Philosophers and thinkers by era
279 thinkers, 448 documented lines of influence. Pick anyone to see who shaped them and whom they shaped.
The most influential thinkers Schools and lineages The influence map
Ancient philosophers 54
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC
- Anaximander c. 610–546 BC
- Anaximenes of Miletus c. 586–526 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Xenophanes c. 570–478 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Theano 6th c. BC
- Heraclitus c. 535–475 BC
- Parmenides c. 515–450 BC
- Anaxagoras c. 500–428 BC
- Leucippus fl. 5th c. BC
- Zeno of Elea c. 495–430 BC
- Empedocles c. 494–434 BC
- Protagoras c. 490–420 BC
- Gorgias c. 485–380 BC
- Philolaus c. 470–385 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Aspasia c. 470–400 BC
- Prodicus c. 465–395 BC
- Democritus c. 460–370 BC
- Antisthenes c. 446–366 BC
- Aristippus c. 435–356 BC
- Xenophon c. 430–354 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Diogenes of Sinope c. 404–323 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Mencius c. 372–289 BC
- Theophrastus c. 371–287 BC
- Zhuangzi c. 369–286 BC
- Crates of Thebes c. 365–285 BC
- Pyrrho c. 360–270 BC
- Hipparchia c. 350–280 BC
- Epicurus 341–270 BC
- Zeno of Citium c. 334–262 BC
- Cleanthes c. 330–230 BC
- Timon of Phlius c. 320–230 BC
- Xunzi c. 310–235 BC
- Chrysippus c. 279–206 BC
- Panaetius c. 185–110 BC
- Posidonius c. 135–51 BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Lucretius c. 99–55 BC
- Philo of Alexandria c. 20 BC – AD 50
- Seneca c. 4 BC – AD 65
- Musonius Rufus AD 20–101
- Plutarch AD 46–119
- Epictetus AD 50–135
- Marcus Aurelius AD 121–180
- Nagarjuna c. 150–250
- Sextus Empiricus c. 160–210
- Plotinus AD 204–270
- Porphyry c. 234–305
- Iamblichus c. 245–325
Medieval philosophers 58
- Irenaeus c. 130–202
- Clement of Alexandria c. 150–215
- Tertullian c. 155–220
- Origen c. 185–254
- Gregory of Nyssa c. 335–395
- Augustine of Hippo AD 354–430
- Hypatia c. 355–415
- Synesius of Cyrene c. 373–414
- Proclus AD 412–485
- Boethius AD 477–524
- Pseudo-Dionysius c. 5th–6th c.
- Maximus the Confessor c. 580–662
- John of Damascus c. 675–749
- Adi Shankara 788–820
- Al-Kindi c. 801–873
- John Scotus Eriugena c. 815–877
- Al-Razi c. 865–925
- Al-Farabi c. 872–950
- Saadia Gaon 882–942
- Avicenna 980–1037
- Ramanuja 1017–1137
- Solomon ibn Gabirol c. 1021–1058
- Anselm of Canterbury 1033–1109
- Al-Ghazali c. 1058–1111
- Peter Abelard 1079–1142
- Avempace c. 1085–1138
- Peter Lombard c. 1096–1160
- Hildegard of Bingen 1098–1179
- Ibn Tufail c. 1105–1185
- John of Salisbury c. 1120–1180
- Averroes 1126–1198
- Maimonides 1138–1204
- Suhrawardi 1154–1191
- Ibn Arabi 1165–1240
- Robert Grosseteste c. 1175–1253
- Albertus Magnus c. 1200–1280
- Dōgen 1200–1253
- Henry of Ghent c. 1217–1293
- Roger Bacon c. 1219–1292
- Bonaventure 1221–1274
- Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274
- Ramon Llull c. 1232–1315
- Siger of Brabant c. 1240–1284
- Dietrich von Freiberg c. 1250–1310
- Meister Eckhart c. 1260–1328
- Duns Scotus c. 1266–1308
- William of Ockham c. 1287–1347
- Gersonides 1288–1344
- Jean Buridan c. 1300–1361
- Nicole Oresme c. 1320–1382
- Ibn Khaldun 1332–1406
- Julian of Norwich c. 1342–1416
- Christine de Pizan c. 1364–1430
- Nicholas of Cusa 1401–1464
- Lorenzo Valla c. 1407–1457
- Marsilio Ficino 1433–1499
- Pico della Mirandola 1463–1494
- Erasmus 1466–1536
Early modern philosophers 36
- Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527
- Michel de Montaigne 1533–1592
- Giordano Bruno 1548–1600
- Francis Bacon 1561–1626
- Hugo Grotius 1583–1645
- Thomas Hobbes 1588–1679
- René Descartes 1596–1650
- Blaise Pascal 1623–1662
- Margaret Cavendish 1623–1673
- Anne Conway 1631–1679
- John Locke 1632–1704
- Baruch Spinoza 1632–1677
- Nicolas Malebranche 1638–1715
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646–1716
- Pierre Bayle 1647–1706
- Giambattista Vico 1668–1744
- Christian Wolff 1679–1754
- George Berkeley 1685–1753
- Montesquieu 1689–1755
- Voltaire 1694–1778
- Émilie du Châtelet 1706–1749
- Thomas Reid 1710–1796
- David Hume 1711–1776
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778
- Denis Diderot 1713–1784
- Étienne Bonnot de Condillac 1714–1780
- Hryhorii Skovoroda 1722–1794
- Adam Smith 1723–1790
- Immanuel Kant 1724–1804
- Moses Mendelssohn 1729–1786
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729–1781
- Johann Georg Hamann 1730–1788
- Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi 1743–1819
- Johann Gottfried Herder 1744–1803
- Mary Wollstonecraft 1759–1797
- Bernard Bolzano 1781–1848
19th-century philosophers 47
- Jeremy Bentham 1748–1832
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762–1814
- Wilhelm von Humboldt 1767–1835
- Friedrich Schleiermacher 1768–1834
- Georg W. F. Hegel 1770–1831
- Friedrich Schlegel 1772–1829
- F. W. J. Schelling 1775–1854
- Johann Friedrich Herbart 1776–1841
- Arthur Schopenhauer 1788–1860
- Pyotr Chaadayev 1794–1856
- Auguste Comte 1798–1857
- Gustav Fechner 1801–1887
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882
- Ludwig Feuerbach 1804–1872
- Aleksey Khomyakov 1804–1860
- Alexis de Tocqueville 1805–1859
- John Stuart Mill 1806–1873
- Max Stirner 1806–1856
- Ivan Kireyevsky 1806–1856
- Harriet Taylor Mill 1807–1858
- Charles Darwin 1809–1882
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon 1809–1865
- Alexander Herzen 1812–1870
- Søren Kierkegaard 1813–1855
- Mikhail Bakunin 1814–1876
- Rudolf Hermann Lotze 1817–1881
- Karl Marx 1818–1883
- Friedrich Engels 1820–1895
- Herbert Spencer 1820–1903
- Fyodor Dostoevsky 1821–1881
- Thomas Henry Huxley 1825–1895
- Nikolay Chernyshevsky 1828–1889
- Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910
- Nikolai Fyodorov 1829–1903
- Wilhelm Wundt 1832–1920
- Wilhelm Dilthey 1833–1911
- T. H. Green 1836–1882
- Ernst Mach 1838–1916
- Franz Brentano 1838–1917
- Henry Sidgwick 1838–1900
- Charles Sanders Peirce 1839–1914
- Peter Kropotkin 1842–1921
- William James 1842–1910
- Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900
- F. H. Bradley 1846–1924
- Vladimir Solovyov 1853–1900
- Georgi Plekhanov 1856–1918
20th-century philosophers 84
- Gottlob Frege 1848–1925
- Ferdinand de Saussure 1857–1913
- Georg Simmel 1858–1918
- John Dewey 1859–1952
- Henri Bergson 1859–1941
- Edmund Husserl 1859–1938
- Max Weber 1864–1920
- Lev Shestov 1866–1938
- W. E. B. Du Bois 1868–1963
- Nikolay Lossky 1870–1965
- Kitarō Nishida 1870–1945
- Sergei Bulgakov 1871–1944
- Bertrand Russell 1872–1970
- G. E. Moore 1873–1958
- Nikolai Berdyaev 1874–1948
- Ernst Cassirer 1874–1945
- Max Scheler 1874–1928
- Semyon Frank 1877–1950
- Muhammad Iqbal 1877–1938
- Pavel Florensky 1882–1937
- Karl Jaspers 1883–1969
- György Lukács 1885–1971
- Ernst Bloch 1885–1977
- Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889–1951
- Martin Heidegger 1889–1976
- Edith Stein 1891–1942
- Rudolf Carnap 1891–1970
- Antonio Gramsci 1891–1937
- Walter Benjamin 1892–1940
- Roman Ingarden 1893–1970
- Mikhail Bakhtin 1895–1975
- Max Horkheimer 1895–1973
- Roman Jakobson 1896–1982
- Herbert Marcuse 1898–1979
- Louis Hjelmslev 1899–1965
- Alfred Schutz 1899–1959
- Hans-Georg Gadamer 1900–2002
- Gilbert Ryle 1900–1976
- Erich Fromm 1900–1980
- Jacques Lacan 1901–1981
- Karl Popper 1902–1994
- Alexandre Kojève 1902–1968
- Émile Benveniste 1902–1976
- Theodor W. Adorno 1903–1969
- Jean-Paul Sartre 1905–1980
- Hannah Arendt 1906–1975
- Emmanuel Levinas 1906–1995
- Simone de Beauvoir 1908–1986
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1908–1961
- W. V. O. Quine 1908–2000
- Claude Lévi-Strauss 1908–2009
- Simone Weil 1909–1943
- A. J. Ayer 1910–1989
- J. L. Austin 1911–1960
- Wilfrid Sellars 1912–1989
- Albert Camus 1913–1960
- Roland Barthes 1915–1980
- Algirdas Julien Greimas 1917–1992
- Donald Davidson 1917–2003
- Louis Althusser 1918–1990
- G. E. M. Anscombe 1919–2001
- P. F. Strawson 1919–2006
- Philippa Foot 1920–2010
- John Rawls 1921–2002
- Gilles Deleuze 1925–1995
- Michael Dummett 1925–2011
- Frantz Fanon 1925–1961
- Michel Foucault 1926–1984
- Hilary Putnam 1926–2016
- Niklas Luhmann 1927–1998
- Jürgen Habermas 1929–2026
- Bernard Williams 1929–2003
- Alasdair MacIntyre 1929–2025
- Jacques Derrida 1930–2004
- Gérard Genette 1930–2018
- Richard Rorty 1931–2007
- Umberto Eco 1932–2016
- John Searle 1932–2025
- Edward Said 1935–2003
- Robert Nozick 1938–2002
- Tzvetan Todorov 1939–2017
- Saul Kripke 1940–2022
- David Lewis 1941–2001
- Derek Parfit 1942–2017