Philosopher Birth Year Death Year Nationality Main Ideas/Contributions Thales 624 BC 546 BC Greek First philosopher; naturalism and cosmology Anaximander 610 BC 546 BC Greek Apeiron; early cosmology Anaximenes 586 BC 528 BC Greek Air as the primary substance Pythagoras 570 BC 495 BC Greek Mathematics, mysticism, and the theory of forms Hippocrates 460 BC 370 BC Greek Medicine as a profession; Hippocratic Oath Socrates 470 BC 399 BC Greek Socratic method; ethics Plato 427 BC 347 BC Greek Theory of Forms; epistemology; the ideal state Aristotle 384 BC 322 BC Greek Empiricism; ethics; politics; logic Epicurus 341 BC 270 BC Greek Pleasure principle; atomism Zeno of Citium 334 BC 262 BC Greek Stoicism; virtue ethics Diogenes 400 BC 323 BC Greek Cynicism; simplicity Protagoras 490 BC 420 BC Greek Relativism; man is the measure Heraclitus 535 BC 475 BC Greek Change as central to the universe Parmenides 515 BC 450 BC Greek Being and the nature of reality Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646 1716 German Calculus; Monadology René Descartes 1596 1650 French Cogito; Cartesian coordinates; dualism David Hume 1711 1776 Scottish Empiricism; skepticism; naturalism Immanuel Kant 1724 1804 Prussian Categorical imperative; transcendental idealism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 1831 German Dialectics; absolute idealism Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 1900 German Will to power; eternal recurrence; nihilism John Stuart Mill 1806 1873 British Utilitarianism; liberty and individual rights Thomas Hobbes 1588 1679 English Social contract; materialism John Locke 1632 1704 English Tabula rasa; liberalism Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 1778 Swiss/French Social contract; general will Simone de Beauvoir 1908 1986 French Feminism; existentialism Martin Heidegger 1889 1976 German Being-in-the-world; existential phenomenology Albert Camus 1913 1960 French Absurdism; the myth of Sisyphus Søren Kierkegaard 1813 1855 Danish Existentialism; subjectivity John Dewey 1859 1952 American Pragmatism; democracy in education Bertrand Russell 1872 1970 British Analytic philosophy; social criticism Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 1951 Austrian/British Language games; meaning as use Jürgen Habermas 1929 German The public sphere; communicative action Michel Foucault 1926 1984 French Power/knowledge; discourse analysis Jacques Derrida 1930 2004 French Deconstruction; différance Paul Ricoeur 1913 2005 French Hermeneutics; narrative identity Alasdair MacIntyre 1929 Scottish Virtue ethics; tradition Richard Rorty 1931 2007 American Pragmatic pluralism Thomas Nagel 1937 American Consciousness; subjective/objective distinction Daniel Dennett 1942 American Philosophy of mind; consciousness as evolution Rudolf Carnap 1891 1970 German/American Logical positivism; philosophy of science Willard Van Orman Quine 1908 2000 American Indeterminacy of translation; holism Judith Butler 1956 American Gender theory; performativity Slavoj Žižek 1949 Slovenian Psychoanalysis; cultural critique Martha Nussbaum 1947 American Capabilities approach; ethics Hannah Arendt 1906 1975 German-American Political theory; totalitarianism Pierre Bourdieu 1930 2002 French Cultural capital; habitus Thomas Kuhn 1922 1996 American Structure of scientific revolutions Isaiah Berlin 1909 1997 Russian/British Value pluralism; two concepts of liberty Michael Sandel 1953 American Communitarianism; justice theory Frantz Fanon 1925 1961 French-Algerian Post-colonial theory; the wretched of the earth Simone Weil 1909 1943 French Affection and attention; philosophy of work Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 1926 Austrian Existential themes in poetry David Lewis 1941 2001 Australian Modal realism; philosophy of language John Searle 1932 American Language; consciousness; social reality Julia Kristeva 1941 Bulgarian-French Psychoanalysis; semiotics Niels Bohr 1885 1962 Danish Quantum theory; complementarity Albert Einstein 1879 1955 German/Swiss-American Theory of relativity; philosophy of science Karl Popper 1902 1994 Austrian-British Falsifiability; scientific method Angela Davis 1944 American Civil rights; feminism Richard Dawkins 1941 British Evolutionary biology; science and religion John Rawls 1921 2002 American Justice as fairness; political liberalism Robert Nozick 1938 2002 American Libertarianism; entitlement theory David Chalmers 1966 Australian Consciousness; the hard problem Peter Singer 1946 Australian Animal rights; utilitarianism Cornel West 1953 American Social justice; race; democracy Zygmunt Bauman 1925 2017 Polish-British Liquid modernity; postmodernity Byung-Chul Han 1959 South Korean Society of exhaustion; digital culture Susan Haack 1945 American Pragmatism; epistemology John Paul II 1920 2005 Polish Philosophy of human dignity; social ethics Catherine Malabou 1959 French Neurophilosophy; plasticity Iris Murdoch 1919 1999 British Love and ethics; moral philosophy Richard Tarnas 1950 American Cultural philosophy; archetypal psychology Clark Glymour 1943 American Philosophy of science; causal inference Linda Martín Alcoff 1948 American Feminist epistemology; race theory Robert Brandom 1950 American Inferentialism; semantics Daniel Kahneman 1934 Israeli-American Behavioral economics; judgment Amartya Sen 1933 Indian Welfare economics; capabilities approach Ruth Millikan 1933 American Biological classification; language Elizabeth Anscombe 1910 2001 British Action theory; intention Bernard Lonergan 1904 1984 Canadian Cognitional theory; theological ethics Nancy Fraser 1947 American Feminist theory; social justice Joanna Bourke 1955 British War and gender; history Simone de Beauvoir 1908 1986 French Existential feminism; ethics of ambiguity Karl Marx 1818 1883 German Historical materialism; capitalism critique Friedrich Engels 1820 1895 German Socialism; materialist conception of history Eduard Bernstein 1850 1932 German Revisionism in socialism; democratic socialism Antonio Gramsci 1891 1937 Italian Cultural hegemony; marxist theory Herbert Marcuse 1898 1979 German-American Critical theory; one-dimensional man Michel de Certeau 1925 1986 French The practice of everyday life; cultural practices Max Horkheimer 1895 1973 German-American Critical theory; social philosophy Theodore Adorno 1903 1969 German-American Critical theory; aesthetics; culture industry Giorgio Agamben 1942 Italian State of exception; biopolitics Rosi Braidotti 1954 Italian Posthumanism; feminist philosophy Judith Butler 1956 American Gender performativity; queer theory Slavoj Žižek 1949 Slovenian Cultural critiques; ideology critique Richard Rorty 1931 2007 American Pragmatism; anti-foundationalism Bertrand Russell 1872 1970 British Analytical philosophy; logic Jacques Derrida 1930 2004 French Deconstruction; post-structuralism John Deely 1939 American Semiotics; philosophy of signs Timothy Williamson 1955 British Knowledge and logic; epistemology Robert Brandom 1950 American Inference and meaning; scorekeeping David K. Lewis 1941 2001 American Modal realism; possible worlds Stephen Mulhall 1968 British Philosophy and literature; hermeneutics Daniel Dennett 1942 American Philosophy of mind; free will Peter Godfrey-Smith 1956 Australian Philosophy of biology; consciousness Elizabeth Millán 1970 American Philosophy of language; logic Simon Blackburn 1944 British Moral philosophy; expressivism Nancy Cartwright 1944 American Philosophy of science; scientific models Jesse Prinz 1966 American Philosophy of mind; aesthetics Tamler Sommers 1974 American Philosophy of moral responsibility Jürgen Habermas 1929 German Public sphere; communicative rationality Elizabeth Anscombe 1910 2001 British Moral philosophy; intention Micro-Macroeconomics Year Year Year Year Country Economics; Greater Awareness John Searle 1932 American Language; consciousness; social reality Martha Nussbaum 1947 American Capabilities approach; philosophy of emotion Ludwig Feuerbach 1804 1872 German Materialism; critique of religion David Hartley 1705 1757 British Associationism; psychology Baruch Spinoza 1632 1677 Dutch Ethics; rationalism David Hume 1711 1776 Scottish Empiricism; skepticism Bertrand Russell 1872 1970 British Analytic philosophy; logic Alfred North Whitehead 1861 1947 British-American Process philosophy; metaphysics Søren Kierkegaard 1813 1855 Danish Existentialism; subjectivity Paul Feyerabend 1924 1994 Austrian Epistemological anarchism; philosophy of science George Herbert Mead 1863 1931 American Symbolic interactionism; social psychology Wilfrid Sellars 1912 1989 American Philosophy of language; scientific realism Michael Dummett 1925 2011 British Philosophy of language; anti-realism Richard Rorty 1931 2007 American Pragmatism; anti-foundationalism Timothy Williamson 1955 British Epistemology; knowledge Hilary Putnam 1926 2016 American Philosophy of mind; realism/anti-realism Marilyn Frye 1941 American Feminist philosophy; oppression Estelle Disch 1947 American Feminist theory; political philosophy Kristin A. G. Chalmers 1946 American Social Philosophy; Gender M. T. L. Chen 1948 American Moral Philosophy; ethics Luigi Pareyson 1918 1992 Italian Hermeneutics; aesthetics Henri Bergson 1859 1941 French Time and consciousness; creative evolution Samuel Alexander 1859 1938 Australian Aesthetic experience; philosophy of space Alfred Tarski 1901 1983 Polish-American Semantics; truth Yascha Mounk 1982 German-American Political Philosophy; Democracy Drucilla Cornell 1946 American Critical theory; feminist philosophy Michael Sandel 1953 American Political philosophy; communitarianism M. M. Nussbaum 1947 American Political philosophy; capabilities approach Walter Benjamin 1892 1940 German Cultural criticism; aesthetic theory Giorgio Agamben 1942 Italian Biopolitics; state of exception Alfred North Whitehead 1861 1947 British-American Process philosophy; metaphysics Simone Weil 1909 1943 French Philosophy of work; political philosophy Arnold Geulincx 1625 1695 Flemish Occasionalism; philosophy of mind Max Scheler 1874 1928 German Phenomenology; value theory Benedict de Spinoza 1632 1677 Dutch Ethics; rationalism; pantheism Herbert Marcuse 1898 1979 German-American Radical theory; critical theory Robert Brandom 1950 American Semantic inferentialism; language Leo Strauss 1899 1973 German-American Political philosophy; moderation Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 1951 Austrian-British Philosophy of language; meaning Jacques Lacan 1901 1981 French Psychoanalysis; the Real, the Imaginary, the Symbolic Richard M. Rorty 1931 2007 American The linguistic turn; pragmatism David Papineau 1947 British Philosophy of science; philosophy of mind Noam Chomsky 1928 American Linguistics; political philosophy Timothy Williamson 1955 British Knowledge and epistemology Iris Murdoch 1919 1999 British Morality; existentialism Martin Buber 1878 1965 Austrian-Israeli I-Thou relation; dialogue Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 1860 German Pessimism; will to live Adolf Reinach 1883 1917 German Phenomenology; social ontology Émile Durkheim 1858 1917 French Sociology; structural functionalism C. D. Broad 1887 1971 British Philosophy of mind; metaphysics Alexis de Tocqueville 1805 1859 French Political philosophy; democracy Paul Ricoeur 1913 2005 French Hermeneutics; narrative identity Jean-François Lyotard 1924 1998 French Postmodernism; the sublime Paul Tillich 1886 1965 German-American Theology; existentialism Josef Breuer 1842 1925 Austrian Psychoanalysis; psychological research Gilbert Ryle 1900 1976 British Behaviorism; philosophy of mind George Edward Moore 1873 1958 British Principia Ethica; common-sense philosophy Oscar Wilde 1854 1900 Irish Aestheticism; criticism of morality Bertrand Russell 1872 1970 British Logic; analytical philosophy Henry David Thoreau 1817 1862 American Transcendentalism; civil disobedience Susan Sontag 1933 2004 American Cultural criticism; photography Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 1980 French Existentialism; freedom Rudolf Carnap 1891 1970 German/American Analytic philosophy; semantics Hannah Arendt 1906 1975 German-American Political theory; totalitarianism Martin Heidegger 1889 1976 German Phenomenology; existentialism John Stuart Mill 1806 1873 British Utilitarianism; social liberty Thomas Nagel 1937 American Mind and body; subjective experience John Locke 1632 1704 English Tabula rasa; empiricism David Hume 1711 1776 Scottish Empiricism; skepticism Immanuel Kant 1724 1804 Prussian Transcendental philosophy; moral law Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 1831 German Dialectical method; absolute idealism Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 1900 German Will to power; critique of morality Simone de Beauvoir 1908 1986 French Feminism; existentialism Søren Kierkegaard 1813 1855 Danish Existential philosophy; individualism Alfred North Whitehead 1861 1947 British Process thought; metaphysics Frantz Fanon 1925 1961 French-Algerian Post-colonial theory; racism Richard Dawkins 1941 British Biology; memetics; atheism Edward Said 1935 2003 Palestinian-American Orientalism; post-colonial criticism John Griffiths 1952 American Biopolitics; political philosophy Judith Butler 1956 American Gender theory; queer theory Richard Rorty 1931 2007 American Pragmatism; language games David Lewis 1941 2001 Australian Possible worlds; modal realism Michel Foucault 1926 1984 French Discourse; power relations; genealogy Alasdair MacIntyre 1929 Scottish Virtue ethics; narrative tradition Daniel Dennett 1942 American Philosophy of mind; consciousness Stephen Pinker 1954 Canadian-American Cognitive science; psychology Daniel Kahneman 1934 Israeli-American Behavioral economics; cognitive biases Donald Davidson 1917 2003 American Interpretation; action theory Peter Singer 1946 Australian Animal rights; utilitarian ethics Ohm J. R. H. 1804 1978 German Philosophy of perception; sociological dimensions Robert Nozick 1938 2002 American Entitlement theory; libertarianism Richard Wright 1908 1960 American Literature; civil rights Clarence Thomas 1948 American Legal realism; originalism Amartya Sen 1933 Indian Development economics; social choice theory Paul Feyerabend 1924 1994 Austrian Philosophy of science; anarchy Niels Bohr 1885 1962 Danish Quantum theory; philosophical implications Claude Lévi-Strauss 1908 2009 French Structural anthropology; myth David Hume 1711 1776 Scottish Empiricism; naturalism) Charles Sanders Peirce 1839 1914 American Pragmatism; semiotics J.G. Fichte 1762 1814 German Transcendental idealism; self-consciousness Gottlob Frege 1848 1925 German Logic; philosophy of language Isaiah Berlin 1909 1997 Russian-British Value pluralism; liberty Peter F. Strawson 1919 2006 British Philosophy of language; metaphysics David Papineau 1947 British Philosophy of science; philosophical naturalism Nancy Cartwright 1944 British Philosophy of science; explanation Andrea Bianchi 1955 Italian Overlapping models; structuralism Thomas Reid 1710 1796 Scottish Common sense philosophy; epistemology Richard M. Hare 1919 2002 British Moral philosophy; prescriptivism Hilary Putnam 1926 2016 American Realism; philosophy of mind Paul Ricœur 1913 2005 French Narrative theory; hermeneutics W. V. O. Quine 1908 2000 American Philosophy of language; ontological relativity Lucy Irigaray 1930 Belgian Feminist philosophy; subjectivity Simon Critchley 1960 British Ethics; political philosophy Jürgen Habermas 1929 German Communicative rationality; discourse ethics Richard Rorty 1931 2007 American Pragmatic philosophy; anti-foundationalism Charles Taylor 1931 Canadian Philosophy of social science; modernity Thomas Nagel 1937 American Philosophy of mind; ethical theory Orson Scott Card 1951 American Theology; literature and philosophy Agnes Heller 1929 Hungarian Critical theory; ethics Christina Hoff Sommers 1950 American Feminist philosophy; equity Luc Nuñez 1965 European Critical theory; psychoanalysis Georg Simmel 1858 1918 German Sociology; social forms Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 1860 German Philosophy of pessimism; metaphysics Leo Strauss 1899 1973 German-American Political philosophy; natural right Jacques Derrida 1930 2004 French Deconstruction; poststructuralism Friedrich Engels 1820 1895 German Socialism; dialectical materialism Arthur Danto 1924 2013 American Philosophy of art; end of art Wolfgang Iser 1926 German Reader-response theory; literary criticism Seyla Benhabib 1951 Turkish-American Political philosophy; cosmopolitanism Alain de Botton 1969 Swiss-British Philosophy and literature; happiness Willy E. P. Rechnitz 1930 2021 German Philosophy of youth; social justice Timothy Crusius 1966 American Rhetoric; ethics Susan Haack 1945 American Pragmatism; epistemology Richard Feynman 1918 1988 American Physics; philosophy of science Afromusicality Year Year Year Year Country Transatlantic slavery; creative art Richard Kearney 1954 Irish Phenomenology; narrative theory Julia Kristeva 1941 Bulgarian-French Psychoanalysis; semiotics Mikhail Bakhtin 1895 1975 Russian Literary theory; dialogism Ruth Amossy 1944 French Sociology; discourse analysis Robert B. Brandom 1950 American Inference; meaning; language Russell Kirk 1918 1994 American Conservatism; tradition Yascha Mounk 1982 American Political theory; democracy Mark S. K. Smith 1954 American Environmental philosophy; social justice Mary Midgley 1919 2018 British Animal ethics; philosophy of science Eric Voegelin 1901 1985 German-American Political philosopher; Gnosticism Richard Kraut 1941 American Ancient philosophy; Aristotle Doris Lessing 1919 2013 British Narrative construction; feminism Viktor Frankl 1905 1997 Austrian Logotherapy; existentialism Rudiger Safranski 1945 German Philosophy of life; romanticism Herbert Marcuse 1898 1979 German-American Revolutionary theory; critical theory Daniel C. Dennett 1942 American Consciousness; philosophy of mind Thomas Nagel 1937 American Philosophy of mind; subjective experience Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 1951 Austrian-British Language; logic; meaning George Edward Moore 1873 1958 British Common sense philosophy; ethics Gustav Landauer 1870 1919 German Anarchism; sociology John Sherlock Year Year Year Year Country Philosophy of science; visual principles Alfred Tarski 1901 1983 Polish-American Semantic theory; truth theories Lucian Goldmann 1913 1970 Romanian Sociology; literature Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 1980 French Existentialism; humanism Bitnoruparen 1945 Broad-inner Epistemic practices; identity Emma Goldman 1869 1940 Lithuanian-American Anarchism; feminism Wilhelm Dilthey 1833 1911 German Hermeneutics; life philosophy Nelson Goodman 1906 1998 American Philosophy of art; constructionism Rudolph Arnheim 1904 2007 German-American Visual perception; aesthetics Richard John Neuhaus 1936 2009 American Political theology; public philosophy Tzvetan Todorov 1939 Bulgarian-French Literary theory; cultural criticism Reinhold Niebuhr 1892 1971 American Christian realism; political theology Victor Turner 1920 1983 British Ritual studies; social anthropology Judith Harris 1948 American Parenting and intelligence; cognitive psychology Simon A. M. Peat 1940 British Quantum theory; consciousness Charles Taylor 1931 Canadian Philosophy of language; secularism Chantal Mouffe 1943 Belgian Political theory; agonistic democracy Peter van Inwagen 1942 American Metaphysics; philosophy of religion Susan Crean Year Year Year Year Country Philosophy of law; sociological aspects C.S. Peirce 1839 1914 American Pragmatism; logic Alain Badiou 1937 French Event; truth; ontology David Graeber 1961 2020 American Anthropology; economics; activism Achille Mbembe 1957 Cameroonian Postcolonial theory; necropolitics Siegfried Kracauer 1889 1966 German Film theory; sociology David Hume 1711 1776 Scottish Skepticism; empiricism Paul Ricoeur 1913 2005 French Hermeneutics; narrative Jacques Rancière 1940 French Politics; aesthetics Martha Nussbaum 1947 American Capabilities approach; social justice Simone de Beauvoir 1908 1986 French Feminism; existential ethics Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 1882 American Transcendentalism; individualism Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762 1814 German Transcendental idealism; self William James 1842 1910 American Pragmatism; psychology Albert Einstein 1879 1955 German-American Relativity; philosophy of science Ferdinand de Saussure 1857 1913 Swiss Linguistics; semiology Albert Camus 1913 1960 French Absurdism; existentialism John Stuart Mill 1806 1873 British Utilitarianism; liberty Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 1860 German Pessimism; will to live Francis Bacon 1561 1626 English Empiricism; scientific method Thomas Hobbes 1588 1679 English Leviathan; social contract theory Max Weber 1864 1920 German Sociology; bureaucracy Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 1900 German Will to power; eternal return Rudolf Carnap 1891 1970 Austrian Logical positivism; philosophy of language John Locke 1632 1704 English Empiricism; political philosophy Søren Kierkegaard 1813 1855 Danish Christian existentialism; subjectivity Virginia Woolf 1882 1941 British Modernist literature; gender studies Henri Bergson 1859 1941 French Time and consciousness; intuition David Hume 1711 1776 Scottish Empiricism; skepticism Jürgen Habermas 1929 German Public sphere; critical theory Giorgio Agamben 1942 Italian Biopolitics; state of exception Simone Weil 1909 1943 French Political philosophy; attention C. D. Broad 1887 1971 British Philosophy of mind; metaphysics Angela Davis 1944 American Civil rights; prison abolitionism Roger Scruton 1944 2020 British Conservatism; aesthetics Richard Rorty 1931 2007 American Pragmatism; anti-essentialism Satyajit Ray 1921 1992 Indian Cinema; art theory Walter Benjamin 1892 1940 German Philosophy of art; aura of art