Philosopher

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking

Who is Stephen Hawking? Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death. He was the Lucasian Professor of...

Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

Who is Émile Durkheim? David Emile Durkheim (15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline of sociology and—with W. E. B. Du Bois, Karl Marx and Max Weber—is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science. Much of Durkheim’s work was concerned with how societies could maintain...

Erasmus

Erasmus

Who Is Erasmus? Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch philosopher and Christian humanist who is widely considered to have been the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance. Originally trained as a Catholic priest, Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship...

Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley

Who Is Thomas Henry Huxley? Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He is known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin‘s theory of evolution. The stories regarding Huxley‘s famous debate in 1860 with Samuel Wilberforce were a key moment in the...

Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead

Who Is Alfred North Whitehead? Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics,...

John Searle

John Searle

Who Is John Searle? John Rogers Searle (born 31 July 1932) is an American philosopher. He was Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language and Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. Widely noted for his contributions to the...

Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in an attempt to justify God's existence in light of the apparent imperfections of the world.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz (Leibnitz, Godefroi Guillaume Leibnitz; 1 July 1646 – 14 November 1716) was a prominent German polymath and one of the most important logicians, mathematicians and natural philosophers of the Enlightenment. As a representative of the seventeenth-century tradition of rationalism, Leibniz’s most prominent accomplishment was conceiving...

Xenophanes

Xenophanes

Who Is Xenophanes? Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570 – c. 475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Xenophanes lived a life of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 and continuing to travel throughout the Greek world for another 67 years. Some scholars say he lived in exile in Sicily....

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard

Who Is Søren Kierkegaard? Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for...

Portrait de René Descartes, en buste, de 3/4 dirigé à gauche dans une bordure ovale.

René Descartes

Who Is René Descartes? René Descartes (Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years (1629–1649) of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States...

Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Who Is Auguste Comte? Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte is also seen as...

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius

Who Is Marcus Aurelius? Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace...

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Who Is Arthur Schopenhauer? Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Proceeding from the transcendental...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Who Is Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought. His Discourse...

Thinking Man

Philosopher

Who Is A Philosopher? In the classical sense, a philosopher was someone who lived according to a certain way of life, focusing on resolving existential questions about the human condition, and not someone who discourses upon theories or comments upon authors. Typically, these particular brands of philosophy are Hellenistic ones and those who most...

Epicurus

Epicureanism

What Is Epicureanism? Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Who Is Jean-Paul Sartre? Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century...

John Dewey

John Dewey

Who Is John Dewey? John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He is regarded as one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century....

Bust of Ibn Khaldoun in the entrance of the Kasbah of Bejaia, Algeria

Ibn Khaldun

Who Is Ibn Khaldun? Ibn Khaldun (أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي‎, Abū Zayd ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406) was a leading Arab historiographer and historian. He is widely considered as a forerunner of the modern disciplines of historiography,...