Thinkers
325 philosophers from many places and many centuries. Each page gives a short note, the ideas and people they are linked to, and where to read further.
Looking for a way of thinking instead? See all philosophies, or the map to see how thinkers connect.
Ancient Greek
- Thales of Miletus · 624 to 546 BCE
- Anaximander · 610 to 546 BCE
- Anaximenes · 586 to 526 BCE
- Pythagoras · 570 to 495 BCE
- Xenophanes · 570 to 475 BCE
- Heraclitus · 535 to 475 BCE
- Parmenides · 515 to 450 BCE
- Anaxagoras · 500 to 428 BCE
- Empedocles · 494 to 434 BCE
- Zeno of Elea · 490 to 430 BCE
- Leucippus · 480 to 420 BCE
- Socrates · 469 to 399 BCE
- Democritus · 460 to 370 BCE
- Aristippus of Cyrene · 435 to 356 BCE
- Plato · 428 to 348 BCE
- Aristotle · 384 to 322 BCE
Jain
- Mahavira · 599 to 527 BCE
Confucian
- Confucius · 551 to 479 BCE
- Mencius · 372 to 289 BCE
- Xunzi · 310 to 235 BCE
- Dong Zhongshu · 179 to 104 BCE
- Zhu Xi · 1130 to 1200
- Wang Yangming · 1472 to 1529
- Yi Hwang · 1501 to 1570
- Yi I · 1536 to 1584
- Kang Youwei · 1858 to 1927
Daoist
Sophist
- Protagoras · 490 to 420 BCE
- Gorgias · 483 to 375 BCE
Buddhist
- Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) · 480 to 400 BCE
- Nagarjuna · 150 to 250
- Asanga · 300 to 370
- Vasubandhu · 350 to 430
- Dignaga · 480 to 540
- Candrakirti · 600 to 650
- Dharmakirti · 600 to 660
- Wonhyo · 617 to 686
Mohist
- Mozi · 470 to 391 BCE
Hellenistic
- Antisthenes · 445 to 365 BCE
- Diogenes of Sinope · 412 to 323 BCE
- Crates of Thebes · 365 to 285 BCE
- Pyrrho of Elis · 360 to 270 BCE
- Epicurus · 341 to 270 BCE
- Zeno of Citium · 334 to 262 BCE
- Cleanthes · 331 to 232 BCE
- Chrysippus · 279 to 206 BCE
- Carneades · 214 to 129 BCE
- Cicero · 106 to 43 BCE
- Lucretius · 99 to 55 BCE
- Seneca · 4 BCE to 65
- Epictetus · 50 to 135
- Marcus Aurelius · 121 to 180
- Sextus Empiricus · 160 to 210
Legalist
- Shang Yang · 390 to 338 BCE
- Han Feizi · 280 to 233 BCE
School Of Names
- Gongsun Long · 320 to 250 BCE
Jewish
- Philo of Alexandria · 20 BCE to 50
- Saadia Gaon · 882 to 942
- Judah Halevi · 1075 to 1141
- Moses Maimonides · 1138 to 1204
- Moses Mendelssohn · 1729 to 1786
- Martin Buber · 1878 to 1965
- Franz Rosenzweig · 1886 to 1929
Late Antique
- Plotinus · 204 to 270
- Porphyry · 234 to 305
- Augustine of Hippo · 354 to 430
- Hypatia of Alexandria · 360 to 415
- Proclus · 412 to 485
- Boethius · 477 to 524
Japanese Buddhist
- Kukai · 774 to 835
- Shinran · 1173 to 1263
- Dogen · 1200 to 1253
- D. T. Suzuki · 1870 to 1966
Vedanta
- Shankara · 788 to 820
- Ramanuja · 1017 to 1137
- Madhva · 1238 to 1317
- Swami Vivekananda · 1863 to 1902
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan · 1888 to 1975
Islamic
- Al-Kindi · 801 to 873
- Al-Razi · 865 to 925
- Al-Farabi · 872 to 950
- Ibn Miskawayh · 932 to 1030
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna) · 980 to 1037
- Al-Ghazali · 1058 to 1111
- Ibn Tufayl · 1105 to 1185
- Averroes (Ibn Rushd) · 1126 to 1198
- Suhrawardi · 1154 to 1191
- Ibn Arabi · 1165 to 1240
- Nasir al-Din al-Tusi · 1201 to 1274
- Jalal al-Din Rumi · 1207 to 1273
- Ibn Khaldun · 1332 to 1406
- Mulla Sadra · 1572 to 1640
- Jamal al-Din al-Afghani · 1838 to 1897
- Muhammad Iqbal · 1877 to 1938
- Ali Shariati · 1933 to 1977
- Abdolkarim Soroush · born 1945
Kashmir Shaivism
- Abhinavagupta · 950 to 1016
Scholastic
- Anselm of Canterbury · 1033 to 1109
- Peter Abelard · 1079 to 1142
- Roger Bacon · 1220 to 1292
- Bonaventure · 1221 to 1274
- Thomas Aquinas · 1225 to 1274
- Meister Eckhart · 1260 to 1328
- John Duns Scotus · 1266 to 1308
- William of Ockham · 1287 to 1347
- Francisco Suarez · 1548 to 1617
Renaissance Humanist
- Francesco Petrarch · 1304 to 1374
- Nicholas of Cusa · 1401 to 1464
- Pico della Mirandola · 1463 to 1494
- Desiderius Erasmus · 1466 to 1536
- Niccolo Machiavelli · 1469 to 1527
- Thomas More · 1478 to 1535
- Michel de Montaigne · 1533 to 1592
- Giordano Bruno · 1548 to 1600
Latin American
- Bartolome de las Casas · 1484 to 1566
- Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz · 1651 to 1695
- Jose Carlos Mariategui · 1894 to 1930
- Leopoldo Zea · 1912 to 2004
- Paulo Freire · 1921 to 1997
- Enrique Dussel · 1934 to 2023
British Empiricism
- Francis Bacon · 1561 to 1626
- John Locke · 1632 to 1704
- Bernard Mandeville · 1670 to 1733
- Earl of Shaftesbury · 1671 to 1713
- George Berkeley · 1685 to 1753
- Joseph Butler · 1692 to 1752
- David Hume · 1711 to 1776
Early Modern
- Hugo Grotius · 1583 to 1645
- Thomas Hobbes · 1588 to 1679
- Blaise Pascal · 1623 to 1662
- Mary Astell · 1666 to 1731
- Giambattista Vico · 1668 to 1744
Continental Rationalism
- René Descartes · 1596 to 1650
- Baruch Spinoza · 1632 to 1677
- Nicolas Malebranche · 1638 to 1715
- Gottfried Leibniz · 1646 to 1716
African
- Zera Yacob · 1599 to 1692
- Anton Wilhelm Amo · 1703 to 1759
- Leopold Sedar Senghor · 1906 to 2001
- Kwame Nkrumah · 1909 to 1972
- Alexis Kagame · 1912 to 1981
- Julius Nyerere · 1922 to 1999
- Cheikh Anta Diop · 1923 to 1986
- Frantz Fanon · 1925 to 1961
- John Mbiti · 1931 to 2019
- Kwasi Wiredu · 1931 to 2022
- Kwame Gyekye · 1939 to 2019
- Ifeanyi Menkiti · 1940 to 2019
- Henry Odera Oruka · 1944 to 1995
- Mogobe Ramose · born 1945
- Steve Biko · 1946 to 1977
Enlightenment
- Pierre Bayle · 1647 to 1706
- Montesquieu · 1689 to 1755
- Voltaire · 1694 to 1778
- Julien Offray de La Mettrie · 1709 to 1751
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1712 to 1778
- Denis Diderot · 1713 to 1784
- Baron d'Holbach · 1723 to 1789
- Thomas Paine · 1737 to 1809
- Marquis de Condorcet · 1743 to 1794
- Mary Wollstonecraft · 1759 to 1797
Scottish Enlightenment
- Francis Hutcheson · 1694 to 1746
- Thomas Reid · 1710 to 1796
- Adam Smith · 1723 to 1790
Modern Ethics
- Immanuel Kant · 1724 to 1804
- Jeremy Bentham · 1748 to 1832
- John Stuart Mill · 1806 to 1873
- Harriet Taylor Mill · 1807 to 1858
- Henry Sidgwick · 1838 to 1900
- Isaiah Berlin · 1909 to 1997
- Peter Singer · born 1946
- Martha Nussbaum · born 1947
Political Conservative
- Edmund Burke · 1729 to 1797
- Michael Oakeshott · 1901 to 1990
Japanese Native
- Motoori Norinaga · 1730 to 1801
Romantic
- Johann Gottfried Herder · 1744 to 1803
- Friedrich Schleiermacher · 1768 to 1834
German Idealism
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte · 1762 to 1814
- G. W. F. Hegel · 1770 to 1831
- F. W. J. Schelling · 1775 to 1854
- Ludwig Feuerbach · 1804 to 1872
Modern European
- Arthur Schopenhauer · 1788 to 1860
- Alexis de Tocqueville · 1805 to 1859
- Thomas Henry Huxley · 1825 to 1895
- Wilhelm Dilthey · 1833 to 1911
- Friedrich Nietzsche · 1844 to 1900
- Sigmund Freud · 1856 to 1939
- Georg Simmel · 1858 to 1918
- Henri Bergson · 1859 to 1941
- Max Weber · 1864 to 1920
- Ernst Cassirer · 1874 to 1945
- Jose Ortega y Gasset · 1883 to 1955
- Martin Heidegger · 1889 to 1976
- Georges Bataille · 1897 to 1962
- Friedrich Hayek · 1899 to 1992
- Leo Strauss · 1899 to 1973
- Hannah Arendt · 1906 to 1975
- Simone Weil · 1909 to 1943
- Albert Camus · 1913 to 1960
- Michel Foucault · 1926 to 1984
- Pierre Bourdieu · 1930 to 2002
- Alain Badiou · born 1937
- Giorgio Agamben · born 1942
- Bruno Latour · 1947 to 2022
Positivist
- Auguste Comte · 1798 to 1857
- Herbert Spencer · 1820 to 1903
- Ernst Mach · 1838 to 1916
- Emile Durkheim · 1858 to 1917
- Moritz Schlick · 1882 to 1936
- Rudolf Carnap · 1891 to 1970
- A. J. Ayer · 1910 to 1989
American
- Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1803 to 1882
- Henry David Thoreau · 1817 to 1862
- Charles Sanders Peirce · 1839 to 1914
- William James · 1842 to 1910
- Josiah Royce · 1855 to 1916
- John Dewey · 1859 to 1952
- George Santayana · 1863 to 1952
- Roy Wood Sellars · 1880 to 1973
- Ayn Rand · 1905 to 1982
- Thomas Kuhn · 1922 to 1996
- Paul Kurtz · 1925 to 2012
- Nel Noddings · 1929 to 2022
- Richard Rorty · 1931 to 2007
- Robert Nozick · 1938 to 2002
Anarchist
- Max Stirner · 1806 to 1856
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon · 1809 to 1865
- Mikhail Bakunin · 1814 to 1876
- Peter Kropotkin · 1842 to 1921
Existentialist
- Søren Kierkegaard · 1813 to 1855
- Miguel de Unamuno · 1864 to 1936
- Karl Jaspers · 1883 to 1969
- Gabriel Marcel · 1889 to 1973
- Jean-Paul Sartre · 1905 to 1980
- Simone de Beauvoir · 1908 to 1986
Marxist
- Karl Marx · 1818 to 1883
- Friedrich Engels · 1820 to 1895
- Gyorgy Lukacs · 1885 to 1971
- Antonio Gramsci · 1891 to 1937
Modern Japanese
- Fukuzawa Yukichi · 1835 to 1901
Phenomenological
- Franz Brentano · 1838 to 1917
- Edmund Husserl · 1859 to 1938
- Max Scheler · 1874 to 1928
- Edith Stein · 1891 to 1942
- Hans-Georg Gadamer · 1900 to 2002
- Emmanuel Levinas · 1906 to 1995
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty · 1908 to 1961
- Paul Ricoeur · 1913 to 2005
Analytic
- Gottlob Frege · 1848 to 1925
- Bertrand Russell · 1872 to 1970
- G. E. Moore · 1873 to 1958
- Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1889 to 1951
- Gilbert Ryle · 1900 to 1976
- Karl Popper · 1902 to 1994
- H. L. A. Hart · 1907 to 1992
- W. V. O. Quine · 1908 to 2000
- J. L. Austin · 1911 to 1960
- Wilfrid Sellars · 1912 to 1989
- H. P. Grice · 1913 to 1988
- Donald Davidson · 1917 to 2003
- J. L. Mackie · 1917 to 1981
- Elizabeth Anscombe · 1919 to 2001
- Iris Murdoch · 1919 to 1999
- Mary Midgley · 1919 to 2018
- P. F. Strawson · 1919 to 2006
- R. M. Hare · 1919 to 2002
- Philippa Foot · 1920 to 2010
- John Rawls · 1921 to 2002
- Imre Lakatos · 1922 to 1974
- Paul Feyerabend · 1924 to 1994
- Michael Dummett · 1925 to 2011
- Hilary Putnam · 1926 to 2016
- Alasdair MacIntyre · 1929 to 2025
- Bernard Williams · 1929 to 2003
- Judith Jarvis Thomson · 1929 to 2020
- Ronald Dworkin · 1931 to 2013
- Alvin Plantinga · born 1932
- John Searle · 1932 to 2025
- Jerry Fodor · 1935 to 2017
- Thomas Nagel · born 1937
- Tom Regan · 1938 to 2017
- Saul Kripke · 1940 to 2022
- T. M. Scanlon · born 1940
- David Lewis · 1941 to 2001
- G. A. Cohen · 1941 to 2009
- Daniel Dennett · 1942 to 2024
- Derek Parfit · 1942 to 2017
- John McDowell · born 1942
- Christine Korsgaard · born 1952
- Kwame Anthony Appiah · born 1954
- David Chalmers · born 1966
Indian Modern
- Rabindranath Tagore · 1861 to 1941
- Mohandas Gandhi · 1869 to 1948
- Sri Aurobindo · 1872 to 1950
- B. R. Ambedkar · 1891 to 1956
- Jiddu Krishnamurti · 1895 to 1986
- Amartya Sen · born 1933
Process Thought
- Alfred North Whitehead · 1861 to 1947
Kyoto School
- Nishida Kitaro · 1870 to 1945
- Watsuji Tetsuro · 1889 to 1960
- Nishitani Keiji · 1900 to 1990
Environmental
- Aldo Leopold · 1887 to 1948
- Arne Naess · 1912 to 2009
Modern Chinese
- Hu Shih · 1891 to 1962
Critical Theory
- Walter Benjamin · 1892 to 1940
- Max Horkheimer · 1895 to 1973
- Herbert Marcuse · 1898 to 1979
- Theodor Adorno · 1903 to 1969
- Jurgen Habermas · 1929 to 2026
- Edward Said · 1935 to 2003
- Gayatri Spivak · born 1942
- Donna Haraway · born 1944
- Axel Honneth · born 1949
- Slavoj Zizek · born 1949
Poststructuralist
- Jacques Lacan · 1901 to 1981
- Gilles Deleuze · 1925 to 1995
- Jacques Derrida · 1930 to 2004
- Julia Kristeva · born 1941
- Judith Butler · born 1956
Communitarian
- Charles Taylor · born 1931
- Michael Sandel · born 1953
Indigenous
- Vine Deloria Jr. · 1933 to 2005
- Linda Tuhiwai Smith · born 1950