Philosophers

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment. His contributions to political philosophy, epistemology, education, and theology laid …

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist, widely regarded as one of the most significant figures of the British Enlightenment. His work spanned epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, religion, aesthetics, …

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is widely regarded as one of the most extraordinary polymaths in Western intellectual history. Philosopher, mathematician, logician, scientist, inventor, statesman, and music theorist, Leibniz contributed critically to …

René Descartes was a mathematician, scientist, and philosopher whose work laid the groundwork for much of modern Western thought. His intellectual contributions—from analytic geometry to radical skepticism—have had a profound …

Thomas Hobbes was one of the most influential political philosophers of the early modern period. Best known for his masterpiece Leviathan (1651), Hobbes laid the groundwork for social contract theory …

Baruch Spinoza, also known by his Latinized name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a Dutch philosopher whose radical ideas laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. His system—outlined …

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) stands as one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of the 20th century. His trailblazing work reoriented the course of continental philosophy by returning to the …

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) stands as one of the towering figures in Western philosophy. A German philosopher of the early 19th century, Hegel is best known for his work …

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, and social critic, widely regarded as the father of existentialism. Although largely unrecognized in his own time, Kierkegaard’s writings addressed …

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, and revolutionary whose ideas fundamentally reshaped political theory and practice in the modern world. Often considered the father of communism, …

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was one of the most important British philosophers and political thinkers of the 19th century. He is widely regarded as a towering figure in the development …

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) stands out in the history of philosophy for his deeply original, often bleak, yet powerfully insightful system of thought. Often labeled the “philosopher of pessimism,” Schopenhauer constructed …