Les Plus Grands Philosophes de l'Histoire

Abu al Ala Al Ma'arri

Blind Arab philosopher, poet, and writer who Lived during the Islamic Golden Age

Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan

His 'three principles' theory of generalized chemical properties, one of which, sulphur representative of combustion, wa

Adam Smith

British economist, philosopher and author

Aesop

Greek moral philosopher; noted for his fabulist storytelling using animal-human figures to convey teachings about ambigu

Alan Turing

An English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist.

Alan Watts

A British writer and speaker known for interpreting and popularizing Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism for a Western audien

Albert Camus

A French writer, philosopher and journalist.

Alexander von Humboldt

A German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science.

Anaxagoras

Ancient Greek philosopher

Anaximenes of Miletus

An Ancient Greek, Ionian Pre-Socratic philosopher.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

An English politician, philosopher, and writer.

Antoine Arnauld

A French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher and mathematician.

Aristotle

A Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.

Arthur Schopenhauer

a German philosopher best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844).

Auguste Comte

A French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism.

Averroes - Ibn Rushd

A Muslim Andalusi scholar and philosopher.

Avicenna

A Medieval Persian polymath, physician and philosopher

Ayn Rand

Russian-American writer and philosopher

Baron d'Holbach

Baruch Spinoza

A Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin.

Bertrand Russell

A British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobe

Blaise Pascal

Pascal's law

Boethius

A Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

An American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.

Callimachus

Architect and sculptor working in the second half of the 5th century BC.

Charles Babbage

A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer.

Montesquieu

A French social commentator & political thinker

Christian Thomasius

A German jurist and philosopher.

Christian Wolff

A German philosopher.

Christopher Hitchens

An English intellectual, polemicist, and socio-political critic, who expressed himself as an author, orator, essayist an

Claude Adrien Helvétius

A French philosopher, freemason and littérateur.

Ptolemy

2nd-century Greco-Egyptian writer & astronomer who wrote several scientific treatises, three of which were of importance

Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney

A French philosopher, abolitionist, writer, orientalist, and politician who was one of the first modern writers to advoc

Dante Alighieri

An Italian poet, writer and philosopher best known for the narrative poem Divine Comedy.

David Hume

A Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, who is best known for his highly inf

Denis Diderot

La Religieuse

Erasmus

A Dutch philosopher and Christian scholar who is widely considered to have been one of the greatest scholars of the nort

Diagoras of Melos

A Greek poet and sophist of the 5th century BC who allegedly chopped up a wooden statue of Heracles and used it to roast

Diogenes

A genius philosopher who's most famous for carrying a lamp during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man.

Diogenes Laërtius

A biographer of the Greek philosophers whose works have become the foremost surviving source on the history of Greek phi

Marquis de Sade

A French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer best known for The 120 Days of Sodom and Justine.

Ecphantus the Pythagorean

A shadowy Greek pre-Socratic philosopher who maintained that the Cosmos is made of atoms. His existence is disputed to t

Edmund Husserl

A German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology - the philosophical study of the structures of experience an

Edmund Burke

An Irish statesman and philosopher who supported the rights of the British colonists to resist metropolitan authority.

Emanuel Swedenborg

A Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic best known his book on the afterlife, Heav

Empedocles

A Greek pre-Socratic philosopher best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the four classical elements.

Epictetus

A genius Greek Stoic philosopher who taught that philosophy is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline.

Epicurus

An ancient Greek philosopher and sage who founded the philosophical school of Epicureanism and openly allowed women and

Erich Fromm

A German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was one o

Ernest Renan

A French Orientalist and Semitic scholar who wrote influential and pioneering historical works on the origins of early C

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth

An Anglo-Irish philosopher and political economist who made significant contributions to the methods of statistics durin

Francis Bacon

An English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England.

Francis Atterbury

An English man of letters, politician and bishop best known for his work An Answer to some Considerations, the Spirit of

Francisco Suárez

A Spanish Jesuit priest considered to be greatest scholastics after Thomas Aquinas

François Rabelais

A French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk, and Greek scholar.

Voltaire

French writer, historian & philosopher who wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

A German philosopher who was a prominent figure in the German idealism school.

Friedrich Schleiermacher

A German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the

Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher cultural critic, poet, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellec

Pliny the Elder

A Roman author, a naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend

Georg Ernst Stahl

A German chemist, physician, and philosopher whose works helped to explain the chemical processess.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Phenomenology of Spirit

George Berkeley

An Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism"

Gerolamo Cardano

An Italian polymath was one of the key figures in the foundation of probability and the earliest introducer of the binom

Gilbert Burnet

A Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury who was one of the few close friends in whom King William

Giordano Bruno

An Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

A German philosopher, mathematician, scientist, diplomat and polymath. He is a prominent figure in both the history of p

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

A German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and an outstanding representative of the Enlightenmen

Gottlob Frege

A genius German philosopher, logician, and mathematician who is considered to be the father of analytic philosophy

Gustav Fechner

A German experimental psychologist, philosopher, and physicist who was an early pioneer in experimental psychology and f

Harriet Martineau

An English social theorist and Whig writer often seen as the first female sociologist.

Henri de Saint-Simon

A French political, economic and socialist theorist who created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonia

Henry David Thoreau

An American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher best known for his book Walden.

Heraclitus

An Ancient Greek, pre-Socratic, Ionian philosopher best known for his work On Nature.

Hildegard of Bingen

A German Benedictine abbess who is among the best best-known composers of sacred monophony

Hippolyte Taine

A French critic and historian who was one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism.

Hypatia

Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician who was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she

Ibn Arabi

An Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought

Imhotep

An Egyptian chancellor to the Pharaoh Djoser, probable architect of Djoser's step pyramid, and high priest of the sun go

Immanuel Kant

A German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers.