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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%

3 philosophers match

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.

3 in the arena

  1. Nāgārjuna

    150–250

    Sutra and Classical

    Nāgārjuna argued that nothing, not even nirvana, exists by a nature of its own. Founder of Madhyamaka, Buddhism's school of the middle way.

    2 works · 254 passages grounded

  2. 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

  3. Śāntideva

    685–763

    Sutra and Classical

    Śāntideva argued that pain has no owner, so another's suffering weighs as much as one's own. Author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, a Mahāyāna Buddhist classic.

    2 works · 839 passages grounded