Notable Philosophers and Thinkers
This list is comprised of some of the most recognizable names from the world of philosophy. Also included are mathematicians, theologians and those associated with the humanities and social science. However, those considered to be more in the camp of experimental science or invention are listed with the famous scientists.
| Name | Lifespan | Other Names | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoroaster | ?-1xxx BC |  | |
| Thales | c. 624-c. 546 BC | | |
| Anaximander | c. 610-c. 546 BC | | |
| Anaximenes of Miletus | c. 585-c. 528 BC | | |
| Pythagoras | c. 580-500 BC | | |
| Xenophanes of Colophon | c. 570-c. 475 BC | | |
| Gautama Buddha | c. 563-c. 483 BC | | |
| Confucius | c. 551-479 BC | (Kong) | |
| Laozi | ?-5xx BC | | |
| Hecataeus of Miletus | c. 550-c. 476 BC | | |
| Sun Tzu | c. 544-c. 496 BC | | |
| Heraclitus of Ephesus | c. 535-c. 475 BC | | |
| Parmenides of Elea | c. 515-c. 450 BC | | |
| Anaxagoras | c. 500-428 BC | | |
| Empedocles | c. 490-430 BC | | |
| Zeno of Elea | c. 490-c. 430 BC | | |
| Protagoras | c. 490-c. 420 BC | | |
| Gorgias | c. 485-c. 380 BC | | |
| Herodotus | c. 484-425 BC | | |
| Socrates | c. 470-399 BC | | |
| Mo Di | c. 470-c. 391 BC | | |
| Thucydides | c. 460-c. 395 BC | | |
| Democritus | c. 460-c. 370 BC | | |
| Panini | ?-4xx BC | | |
| Archytas | 428-347 BC | | |
| Xenophon | c. 427-c. 355 BC | | |
| Plato | c. 427-347 BC | | |
| Diogenes of Sinope | c. 412-323 BC | | |
| Aristotle | 384-322 BC | | |
| Meng Ke | c. 372-c. 289 BC | | |
| Pyrrho | c. 360-c. 270 BC | | |
| Epicurus | 341-270 BC | | |
| Zeno of Citium | c. 334-c. 262 BC | | |
| Euclid | c. 330-275 BC | | |
| Archimedes | c. 287-c. 212 BC | | |
| Eratosthenes of Cyrene | c. 276-c. 195 BC | | |
| Apollonius of Perga | c. 262-c. 190 BC | | |
| Manetho | ?-2xx BC | | |
| Polybius | c. 200-c. 118 BC | | |
| Hipparchus of Nicaea | c. 190-c. 120 BC | | |
| Sima Qian | c. 145-86 BC | (Szu-ma) | |
| Lucretius | c. 99-c. 55 BC | (Carus) | |
| Sallust | 86-c. 35 BC | (Sallustius, Crispus) | |
| Livy | c. 64 BC-17 | (Livius, Patavinus) | |
| Strabo | c. 64 BC-c. 24 | | |
| Diodorus Siculus | ?-0xx BC | | |
| Philo | c. 20 BC-c. 50 | | |
| Jesus Christ | c. 4 BC-c. 33 | | |
| Seneca the Younger | 4 BC-65 | | |
| Hero of Alexandria | 10-70 | | |
| Josephus | 37-c. 100 | (Flavius) | |
| Plutarch | c. 46-120 | (Mestrius, Plutarchus) | |
| Epictetus | c. 55-c. 135 | | |
| Tacitus | c. 56-c. 117 | (Cornelius) | |
| Suetonius | 69-122 | (Tranquillus) | |
| Appian of Alexandria | 95-165 | | |
| Ptolemy | c. 100-c. 168 | (Ptolemaeus) | |
| Pausanias | 110-180 | | |
| Marcus Aurelius | 121-180 | | |
| Atticus | 1xx-? | | |
| Nagarjuna | c. 150-250 | | |
| Lucius Cassius Dio | c. 155-c. 235 | | |
| Tertullian | c. 160-c. 225 | (Septimius, Florens, Tertullianus) | |
| Ulpian | c. 170-223 | (Domitius, Annius, Ulpianus) | |
| Origen | 184-253 | | |
| Plotinus | c. 205-270 | | |
| Diophantus of Alexandria | c. 205-c. 290 | | |
| Mani | 216-274 | | |
| Lactantius | c. 250-c. 325 | (Caecilius, Firmianus) | |
| Ammianus Marcellinus | c. 325-c. 391 | | |
| Augustine of Hippo | 354-430 | | |
| Hypatia of Alexandria | c. 370-415 | | |
| Aryabhata | 476-550 | | |
| Boethius | 480-524 | | |
| Procopius of Caesarea | 500-565 | | |
| Mazdak | ?-c. 524 | | |
| Gregory of Tours | c. 538-594 | | |
| Jordanes | ?-5xx | | |
| Isidore of Seville | 560-636 | | |
| Muhammad | 570-632 | | |
| Ja'far al-Sadiq | 702-765 | | |
| Al-Shafi'i | 767-820 | | |
| Einhard | c. 775-840 | | |
| Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi | c. 780-850 | (Algoritmi) | |
| Ahmad ibn Hanbal | 780-855 | | |
| Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Kindi | 801-873 | | |
| Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Razi | 865-925 | (Rhazes) | |
| Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi | c. 872-c. 950 | (Alpharabius, Farabi) | |
| al-Masudi | 896-956 | | |
| Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina | 980-1037 | | |
| Anselm of Canterbury | 1033-1109 | | |
| Omar Khayyám | 1048-1131 | | |
| Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali | 1058-1111 | (Algazel) | |
| Rupert of Deutz | c. 1075-1129 | | |
| Pierre Abélard | 1079-1142 | | |
| Muhammad al-Idrisi | 1099-c. 1165 | | |
| Geoffrey of Monmouth | c. 1100-c. 1155 | | |
| Héloïse | c. 1100-1163 | | |
| Abu l-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd | 1126-1198 | | |
| Moses Maimonides | 1135-1204 | | |
| Fibonacci | c. 1170-c. 1250 | (Bonacci) | |
| Francis of Assisi | c. 1182-1226 | | |
| Thomas Aquinas | 1225-1274 | | |
| John Duns Scotus | c. 1266-1308 | | |
| William of Ockham | c. 1287-1347 | | |
| Ibn Khaldun | 1332-1406 | | |
| Jan Hus | c. 1370-1415 | | |
| Nicholas of Cusa | 1401-1464 | | |
| Luca Pacioli | c. 1447-1517 | | |
| Desiderius Erasmus | 1466-1536 | | |
| Niccolò Machiavelli | 1469-1527 | (Machiavel) | |
| Thomas More | 1478-1535 | | |
| Martin Luther | 1483-1546 | | |
| Gerolamo Cardano | 1501-1576 | | |
| Jean Chauvin | 1509-1564 | (Calvin) | |
| Gerardus Mercator | 1512-1594 | | |
| Josias Simmler | 1530-1576 | (Simler) | |
| Florimond de Raemond | 1540-1601 | (de Rémond) | |
| Guidobaldo del Monte | 1545-1607 | | |
| Giordano Bruno | 1548-1600 | | |
| John Napier | 1550-1617 | | |
| Francis Bacon | 1561-1626 | | |
| Franciscus Gomarus | 1563-1641 | (Gomaer) | |
| Willebrord Snellius | 1580-1626 | (Snel van Royen) | |
| Hugo Grotius | 1583-1645 | | |
| Thomas Hobbes | 1588-1679 | | |
| Jan Amos Komenský | 1592-1670 | (Comenius) | |
| René Descartes | 1596-1650 | | |
| Florimond de Beaune | 1601-1652 | | |
| Pierre de Fermat | 1607-1665 | | |
| Blaise Pascal | 1623-1662 | | |
| Giovanni Domenico Cassini | 1625-1712 | | |
| Christiaan Huygens | 1629-1695 | | |
| John Locke | 1632-1704 | | |
| Baruch Spinoza | 1632-1677 | | |
| James Gregory | 1638-1675 | | |
| Isaac Newton | 1642-1727 | | |
| Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | 1646-1716 | | |
| George Berkeley | 1685-1753 | | |
| Hakuin Ekaku | 1686-1769 | | |
| Charles de Secondat | 1689-1755 | | |
| François-Marie Arouet "Voltaire" | 1694-1778 | (Voltaire) | |
| Daniel Bernoulli | 1700-1782 | | |
| Leonhard Euler | 1707-1783 | | |
| David Hume | 1711-1776 | | |
| Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 1712-1778 | | |
| Denis Diderot | 1713-1784 | | |
| Jean Le Rond d'Alembert | 1717-1783 | | |
| Johann Joachim Winckelmann | 1717-1768 | | |
| Maria Gaetana Agnesi | 1718-1799 | | |
| Adam Smith | 1723-1790 | | |
| Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach | 1723-1789 | (Dietrich) | |
| Immanuel Kant | 1724-1804 | | |
| David Rittenhouse | 1732-1796 | | |
| Joseph Louis Lagrange | 1736-1813 | (Lagrangia) | |
| Jeremy Bentham | 1748-1832 | | |
| Pierre-Simon Laplace | 1749-1827 | | |
| Mary Wollstonecraft | 1759-1797 | | |
| Johann Gottlieb Fichte | 1762-1814 | | |
| Nikolay Karamzin | 1766-1826 | | |
| Thomas Robert Malthus | 1766-1834 | | |
| Joseph Fourier | 1768-1830 | | |
| Alexander von Humboldt | 1769-1859 | | |
| Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel | 1770-1831 | | |
| David Ricardo | 1772-1823 | | |
| Sophie Germain | 1776-1831 | | |
| Carl Friedrich Gauss | 1777-1855 | | |
| Carl Ritter | 1779-1859 | | |
| Rasmus Rask | 1787-1832 | | |
| Arthur Schopenhauer | 1788-1860 | | |
| Augustin-Louis Cauchy | 1789-1857 | | |
| Jean-François Champollion | 1790-1832 | | |
| Charles Babbage | 1791-1871 | | |
| Nikolai Lobachevsky | 1792-1856 | | |
| Auguste Comte | 1798-1857 | | |
| Jules Michelet | 1798-1874 | | |
| Niels Henrik Abel | 1802-1829 | | |
| Zerah Colburn | 1804-1839 | | |
| Alexis de Tocqueville | 1805-1859 | (Clérel, Tocqueville) | |
| Ferdinand Minding | 1806-1885 | | |
| John Stuart Mill | 1806-1873 | | |
| Ljudevit Gaj | 1809-1872 | (Gay) | |
| Urbain Le Verrier | 1811-1877 | | |
| Évariste Galois | 1811-1832 | | |
| Ludwig von Strümpell | 1812-1899 | (Strümpell) | |
| Søren Kierkegaard | 1813-1855 | | |
| George Boole | 1815-1864 | | |
| Ada Lovelace | 1815-1852 | | |
| Henry David Thoreau | 1817-1862 | | |
| Theodor Mommsen | 1817-1903 | | |
| Karl Marx | 1818-1883 | | |
| Friedrich Engels | 1820-1895 | | |
| Karl Knies | 1821-1898 | | |
| Max Müller | 1823-1900 | | |
| Bernhard Riemann | 1826-1866 | | |
| Graziadio Isaia Ascoli | 1829-1907 | | |
| Wilhelm Wundt | 1832-1920 | | |
| Charles Sanders Peirce | 1839-1914 | | |
| William James | 1842-1910 | | |
| Alfred Marshall | 1842-1924 | | |
| Pyotr Kropotkin | 1842-1921 | | |
| Edward Carpenter | 1844-1929 | | |
| Friedrich Nietzsche | 1844-1900 | | |
| Georg Cantor | 1845-1918 | | |
| Rudolf Christoph Eucken | 1846-1926 | | |
| Karl Verner | 1846-1896 | (Werner) | |
| Vilfredo Pareto | 1848-1923 | | |
| Gottlob Frege | 1848-1925 | | |
| Sofya Kovalevskaya | 1850-1891 | | |
| Adolf von Harnack | 1851-1930 | (Harnack) | |
| Adolf Noreen | 1854-1925 | | |
| Henri Poincaré | 1854-1912 | | |
| Sigmund Freud | 1856-1939 | | |
| Ferdinand de Saussure | 1857-1913 | | |
| Georg Simmel | 1858-1918 | | |
| Émile Durkheim | 1858-1917 | | |
| Adolf Hurwitz | 1859-1919 | | |
| Edmund Husserl | 1859-1938 | | |
| Henri Bergson | 1859-1941 | | |
| John Dewey | 1859-1952 | | |
| L. L. Zamenhof | 1859-1917 | | |
| Alfred North Whitehead | 1861-1947 | | |
| Rudolf Steiner | 1861-1925 | | |
| David Hilbert | 1862-1943 | | |
| George Santayana | 1863-1952 | | |
| Max Weber | 1864-1920 | | |
| Ferdo Šišić | 1869-1940 | | |
| Emma Goldman | 1869-1940 | | |
| Alfred Adler | 1870-1937 | | |
| Bertrand Russell | 1872-1970 | | |
| G. E. Moore | 1873-1958 | | |
| Albert Schweitzer | 1875-1965 | | |
| Carl Jung | 1875-1961 | | |
| Hjalmar Schacht | 1877-1970 | | |
| G. H. Hardy | 1877-1947 | | |
| Emmy Noether | 1882-1935 | | |
| Arthur Eddington | 1882-1944 | | |
| Joseph Schumpeter | 1883-1950 | | |
| John Maynard Keynes | 1883-1946 | | |
| Adolf Reinach | 1883-1917 | | |
| Leonida Tonelli | 1885-1946 | | |
| Alain Locke | 1885-1954 | | |
| Karl Barth | 1886-1968 | | |
| Srinivasa Ramanujan | 1887-1920 | | |
| Arnold J. Toynbee | 1889-1975 | | |
| Ludwig Wittgenstein | 1889-1951 | | |
| Martin Heidegger | 1889-1976 | | |
| Abraham Fraenkel | 1891-1965 | | |
| Stefan Banach | 1892-1945 | | |
| Norbert Wiener | 1894-1964 | | |
| Ragnar Frisch | 1895-1973 | | |
| Anna Freud | 1895-1982 | | |
| Jean Piaget | 1896-1980 | | |
| Lev Vygotsky | 1896-1934 | | |
| Wilhelm Reich | 1897-1957 | | |
| Norbert Elias | 1897-1990 | | |
| Georges Dumézil | 1898-1986 | | |
| Gunnar Myrdal | 1898-1987 | | |
| Friedrich Hayek | 1899-1992 | | |
| Peter Wessel Zapffe | 1899-1990 | | |
| Erich Fromm | 1900-1980 | | |
| Haskell Curry | 1900-1982 | | |
| Jacques Lacan | 1901-1981 | | |
| Simon Kuznets | 1901-1985 | | |
| Carl Rogers | 1902-1987 | | |
| Erik Erikson | 1902-1994 | | |
| Karl Popper | 1902-1994 | | |
| Talcott Parsons | 1902-1979 | | |
| Jan Tinbergen | 1903-1994 | | |
| Andrey Kolmogorov | 1903-1987 | | |
| Theodor W. Adorno | 1903-1969 | | |
| John von Neumann | 1903-1957 | (Neumann) | |
| B. F. Skinner | 1904-1990 | | |
| Joseph Campbell | 1904-1987 | | |
| Raymond Aron | 1905-1983 | | |
| Viktor Frankl | 1905-1997 | | |
| Jean-Paul Sartre | 1905-1980 | | |
| Kurt Gödel | 1906-1978 | | |
| Wassily Leontief | 1906-1999 | | |
| Hannah Arendt | 1906-1975 | | |
| Mircea Eliade | 1907-1986 | | |
| Abraham Maslow | 1908-1970 | | |
| Simone de Beauvoir | 1908-1986 | | |
| Willard Van Orman Quine | 1908-2000 | | |
| Robert K. Merton | 1910-2003 | | |
| Emil Cioran | 1911-1995 | | |
| Maurice Allais | 1911-2010 | | |
| Leonid Kantorovich | 1912-1986 | | |
| Alan Turing | 1912-1954 | | |
| Milton Friedman | 1912-2006 | | |
| Paul Erdős | 1913-1996 | | |
| Albert Camus | 1913-1960 | | |
| Paul Samuelson | 1915-2009 | | |
| Claude Shannon | 1916-2001 | | |
| Katherine Johnson | 1918-2020 | (Coleman) | |
| Lotfi A. Zadeh | 1921-2017 | | |
| Kenneth Arrow | 1921-2017 | | |
| Erving Goffman | 1922-1982 | | |
| Thomas Kuhn | 1922-1996 | | |
| Freeman Dyson | 1923-2020 | | |
| Benoit Mandelbrot | 1924-2010 | | |
| Vahakn Dadrian | 1926-2019 | | |
| Michel Foucault | 1926-1984 | | |
| John Forbes Nash Jr. | 1928-2015 | | |
| Noam Chomsky | 1928- | | |
| Sandra Day O'Connor | 1930-2023 | | |
| Jacques Derrida | 1930-2004 | | |
| Pierre Bourdieu | 1930-2002 | | |
| Svetozar Stojanović | 1931-2010 | | |
| Ruth Bader Ginsburg | 1933-2020 | | |
| Philip Zimbardo | 1933-2024 | | |
| Elinor Ostrom | 1933-2012 | | |
| Stanley Milgram | 1933-1984 | | |
| Amartya Sen | 1933- | | |
| Daniel Kahneman | 1934- | | |
| Helmuth Nyborg | 1937- | | |
| Donald Knuth | 1938- | | |
| Anthony Giddens | 1938- | | |
| Fatema Mernissi | 1940-2015 | | |
| Joseph Stiglitz | 1943- | | |
| Janet Yellen | 1946- | | |
| Martha Nussbaum | 1947- | | |
| Slavoj Žižek | 1949- | | |
| Christopher Hitchens | 1949-2011 | | |
| Hew Strachan | 1949- | | |
| Edward Witten | 1951- | | |
| Paul Krugman | 1953- | | |
| Andrew Wiles | 1953- | | |
| Jean Tirole | 1953- | | |
| Kristalina Georgieva | 1953- | (Kinova) | |
| Ben Bernanke | 1953- | | |
| Judith Butler | 1956- | | |
| Nouriel Roubini | 1958- | | |
| Jordan Peterson | 1962- | | |
| Grigori Perelman | 1966- | | |
| David Benatar | 1966- | | |
| Oriol Junqueras i Vies | 1969- | | |
| Esther Duflo | 1972- | | |
| Geordie Williamson | 1981- | |