ɪ k ə /), was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—satirist of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

John Rawls​
John Rawls​

John Bordley Rawls (/ r ɔː l z /; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University and the Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Oxford.

image: pixshark.com
Peter Singer​
Peter Singer​

Peter Singer, in full Peter Albert David Singer (born July 6, 1946, Melbourne, Australia), Australian ethical and political philosopher best known for his work in bioethics and his role as one of the intellectual founders of the modern animal rights movement.

Gottlob Frege​
Gottlob Frege​

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (/ ˈ f r eɪ ɡ ə /; German: [ˈɡɔtloːp ˈfreːɡə]; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He is understood by many to be the father of analytic philosophy, concentrating on the philosophy of language and mathematics.

Adam Smith​
Adam Smith​

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and political economist and the author of "The Wealth of Nations," considered the first book written on economics. Scottish social philosopher and political economist Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations and achieved the first comprehensive system of political economy.

source: biography.com
Democritus​
Democritus​

Democritus, known in antiquity as the ‘laughing philosopher’ because of his emphasis on the value of ‘cheerfulness,’ was one of the two founders of ancient atomist theory. He elaborated a system originated by his teacher Leucippus into a materialist account of the natural world.

Parmenides​
Parmenides​

The first hero cult of a philosopher we know of was Parmenides' dedication of a heroon to his teacher Ameinias in Elea. Parmenides was the founder of the School of Elea, which also included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Of his life in Elea, it was said that he had written the laws of the city.

Related Types

Related Question Categories