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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%

16 philosophers match

Enlightenment

In the eighteenth century, Enlightenment thought committed inquiry to reason, evidence, and public criticism of inherited religious and political authority. Unlike traditionalism, it treated human institutions as open to deliberate improvement.

8 in the arena

  1. Voltaire

    1694–1778

    The Enlightenment

    Voltaire fought fanaticism with wit: Candide against optimism, a Treatise on Tolerance for Jean Calas, a Dictionary reading scripture as history.

    6 works · 3,737 passages grounded

  2. Thomas Reid

    1710–1796

    The Enlightenment

    Thomas Reid answered Hume's skepticism by rejecting the theory of ideas: we perceive things, not images, and common sense grounds all reasoning.

    5 works · 1,895 passages grounded

  3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    1712–1778

    The Enlightenment

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau linked child development to freedom and asked how political authority could be legitimate.

    4 works · 1,902 passages grounded

  4. Denis Diderot

    1713–1784

    The Enlightenment

    Denis Diderot tested morality, religion, and social authority against nature and skepticism, from Philosophical Thoughts to Rameau's Nephew.

    5 works · 355 passages grounded

  5. Adam Smith

    1723–1790

    The Enlightenment

    Adam Smith linked sympathy and moral judgment to a critique of monopoly, taxation, and mercantilism in The Wealth of Nations and his other works.

    4 works · 2,609 passages grounded

  6. Baron d'Holbach

    1723–1789

    The Enlightenment

    Baron d'Holbach attacked religious superstition and defended a materialist, deterministic account of nature, morality, and human life.

    5 works · 1,972 passages grounded

  7. Moses Mendelssohn

    1729–1786

    The Enlightenment

    Moses Mendelssohn defended the immortality of the soul and religious liberty in Enlightenment Germany.

    3 works · 441 passages grounded

  8. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

    1729–1781

    The Enlightenment

    Gotthold Ephraim Lessing argued that history cannot prove a faith and that tragedy trains pity. His thought on truth, religion, theatre and the arts.

    12 works · 1,766 passages grounded

Rationalism

Rationalism holds that reason can provide genuine knowledge independently of sensory experience, often by deriving conclusions from principles grasped by the intellect. It differs from empiricism.

1 in the arena

  1. Émilie du Châtelet

    1706–1749

    The Enlightenment

    Émilie du Châtelet translated Newton, sided with Leibniz on force, argued that fire weighs nothing, and ranked the love of study above every passion.

    3 works · 208 passages grounded

Empiricism

Empiricism holds that human knowledge is grounded primarily in sense experience: observations made through sight, touch, hearing, and other senses provide the materials for thought. It therefore gives experience priority over innate ideas or purely deductive reasoning, while allowing reasoning to organise and assess what observation supplies.

1 in the arena

  1. David Hume

    1711–1776

    The Enlightenment

    David Hume traced knowledge, causality, and morality to experience, habit, and sentiment—an introduction to his empiricism and skepticism.

    7 works · 1,880 passages grounded

German Idealism

German idealism holds that thought helps constitute the intelligibility of experience and reality, rather than merely recording facts supplied by the senses. It emerged in the late eighteenth century. Unlike empiricism, it treats reason as an active condition of knowledge.

1 in the arena

  1. Immanuel Kant

    1724–1804

    The Enlightenment

    Immanuel Kant asked how the mind makes experience possible—and where reason must stop, from knowledge and morality to art and politics.

    17 works · 5,638 passages grounded

Conservatism

Conservative thought holds that political order should preserve inherited institutions—law, custom, family, and local authority—because they embody knowledge no abstract plan can fully replace. Change must earn its place. Unlike reactionary politics, it can accept reform when reform protects continuity rather than pursuing wholesale reconstruction.

1 in the arena

  1. Edmund Burke

    1729–1797

    The Enlightenment

    Edmund Burke defended constitutional tradition, attacked corruption, and opposed the French Revolution through speeches and political writings.

    36 works · 4,470 passages grounded

Radicalism

Radical thought holds that injustice can require changing the institutions that produce it, rather than correcting abuses within them. The distinction concerns institutions. It differs from reformism, which seeks improvement without replacing the underlying order.

2 in the arena

  1. Thomas Paine

    1737–1809

    The Enlightenment

    Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense urged American independence, held that no one inherits authority, answered Burke in Rights of Man and rejected revelation.

    10 works · 1,144 passages grounded

  2. Mary Wollstonecraft

    1759–1797

    The Enlightenment

    Mary Wollstonecraft argued that women’s independence required education, reason, and moral agency—not obedience to custom.

    5 works · 962 passages grounded

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism holds that conduct should be judged by its consequences, and that the right act is the one that produces the greatest total well-being. It counts one person’s welfare no more than another’s. Unlike deontological ethics, it does not make rules or intentions decisive when the consequences point elsewhere.

1 in the arena

  1. Jeremy Bentham

    1748–1832

    The Enlightenment

    Jeremy Bentham made utility a test for law, punishment, and government—an introduction to his philosophy and programme of legal reform.

    27 works · 6,591 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. Publius

    1787–1788

    The Enlightenment

    Publius, the pen name shared by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, argued in The Federalist that strong national government is liberty's protection, not its enemy.

    1 work · 712 passages grounded