Pythagoras →Friedrich Nietzsche

Start Ancient

1 of 9

…

Pythagoras

c. 570 BCE – c. 495 BCE

Pythagoras of Samos founded one of the most influential intellectual and religious movements in the ancient world. He established a community in Croton (southern Italy) devoted to mathematical and philosophical inquiry intertwined …

Ancient

2 of 9

…

Plato

c. 428 BCE – c. 348 BCE

Plato of Athens is, together with his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle, one of the three foundational figures of Western philosophy. He founded the Academy — the first institution of higher …

Read next Apology 395 BCE Crito 395 BCE

Ancient

3 of 9

…

Aristotle

384 BCE – 322 BCE

Aristotle of Stagira is, alongside Plato, one of the two most influential philosophers in the Western tradition. He studied at Plato's Academy for twenty years, then founded his own school, the Lyceum. …

Read next Prior Analytics 350 BCE Posterior Analytics 350 BCE

Islamic Golden Age

4 of 9

…

Maimonides

1138 – 1204

Moses ben Maimon — known as Maimonides or by his Hebrew acronym Rambam — was the greatest Jewish philosopher of the medieval period and one of the most important Jewish thinkers of …

Read next Commentary on the Mishnah 1168 Mishneh Torah 1180

Early Modern

5 of 9

…

Baruch Spinoza

1632 – 1677

Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin whose radical metaphysics, uncompromising rationalism, and scandalous identification of God with Nature made him the most controversial and, in the eyes …

Read next The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy 1663 Theological-Political Treatise 1670

Early Modern

6 of 9

…

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

1646 – 1716

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German polymath — philosopher, mathematician, logician, diplomat, and universal scholar — whose staggering range of achievement makes him one of the most formidable intellects in human history. …

Read next Discourse on Metaphysics 1686 Theodicy 1710

Early Modern

7 of 9

…

Immanuel Kant

1724 – 1804

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher whose critical philosophy represents the most ambitious and systematic attempt in the history of Western thought to determine the scope and limits of human reason. His …

Read next Critique of Pure Reason 1781 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 1785

Modern

8 of 9

…

Arthur Schopenhauer

1788 – 1860

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher whose pessimistic metaphysics, grounding all of reality in a blind, purposeless Will, offered a radical alternative to the optimistic systems of German Idealism. His masterwork The …

Read next On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason 1813 The World as Will and Representation 1818

Destination Modern

9 of 9

…

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844 – 1900

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic, and poet whose radical reassessment of morality, truth, and the meaning of existence made him one of the most provocative and influential thinkers in …

Read The Birth of Tragedy 1872 The Gay Science 1882