Confucius

Philosopher · 571 BC – 471 BC

Laozi was a semi-legendary ancient Chinese philosopher traditionally regarded as the founder of Daoism and the author of the Tao Te Ching, the foundational text on living in harmony with the Dao.

• Founding Daoism
• Tao Te Ching

Why Tradition holds the two great Chinese sages met and debated, representing rival visions of the good life.

Philosopher · 470 BC – 399 BC

Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as a founder of Western philosophy, famous for the Socratic method of questioning and for his trial and execution in Athens.

• Socratic method
• The examined life

Why Often called the East's counterpart to Socrates — a foundational moral teacher who left no writings of his own.

Military Strategist · 544 BC – 496 BC

Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese general and strategist, traditionally the author of The Art of War, the most influential treatise on strategy ever written.

• The Art of War
• Strategic philosophy

Why A near-contemporary of the Zhou era whose work shaped Chinese thought alongside Confucius.

Activist · 1869 – 1948

Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India's independence movement, who pioneered the philosophy and practice of nonviolent civil disobedience and inspired movements for civil rights across the world.

• Leading Indian independence
• Nonviolent civil disobedience

Why Worked in political philosophy & ethics · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1632 – 1677

Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of the early modern era whose rationalist masterpiece, the Ethics, advanced a radical monism identifying God with Nature and made him a foundational figure of modern thought.

• Ethics
• Pantheism (God or Nature)

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

President · 1809 – 1865

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, who led the nation through its Civil War, preserved the Union, and abolished slavery before his assassination in 1865.

• Leading the Union in the Civil War
• The Emancipation Proclamation

Why Also a politician · Comparable historical impact

Economist · 1723 – 1790

Adam Smith was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and economist, the father of modern economics, whose work The Wealth of Nations laid the foundations of free-market thought.

• The Wealth of Nations
• The invisible hand

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Theologian · 354 – 430

Augustine of Hippo was a Roman North African theologian and philosopher whose works, including Confessions and City of God, shaped Western Christianity and laid intellectual foundations for medieval and modern thought.

• Confessions
• City of God

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1126 – 1198

Averroes was a philosopher and polymath of Al-Andalus whose commentaries on Aristotle profoundly shaped medieval European philosophy and the relationship between reason and faith.

• Commentaries on Aristotle
• Defending reason and philosophy

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Physician · 980 – 1037

Avicenna was a Persian polymath of the Islamic Golden Age, one of the greatest physicians and philosophers of the medieval world, whose Canon of Medicine was a standard text for six centuries.

• The Canon of Medicine
• The Book of Healing

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1711 – 1776

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist of the Enlightenment whose rigorous empiricism and skepticism—especially his analysis of causation and the problem of induction—made him one of the most important philosophers in the English language.

• Empiricism
• Problem of induction

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1844 – 1900

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher whose radical critiques of morality, religion, and truth—including the proclamation that "God is dead" and the ideal of the Übermensch—made him one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the modern era.

• "God is dead"
• The Übermensch

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1770 – 1831

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and the leading figure of German idealism, whose dialectical method and grand vision of history as the self-development of Spirit profoundly shaped modern philosophy.

• German idealism
• The dialectic

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 1712 – 1778

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan-French philosopher, writer, and composer whose ideas on the social contract, the general will, and natural human goodness shaped modern political thought, education, and the Romantic movement.

• The Social Contract
• The general will

Why Also a philosopher · Comparable historical impact

Philosopher · 384 BC – 322 BC

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath whose writings on logic, ethics, biology, politics and metaphysics shaped Western thought for over two millennia.

• Formal logic
• Virtue ethics

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Philosopher · 1724 – 1804

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher of the Enlightenment, one of the most influential thinkers in history, who reconciled rationalism and empiricism and transformed ethics, metaphysics and epistemology.

• Critique of Pure Reason
• The categorical imperative

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Philosopher · 428 BC – 348 BC

Plato was a Greek philosopher who founded the Academy in Athens, wrote the foundational dialogues of Western philosophy, and developed the influential theory of Forms.

• Theory of Forms
• The Academy

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Statesman · 106 BC – 43 BC

Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator and philosopher whose speeches and writings defined Latin prose, transmitted Greek philosophy to Rome, and championed the values of the Roman Republic.

• Roman oratory
• Defending the Republic

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in political philosophy

Emperor · 121 – 180

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, the last of the "Five Good Emperors", whose private journal, the Meditations, is the most cherished work of Stoic thought.

• The Meditations
• Stoic philosophy

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Philosopher · 1469 – 1527

Niccolò Machiavelli was a Renaissance Italian diplomat, political philosopher and writer whose treatise The Prince founded modern political science and gave his name to ruthless statecraft.

• The Prince
• Founding modern political science

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in political philosophy

Spiritual Leader · 563 BC – 483 BC

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was a spiritual teacher of ancient India whose insights into suffering and liberation founded Buddhism, now one of the world's major religions.

• Founding Buddhism
• The Four Noble Truths

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Theologian · 1225 – 1274

Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Italian theologian and philosopher whose synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy became central to Catholic thought and the high point of scholasticism.

• Summa Theologica
• Reconciling faith and reason

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Philosopher · 334 BC – 262 BC

Zeno of Citium was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded Stoicism, teaching that virtue and reason are the path to a good life, in lectures given at the Painted Porch (Stoa) in Athens.

• Founding Stoicism
• Teaching at the Stoa

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in ethics

Writer · 1759 – 1797

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English Enlightenment writer and philosopher, a pioneer of feminist thought whose A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued for the education and equality of women.

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• Founding feminist philosophy

Why Also a philosopher · Worked in political philosophy