Get started

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%

8 philosophers match

By year of birth

6th c. BCE

1 in the arena

  1. 550 BCE

    Job

    550–450 BCE

    Hellenistic Judaism

    Job, hero of the anonymous Hebrew Book of Job: a blameless man of Uz who lost everything, refused to call it deserved and demanded an answer from God.

    1 work · 64 passages grounded

4th c. BCE

1 in the arena

  1. 109 years without a voice

    341 BCE

    Epicurus

    341–270 BCE

    The Hellenistic Age

    Epicurus grounded ethics in pleasure, challenged fear of death, and explained nature through atoms and void.

    4 works · 53 passages grounded

3rd c. BCE

2 in the arena

  1. 300 BCE

    Qohelet

    300–230 BCE

    Hellenistic Judaism

    Qohelet, the voice of Ecclesiastes: on hating life and loving the light, a God whose work cannot be found out, and why two are better than one.

    1 work · 18 passages grounded

  2. 230 BCE

    Ben Sira

    230–170 BCE

    Hellenistic Judaism

    Ben Sira, a Jerusalem scribe of the early second century BCE, taught that wisdom begins in fearing God and lives in the Law of Moses.

    1 work · 119 passages grounded

2nd c. BCE

1 in the arena

  1. 106 BCE

    Cicero

    106–43 BCE

    The Hellenistic Age

    Cicero connects virtue, justice, rhetoric, and civic duty across On Moral Duties, Treatise on the Laws, and works on friendship and government.

    11 works · 5,720 passages grounded

1st c. BCE

3 in the arena

  1. 99 BCE

    Lucretius

    99–55 BCE

    The Hellenistic Age

    Lucretius, the Roman poet who put Epicurus's atoms into Latin verse, argued that death is nothing to us and that the gods take no care of the world.

    1 work · 298 passages grounded

  2. 60 BCE

    Pseudo-Solomon

    60 BCE – 10 CE

    Hellenistic Judaism

    Pseudo-Solomon, the unnamed Greek-speaking Jew behind the Wisdom of Solomon, argues in a king's voice that justice is immortal and wisdom a gift.

    1 work · 36 passages grounded

  3. 20 BCE

    Philo of Alexandria

    20 BCE – 50 CE

    Hellenistic Judaism

    Philo of Alexandria read the Law of Moses as the best of Greek philosophy, taught by Moses first. Allegorist, Platonist, envoy to the emperor Caligula.

    30 works · 2,924 passages grounded