Timeline of Western philosophers
| Timeline of Eastern philosophers|Eastern] | Western philosophers |
This is a list of philosophers from the Western tradition of philosophy.
Western philosophers
Ancient Greece
600–500 BC
- Thales of Miletus. Of the Milesian school. Believed that all was made of water.
- Pherecydes of Syros. Cosmologist.
- Anaximander of Miletus. Of the Milesian school. Famous for the concept of Apeiron, or "the boundless".
- Anaximenes of Miletus. Of the Milesian school. Believed that all was made of air.
- Pythagoras of Samos. Of the Ionian School. Believed the deepest reality to be composed of numbers, and that souls are immortal.
- Xenophanes of Colophon. Advocated monotheism. Sometimes associated with the Eleatic school.
- Heraclitus of Ephesus. Of the Ionians. Emphasized the mutability of the universe.
- Epicharmus of Kos. Comic playwright and moralist.
- Parmenides of Elea. Of the Eleatics. Reflected on the concept of Being.
- Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Of the Ionians. Pluralist.
400 BC
- Empedocles. Eclectic cosmogonist. Pluralist.
- Zeno of Elea. Of the Eleatics. Known for his paradoxes.
- Gorgias.. Sophist. Early advocate of solipsism.
- Protagoras of Abdera. Sophist. Early advocate of relativism.
- Leucippus of Miletus. Founding Atomist, Determinist.
- Socrates of Athens. Emphasized virtue ethics. In epistemology, understood dialectic to be central to the pursuit of truth.
- Prodicus of Ceos. Sophist.
- Critias of Athens. Atheist writer and politician.
- Hippias. Sophist.
- Democritus of Abdera. Founding Atomist.
- Melissus of Samos.. Eleatic.
- Cratylus. Follower of Heraclitus.
- Antisthenes. Founder of Cynicism. Pupil of Socrates.
- Aristippus of Cyrene. A Cyrenaic. Advocate of ethical hedonism.
- Xenophon. Historian.
- Plato. Famed for view of the transcendental forms. Advocated polity governed by philosophers.
- Diogenes of Apollonia. Cosmologist.
- Speusippus. Nephew of Plato.
- Eudoxus of Cnidus. Pupil of Plato.
- Diogenes of Sinope. Cynic.
Hellenistic era
300–200 BC
- Xenocrates. Disciple of Plato.
- Aristotle. A polymath whose works ranged across all philosophical fields.
- Theophrastus. Peripatetic.
- Pyrrho of Elis. Skeptic.
- Epicurus. Materialist Atomist, hedonist. Founder of Epicureanism
- Strato of Lampsacus. Atheist, Materialist.
- Zeno of Citium. Founder of Stoicism.
- Aristarchus of Samos. Astronomer.
- Euclid. Mathematician, founder of geometry.
- Archimedes . Mathematician and inventor.
- Chrysippus of Soli. Major figure in Stoicism.
- Eratosthenes. Geographer and mathematician.
- Carneades. Academic skeptic. Understood probability as the purveyor of truth.
- Hipparchus of Nicaea. Astronomer and mathematician, founder of trigonometry.
Classical Rome
100 BC–100 AD
- Cicero Skeptic. Political theorist.
- Lucretius. Epicurean.
- Quintilian. Rhetorician and teacher.
- Philo. Believed in the allegorical method of reading texts.
- Seneca the Younger. Stoic.
- Jesus of Nazareth the founding figure of Christianity.
- Hero of Alexandria. Engineer.
- Plutarch.
- Epictetus. Stoic. Emphasized ethics of self–determination.
100–400
- Marcus Aurelius. Stoic.
- Sextus Empiricus. Skeptic, Pyrrhonist.
- Plotinus. Neoplatonist. Had a holistic metaphysics.
- Porphyry. Student of Plotinus.
- Iamblichus of Syria. Late neoplatonist. Espoused theurgy.
- Hypatia of Alexandria. Late neoplatonist, astronomer, and mathematician.
- Augustine of Hippo. Neoplatonist. Original Sin. Church father.
- Proclus. Neoplatonist.
- Boethius.
- John Philoponus.
Middle Ages
500–900
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
- Isidore of Seville. Christian philosopher.
- John of Damascus.
- Alcuin. Early Scholastic.
- Al-Kindi. Major figure in Islamic philosophy. Influenced by Neoplatonism.
- Abbas ibn Firnas. Polymath.
- John the Scot. neoplatonist, pantheist.
- al-Faràbi. Major Islamic philosopher. Neoplatonist.
- al-Razi. Rationalist. Major Islamic philosopher. Held that God creates universe by rearranging pre–existing laws.
- Saadia Gaon. Jewish Philosopher
- Al-Biruni . Islamic polymath.
- Ibn Sina . Islamic philosopher.
- Ibn Hazm
1000–1100
- Ibn Gabirol . Jewish philosopher.
- Anselm. Christian philosopher. Produced ontological argument for the existence of God.
- Omar Khayyam. Islamic philosopher. Agnostic. Mathematician. Philosophical poet, one of the 5 greatest Iranian Poets.
- Al-Ghazali. Islamic philosopher. Mystic.
- Yehudah HaLevi. Jewish poet, physician and philosopher.
- Peter Abelard. Scholastic philosopher. Dealt with the problem of universals.
- Peter Lombard. Scholastic.
- Ibn Tufail
- Averroes . Islamic philosopher.
- Maimonides. Jewish philosopher.
- Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
- Suhrawardi. Major Islamic philosopher.
- Ibn Arabi. Andalusian Muslim philosopher, mystic, poet, and scholar. Founder of Akbarism, one of the major current of later Islamic philosophy.
- Fibonacci, mathematician.
- Robert Grosseteste.
- Francis of Assisi. Ascetic.
- Albert the Great . Early Empiricist.
1200–1300
- Roger Bacon. Empiricist, mathematician.
- Thomas Aquinas. Aristotelian.
- Bonaventure. Franciscan.
- Ramon Llull Spanish philosopher
- Meister Eckhart. mystic.
- Ibn Taymiyya Islamic scholar, jurist and philosopher
- Dante Alighieri .
- Duns Scotus. Franciscan, Scholastic, Original Sin.
- Marsilius of Padua. Understood chief function of state as mediator.
- William of Ockham. Franciscan. Scholastic. Nominalist, creator of Ockham's razor.
- Jean Buridan. Nominalist.
- John Wycliffe.
- Nicole Oresme. Made contributions to economics, science, mathematics, theology and philosophy.
- Ibn Khaldun.
- Hasdai Crescas. Jewish philosopher.
- Gemistus Pletho. Late Byzantine scholar of neoplatonic philosophy.
1400
- Nicholas of Cusa. Christian philosopher.
- Lorenzo Valla. Humanist, critic of scholastic logic.
- Marsilio Ficino. Christian Neoplatonist, head of Florentine Academy and major Renaissance Humanist figure. First translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin.
- Pico della Mirandola. Renaissance humanist.
- Desiderius Erasmus. Humanist, advocate of free will.
- Niccolò Machiavelli. Political realism.
- Nicolaus Copernicus. Scientist, whose works affected Philosophy of Science.
- Sir Thomas More. Humanist, created term "utopia".
- Martin Luther. Major Western Christian theologian.
Early modern period
1500
- John Calvin. Major Western Christian theologian.
- Michel de Montaigne. Humanist, skeptic.
- Giordano Bruno. Advocate of heliocentrism.
- Francisco Suarez. Politically proto–liberal.
- Francis Bacon. Empiricist.
- Galileo Galilei. Heliocentrist.
- Johannes Kepler. Scientist, whose works affected Philosophy of Science.
- Molla-Sadra. Major Islamic philosopher.
- Hugo Grotius. Natural law theorist.
- Marin Mersenne. Cartesian.
- Robert Filmer. Absolutist, monarchist, patrimonialist. Divine right of kings.
- Thomas Hobbes. Advocate of extensive government power, social contract theorist, materialist.
- Pierre Gassendi. Mechanicism. Empiricist.
- René Descartes. Heliocentrism, mind-body dualism, rationalism.
1600
- Baltasar Gracián. Spanish Catholic philosopher
- François de La Rochefoucauld.
- Blaise Pascal. Physicist, scientist. Noted for Pascal's wager.
- Margaret Cavendish. Materialist, feminist.
- Robert Boyle.
- Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet .
- Baruch Spinoza. Rationalism.
- Samuel von Pufendorf. Social contract theorist.
- John Locke. Major Empiricist. Political philosopher.
- Nicolas Malebranche. Cartesian.
- Isaac Newton.
- John Flamsteed. Astronomer.
- Gottfried Leibniz. Co-inventor of calculus.
- Pierre Bayle. Pyrrhonist.
- Jean Meslier. Atheist Priest.
- Giambattista Vico.
- John Toland.
- Anthony Ashley-Cooper.
- Dimitrie Cantemir
- Christian Wolff. Determinist, rationalist.
- George Berkeley. Idealist, empiricist.
- Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. Skeptic, humanist.
- Francis Hutcheson. Proto–utilitarian.
- Voltaire. Advocate for freedoms of religion and expression.
1700
- Jonathan Edwards. American philosophical theologian.
- David Hartley.
- Julien La Mettrie. Materialist, genetic determinist.
- Thomas Reid. Member of Scottish Enlightenment, founder of Scottish Common Sense philosophy.
- David Hume. Empiricist, skeptic.
- Jean–Jacques Rousseau. Social contract political philosopher.
- Denis Diderot.
- Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten.
- Claude Adrien Helvétius. Utilitarian.
- Etienne de Condillac.
- Jean d'Alembert.
- Baron d'Holbach. Materialist, atheist.
- Adam Smith. Economic theorist, member of Scottish Enlightenment.
- Immanuel Kant. Major contributions in nearly every field of philosophy, especially metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
- Moses Mendelssohn. Member of the Jewish Enlightenment.
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
- Edmund Burke. Conservative political philosopher.
- Johann Georg Hamann.
- Thomas Paine.
- Cesare Beccaria. Italian criminologist, jurist, and philosopher from the Age of Enlightenment.
- Thomas Jefferson. Liberal political philosopher.
- Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi.
- Johann Gottfried von Herder.
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Early evolutionary theorist.
- Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarian, hedonist.
- Pierre-Simon Laplace. Determinist.
- Joseph de Maistre Conservative
- Louis de Bonald.
- William Godwin. Anarchist, utilitarian.
- Mary Wollstonecraft. Feminist.
- Friedrich Schiller.
- Comte de Saint-Simon. Socialist.
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
- Madame de Staël.
- Friedrich Schleiermacher. Hermeneutician.
- Friedrich Hölderlin. Poet and philosopher.
- G. W. F. Hegel. German idealist.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
- James Mill. Utilitarian.
- F. W. J. von Schelling. German idealist.
- Bernard Bolzano.
- Arthur Schopenhauer. Pessimism, Critic, Absurdist.
- Thomas Carlyle.
- Sojourner Truth. Egalitarian, abolitionist.
- Auguste Comte. Social philosopher, positivist.
Modern philosophers
1800–1850
- Ralph Waldo Emerson. Transcendentalist, abolitionist, egalitarian, humanist.
- Ludwig Feuerbach.
- Alexis de Tocqueville.
- Max Stirner. Anarchist.
- Augustus De Morgan. Logician.
- John Stuart Mill. Utilitarian.
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Anarchist.
- Harriet Taylor Mill. Egalitarian, utilitarian.
- Charles Darwin. Scientist, whose works affected Philosophy of Science.
- Margaret Fuller. Egalitarian.
- Søren Kierkegaard. Existentialist.
- Mikhail Bakunin. Revolutionary anarchist.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Egalitarian.
- Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalist, pacifist, abolitionist.
- Karl Marx. Socialist, formulated historical materialism.
- Friedrich Engels. Egalitarian, dialectical materialist.
- Herbert Spencer. Nativism, libertarianism, social Darwinism.
- Susan B. Anthony. Feminist.
- Ernest Renan.
- Hippolyte Taine.
- Wilhelm Dilthey.
- T.H. Green. British idealist.
- Henry Sidgwick. Rationalism, utilitarianism.
- Ernst Mach. Philosopher of science, influence on logical positivism.
- Franz Brentano. Phenomenologist.
- Charles Sanders Peirce. Pragmatist.
- Philipp Mainländer. Pessimist.
- William James. Pragmatism, Radical empiricism.
- Hermann Cohen. Neo-Kantianism, Jewish philosophy.
- Peter Kropotkin. Anarchist communism.
- Friedrich Nietzsche. Naturalistic philosopher, influence on Existentialism.
- W. K. Clifford. Evidentialist.
- F. H. Bradley. Idealist.
- Vilfredo Pareto. Social philosopher.
- Gottlob Frege. Influential analytic philosopher.
1850–1900
- Henri Poincaré.
- Josiah Royce. Idealist.
- Sigmund Freud. Neurologist, founded psychoanalysis, posited structural model of mind.
- Georgi Plekhanov. Marxist, established Marxism in Russia.
- Ferdinand de Saussure. Linguist, Semiotics, Structuralism.
- Émile Durkheim. Social philosopher.
- Giuseppe Peano.
- Edmund Husserl. Founder of phenomenology.
- Henri Bergson. Vitalism.
- John Dewey. Pragmatism.
- Jane Addams. Pragmatist.
- Pierre Duhem.
- Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophy
- Alfred North Whitehead. Process Philosophy, Mathematician, Logician, Philosophy of Physics, Panpsychism.
- George Herbert Mead. Pragmatism, symbolic interactionist.
- George Santayana. Pragmatism, naturalism; known for many aphorisms.
- Max Weber. Social philosopher.
- Miguel de Unamuno. Existentialist.
- Benedetto Croce.
- Lev Shestov.
- Emma Goldman. Anarchist.
- Rosa Luxemburg. Marxist political philosopher.
- Bertrand Russell. Analytic philosopher, nontheist, influential.
- G. E. Moore. Common sense theorist, ethical non–naturalist.
- Nikolai Berdyaev. Existentialist.
- Ernst Cassirer. Neo-Kantianism.
- Max Scheler. German phenomenologist.
- Carl Jung. Psychoanalyst, metaphysicist.
- Giovanni Gentile. Idealist and fascist philosopher.
- Martin Buber. Jewish philosopher, existentialist.
- Jan Łukasiewicz. Logician.
- Oswald Spengler.
- Ludwig von Mises.
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Christian evolutionist.
- Hans Kelsen. Legal positivist.
- Moritz Schlick. Founder of Vienna Circle, logical positivism.
- Otto Neurath. Member of Vienna Circle.
- Nicolai Hartmann.
- Jacques Maritain. Human rights theorist.
- José Ortega y Gasset. Philosopher of History.
- Karl Jaspers. Existentialist.
- Gaston Bachelard.
- Otto Rank.
- Georg Lukács. Marxist philosopher.
- Karl Barth.
- René Guénon.
- Carl Schmitt.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein. Analytic philosopher, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, influential.
- Gabriel Marcel. Christian existentialist.
- Martin Heidegger. Phenomenologist.
- Antonio Gramsci. Marxist philosopher.
- Rudolf Carnap. Vienna Circle. Logical positivist.
- Walter Benjamin. Marxist. Philosophy of language.
- Herman Dooyeweerd. Philosophy of the Law Idea.
- Max Horkheimer. Frankfurt School.
- Ernst Jünger.
- Susanne Langer.
- Georges Bataille.
- Julius Evola.
- Herbert Marcuse. Frankfurt School.
- C. S. Lewis.
- Friedrich Hayek.
- Leo Strauss. Political Philosopher.
1900–1950
- Gilbert Ryle.
- Hans-Georg Gadamer. Hermeneutics.
- Jacques Lacan. Structuralism.
- Henri Lefebvre. Marxist philosopher
- Alfred Tarski. Created T–Convention in semantics.
- Michael Oakeshott.
- Karl Popper. Philosopher of Science.
- Mortimer Adler.
- Eric Hoffer
- Frank P. Ramsey. Proposed redundancy theory of truth.
- Theodor Adorno. Frankfurt School.
- Joseph Campbell comparative mythology and comparative religion
- María Zambrano
- Raymond Aron.
- Jean-Paul Sartre. Humanism, existentialism.
- Ayn Rand. Objectivist, Individualist.
- Kurt Gödel. Vienna Circle.
- Emmanuel Levinas.
- Hannah Arendt. Political Philosophy.
- H.L.A. Hart. Legal positivism.
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Influential French phenomenologist.
- Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialist, feminist.
- Willard van Orman Quine.
- Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas.
- Simone Weil.
- A. J. Ayer. Logical positivist, emotivist.
- J. L. Austin.
- Marshall McLuhan. Media theory.
- Alan Turing. Functionalist in philosophy of mind.
- Wilfrid Sellars. Influential American philosopher
- Albert Camus. Absurdist.
- Paul Ricœur. French philosopher and theologian.
- Roland Barthes. French semiotician and literary theorist.
- Donald Davidson. Coherentist philosophy of mind.
- Louis Althusser. Structural Marxist.
- Russell Kirk.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
- M. Bunge.
- P. F. Strawson. Ordinary language philosophy.
- John Rawls. Liberal.
- Paulo Freire. Pedagogy.
- Thomas Kuhn. Author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
- Norwood Russell Hanson.
- Zygmunt Bauman. Polish sociologist and philosopher, who introduced the idea of liquid modernity.
- Frantz Fanon. Postcolonialism
- Gilles Deleuze. Post-structuralism
- Michel Foucault. Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Postmodernism, and the concept of biopolitics.
- Hilary Putnam. Neopragmatism.
- Noam Chomsky. Linguist.
- Robert M. Pirsig. Introduced the Methaphysics of Quality. MOQ incorporates facets of East Asian philosophy, pragmatism and the work of F. S. C. Northrop.
- Bernard Williams. Moral philosopher.
- Jean Baudrillard. Postmodernism, Post-structuralism.
- Jürgen Habermas. Discourse ethics.
- Jaakko Hintikka.
- Alasdair MacIntyre. Aristotelian.
- Hubert Lederer Dreyfus
- Allan Bloom. Political Philosopher.
- Pierre Bourdieu. French psychoanalytic sociologist and philosopher.
- Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction.
- Thomas Sowell. Political Philosopher, capitalist.
- Guy Debord. French Marxist philosopher.
- Richard Rorty. Pragmatism, Postanalytic philosophy.
- Charles Taylor. Political philosophy, Philosophy of Social Science, and Intellectual History.
- Umberto Eco. Semiotics, Aesthetics
- John Searle. Direct realism.
- Alvin Plantinga. Reformed epistemology, Philosophy of Religion.
- Jerry Fodor.
- Alain Badiou.
- Thomas Nagel. Qualia theory.
- Robert Nozick. Libertarian.
- Tom Regan. Animal rights philosopher.
- Saul Kripke. Modal semantics.
- Jean-Luc Nancy French philosopher.
- David K. Lewis. Modal realism.
- Gerald Allan Cohen Analytical Marxism.
- Derek Parfit.
- Giorgio Agamben. State of exception, form–of–life, and Homo sacer.
- Daniel Dennett.
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Postcolonialism, Feminism, Literary theory.
- Roger Scruton. Traditionalist conservatism.
- Simon Blackburn. Analytic philosophy.
- Peter Singer Moral philosopher on animal liberation, effective altruism.
- Bruno Latour French Philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist.
- Camille Paglia.
- Martha Nussbaum. Political philosopher.
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
- Slavoj Žižek. German Idealism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis.
- Ken Wilber. Integral Theory.
1950–2000
- Cornel West.
- Michael Sandel. Political philosopher
- Judith Butler. Poststructuralist, feminist, queer theory.
- Alexander Wendt. Social constructivism.
- Michel Onfray.
- Byung-Chul Han.
- Simon Critchley. Continental philosophy
- Nick Land. Accelerationist.
- Ray Brassier. Nihilist.
- David Benatar. Antinatalist.
- Alenka Zupančič. German Idealism, Nietzsche, Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
- Alain de Botton.
- Nick Bostrom.
- Bernardo Kastrup.