Thomas Hobbes
17th-century English political philosopher who argued the need for a strong government in order to prevent people from falling into a save
... [Show More] existence, which he called the state of nature; his book, Leviathan, which discusses the social contract and the separation of powers, serves as the basis for Western political thought
St. Thomas Aquinas
Italian philosopher and theologian; greatest Scholastic philosopher; changed the focus of Scholasticism from Plato to Aristotle, reconciling elements of classical philosophy with Christianity; best-known work is Summa Theologica, and he is known for the idea that "Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses."
St. Augustine
first of the Scholastic philosophers; Medieval Christian church leader who developed the idea that reason and faith are compatible; considered the father of Western Christianity because of his arguments about original sin, a just war, salvation, and grace; most famous books are The Confessions and The City of God
Soren Kierkegaard
19th-century Danish philosopher who wrote about his belief that fear and loneliness can be associated with religion; important in the fields of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, and is often considered the father of existentialism
Socrates
ancient Greek philosopher who changed the nature of the field from natural sciences to ethics and politics; most famous for the Socratic Method, a method that utilizes a series of questions and answers to discover truth; citizens of Athens condemned him to death for corrupting the youth and denying the gods
Plato
Socrates' student; most important figure of Western philosophy; founded a school called the Academy, and most of his writings are in the form of dialogues; best known dialogues are the Republic and the Symposium, with "The Allegory of the Cave"-- his theory of ideal forms-- being the most famous
Rene Descartes
17th-century French philosopher, considered the father of modern philosophy; his ideas, which used reason to explain the workings of the universe, are often referred to as "Cartesianism"; "I think; therefore I am"
Niccolo Machiavelli
famous political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance; thoughts on political theory included advising rulers to maintain power through ruthless means; major works are The Prince and The Discourses
Martin Heidegger
German philosopher best known for his book Being and Time, where he questioned the essence of being; his sympathy with the Nazis undermines his credibility; his work is among the most controversial of the 20th century
Karl Marx
initially a follower of Hegel, German philosopher who took some of Hegel's ideas and transformed them into communism; "existence precedes consciousness"; The Communist Manifesto and Capital are his most famous works
John Stuart Mill
19th-century English philosopher and economist; advocated liberal and political thought in his book On Liberty, and taught utilitarianism, a system of ethics that judges actions by their consequences-- thus the greatest good for the greatest number
John Locke
English empiricist; asserted that people are born with a "tabula rasa" (blank slate) and that experience shapes their ideas; argued that governments needed the consent of the governed and heavily influenced the Founding Fathers of America; most famous works are An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government
John Dewey
American philosopher and educational reformer and one of the founders of the school of pragmatism; advocated for critical-thinking skills and problem-solving instead of rote memorization; "Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself."
Jean-Paul Sartre
20th-century French existentialist; wrote Being and Nothingness, and the play, "No Exit"; had a deep yearning for freedom and believed that the self was on a journey toward something; awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature but declined to accept it
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
18th-century French philosopher who was a leader of the Enlightenment movement; theories and beliefs expressed in The Social Contract influenced the French Revolution; believed in a state of nature whereby people are inherently good but get corrupted by social institutions, a central idea in Romanticism
Jacques Derrida
Algerian-born French philosopher and founder of deconstruction; "To pretend, I actually do the thing: I therefore have only pretended to pretend."
Immanuel Kant
German philosopher; one of the leading modern-day philosophers; views are known as Critical Philosophy, or a critique, rather than a justification, of knowledge; explored the limits of human understanding and capacity for reason
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
17th-century rationalist and philosopher; argued that God created a good world; in order to know, understand, and ultimately choose good, we must have an understanding of its opposite-- evil; coexisting with evil was "the best of all possible worlds"; his belief is misconstrued and satirized in Voltaire's Candide
George Berkeley
Bishop Berkeley; Irish idealist who argued that only the mental existed; immaterialism, aka subjective idealism; "to be is to be perceived"
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
German philosopher who asserted that all history was a progression toward a perfect state of being; developed new form of logic, called speculation, which has come to be known as Hegelian dialectics
Friedrich Nietzsche
German moralist; rejected traditional Christian and Jewish morality; wrote the famously misconstrued and misinterpreted "God is dead," and developed the idea of the Ubermensch, a super human being who is not bound by conventional notions of right and wrong
David Hume
Scottish Empiricist known for his assertion that inductive knowledge is not certain, which led to the philosophical position of skepticism; first conservative philosopher; his economic theories were developed by John Maynard Keynes
Bertrand Russell
20th-century English philosopher and mathematician; often considered the greatest philosopher of the past century; advocate for social reform and a staunch pacifist; "War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
Aristotle
student of Plato and the teacher of Alexander the Great; considered the second most important Western philosopher, but disagreed with Plato's theory of form: he believed form and matter are always joined; most important writings included Poetics, Rhetoric, and Politics [Show Less]