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The collection

The Philosophers

Every thinker here answers out of their own texts. Choose a voice and put your question to it.

Philosophers
148
Works
843
Passages
298k+
Centuries spanned
26

When the thinkers were born — philosophers per century

148 philosophers, born across 26 centuries from the 7th c. BCE to the 19th c. CE. The 19th c. CE is the fullest, with 29.
Philosophers born, by century
CenturyPhilosophers born
7th c. BCE3
6th c. BCE3
5th c. BCE2
4th c. BCE2
3rd c. BCE3
2nd c. BCE4
1st c. BCE4
1st c. CE4
2nd c. CE4
3rd c. CE1
4th c. CE5
5th c. CE6
6th c. CE1
7th c. CE4
8th c. CE1
9th c. CE4
10th c. CE4
11th c. CE10
12th c. CE4
13th c. CE5
14th c. CE3
15th c. CE3
16th c. CE9
17th c. CE9
18th c. CE21
19th c. CE29

Which traditions they come from — philosophers per tradition

148 philosophers across 6 traditions. Widths are shares of the roster; the names are in the legend.
  • The Western tradition 87
  • The Indian tradition 29
  • The Chinese tradition 15
  • The Japanese tradition 6
  • The Jewish tradition 6
  • The Islamic and Persian tradition 5
Philosophers by tradition
TraditionPhilosophersShare
The Western tradition8759%
The Indian tradition2920%
The Chinese tradition1510%
The Japanese tradition64%
The Jewish tradition64%
The Islamic and Persian tradition53%

What the corpus argues about — share of the canon per question

The six great questions, ranked by their share of every tagged passage in the corpus. Mind and knowledge leads at 11.5%. A passage can answer to more than one question, so the six do not sum to a whole.
Share of the canon by question
QuestionShare of the canon
Mind and knowledge11.5%
Metaphysics and the cosmos10%
Politics and power9.5%
Ethics and the good life7.8%
Logic and language4.4%
Being and existence4.1%

15 philosophers match

Advaita Vedanta

Advaita Vedānta, the non-dualist school of Vedānta, holds that only one thing is finally real: Brahman, pure awareness without qualities. The self in each person is identical with it, and the world of many separate things is an appearance produced by ignorance. Liberation comes from knowledge that the self is Brahman, not from ritual or good deeds, which can only prepare the mind. Against the qualified non-dualism of Viśiṣṭādvaita, it denies that Brahman has qualities; against the dualism of Dvaita, it denies that selves are finally distinct from Brahman.

1 in the arena

  1. Uddālaka Āruṇi

    700–600 BCE

    The Upanishadic Age

    Uddālaka Āruṇi, the father in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, argued that being, not nothing, came first, and taught it with fasting, a seed and salt water.

    1 work · 51 passages grounded

Chan Buddhism

Chan is the school of Chinese Buddhism that claims to pass on awakening itself, from teacher to pupil, rather than a body of doctrine; its name is the Chinese form of *dhyāna*, meditation. Against scholastic schools such as Tiantai, it held that mastering an account of awakening is not awakening, and it traced its line from the Buddha through Bodhidharma. Its masters taught through dialogue, and their remembered exchanges, the old cases, became its literature. Japanese Zen descends from two of its five houses, Linji and Caodong.

12 in the arena

  1. Bodhidharma

    470–530

    Han to Tang

    Bodhidharma, the Indian monk Chan calls its founder: one true nature in every being, wall-gazing, and a life without grievance or craving.

    2 works · 63 passages grounded

  2. Huineng

    638–713

    Han to Tang

    Huineng, Sixth Patriarch of Chan: the unlettered firewood seller of the Platform Sutra who taught that everyone's own nature is already awake.

    1 work · 122 passages grounded

  3. Layman Pang

    740–808

    Han to Tang

    Layman Pang (Pang Yun) kept his family, sold bamboo ware and traded verses with Shitou and Mazu: the great householder of Tang-dynasty Chan.

    1 work · 59 passages grounded

  4. Yunmen Wenyan

    864–949

    Han to Tang

    Yunmen Wenyan (864–949) founded the Yunmen house of Chan and met questions about the Buddha with a single word, a sesame cake or a rebuke.

    1 work · 177 passages grounded

  5. Yongming Yanshou

    904–976

    Han to Tang

    Yongming Yanshou, a 10th-century Chan master, argued that Chan and the scriptures teach one mind, and that sutras, good deeds and sitting are one practice.

    3 works · 3,285 passages grounded

  6. Xuedou Chongxian

    980–1052

    Song to Ming

    Xuedou Chongxian (980–1052) revived Chan's Yunmen house and judged the old masters' exchanges; his hundred verses frame the Blue Cliff Record.

    1 work · 159 passages grounded

  7. Mingjiao Qisong

    1007–1072

    Song to Ming

    Mingjiao Qisong, an 11th-century Chan monk, met Song scholars' attacks on Buddhism from inside their own classics: Buddha and Confucius teach one way.

    1 work · 477 passages grounded

  8. Yuanwu Keqin

    1063–1135

    Song to Ming

    Yuanwu Keqin (1063–1135) lectured on a hundred old Chan cases to make the Blue Cliff Record, and warned in every chapter that explaining is not seeing.

    3 works · 1,351 passages grounded

  9. Juefan Huihong

    1071–1128

    Song to Ming

    Juefan Huihong, Song-dynasty poet-monk of the Linji line, argued for lettered Chan: awakening is not found in words, nor apart from them.

    1 work · 128 passages grounded

  10. Dahui Zonggao

    1089–1163

    Song to Ming

    Dahui Zonggao, leading Linji master of Song China, taught officials to hold one word with all their doubt, and fought silent illumination.

    1 work · 707 passages grounded

  11. Hongzhi Zhengjue

    1091–1157

    Song to Ming

    Hongzhi Zhengjue taught silent illumination at Mount Tiantong: sitting with no object and no goal, trusting an awakening already present.

    1 work · 628 passages grounded

  12. Wansong Xingxiu

    1166–1246

    Song to Ming

    Wansong Xingxiu, a Caodong Chan master under the Jin and the Mongols, wrote the Book of Serenity, reading old Chan cases through all of China's learning.

    1 work · 431 passages grounded

Madhyamaka

Madhyamaka, Buddhism's "middle way" school, begins with Nāgārjuna's verses in the second or third century CE. It holds that nothing has *svabhāva*, a nature of its own: things arise only in dependence on causes, parts and the names given them, and that dependence is what the school calls emptiness. Its middle lies between saying that things exist in their own right and saying that they do not exist at all. It teaches two levels of truth, the everyday and the ultimate, and became the dominant philosophy of Tibet.

1 in the arena

  1. Candrakīrti

    600–650

    Sutra and Classical

    Candrakīrti held that a Buddhist philosopher needs no thesis, only an opponent's premises. Tibet made his reading of Nāgārjuna its official view.

    2 works · 896 passages grounded

Political philosophy

Political philosophy examines how communities organise power, authority, law, and common life. Unlike ethics, which asks how individuals ought to act, it asks who may rule and under what conditions. Its subject is collective order.

1 in the arena

  1. Mahatma Gandhi

    1869–1948

    Modern Indian Thought

    Mahatma Gandhi argued that breaking an unjust law openly and accepting the penalty takes more courage than violence, and that no opponent is an enemy.

    2 works · 381 passages grounded