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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
38
Works
291
Passages
112,227
Centuries spanned
24

When the thinkers were born — philosophers per century

38 philosophers, born across 15 centuries from the 6th c. BCE to the 19th c. CE. The 18th c. CE is the fullest, with 14.
Philosophers born, by century
CenturyPhilosophers born
6th c. BCE1
5th c. BCE1
4th c. BCE2
2nd c. BCE1
1st c. BCE1
1st c. CE1
2nd c. CE1
4th c. CE1
5th c. CE1
13th c. CE2
15th c. CE1
16th c. CE2
17th c. CE3
18th c. CE14
19th c. CE6

Which traditions they come from — philosophers per tradition

38 philosophers across 2 traditions. Widths are shares of the roster; the names are in the legend.
  • The Western tradition 37
  • The Chinese tradition 1
Philosophers by tradition
TraditionPhilosophersShare
The Western tradition3797%
The Chinese tradition13%

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 15.3%. 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 knowledge15.3%
Politics and power11.5%
Ethics and the good life9.6%
Metaphysics and the cosmos9%
Logic and language5.3%
Being and existence4.5%

10 philosophers match

The Western tradition

10 in the arena

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

    The defence of inherited institutions against the fantasy that politics can begin from zero

    36 works · 4,446 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.

1 in the arena

  1. Mary Wollstonecraft

    1759–1797

    The Enlightenment

    Women’s education became a revolt against inherited authority—and a claim to equal humanity.

    5 works · 1,008 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

    Habit, not reason, became the hidden engine of belief, putting certainty permanently on trial.

    7 works · 2,890 passages grounded

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.

5 in the arena

  1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    1712–1778

    The Enlightenment

    Against inherited authority, Rousseau made freedom both the law’s condition and education’s aim.

    4 works · 2,779 passages grounded

  2. Denis Diderot

    1713–1784

    The Enlightenment

    When matter began to think, priests, kings, and moral certainties lost their monopoly.

    5 works · 498 passages grounded

  3. Adam Smith

    1723–1790

    The Enlightenment

    Wealth could be explained without reducing human beings to greed—and markets without excusing monopolies.

    3 works · 2,623 passages grounded

  4. Baron d'Holbach

    1723–1789

    The Enlightenment

    Theology met a materialist enemy: necessity replaced divine purpose, and morality served human welfare.

    5 works · 1,924 passages grounded

  5. Moses Mendelssohn

    1729–1786

    The Enlightenment

    Religious liberty defended Judaism without asking reason to become less demanding.

    3 works · 716 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

    The critique that limited knowledge and recast freedom as obedience to self-given law

    17 works · 5,216 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

    Pleasure and pain became a legislative test, forcing law to justify every burden.

    27 works · 7,051 passages grounded