Philosophers

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Swami Vivekananda

1863 – 1902

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, and disciple of Sri Ramakrishna who became the foremost interpreter of Vedanta philosophy for the modern …

Max Weber

1864 – 1920
Modern

Max Weber was a German sociologist, historian, and political economist whose work on the methodology of the social sciences, the sociology of religion, bureaucracy, and …

Benedetto Croce

1866 – 1952

Benedetto Croce was the dominant Italian intellectual of the first half of the twentieth century, a philosopher of spirit whose systematic idealism encompassed aesthetics, logic, …

Vladimir Lenin

1870 – 1924
Modern

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian revolutionary, political theorist, and the principal architect of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. As a philosopher, Lenin developed a …

Nishida Kitaro

1870 – 1945
Modern

Nishida Kitaro was a Japanese philosopher and the founder of the Kyoto School, whose concept of 'pure experience' and later 'logic of place' (basho) represent …

D.T. Suzuki

1870 – 1966

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (1870–1966) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar and philosopher who almost single-handedly introduced Zen Buddhism to the Western world, making him one of …

Rosa Luxemburg

1871 – 1919

Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish-German Marxist revolutionary theorist and political activist whose *The Accumulation of Capital* (1913) offered an original and controversial economic theory arguing …

Bertrand Russell

1872 – 1970
Modern

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual whose contributions to mathematical logic, the philosophy of language, epistemology, and political activism made …

Sri Aurobindo

1872 – 1950

Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, poet, and nationalist who developed one of the twentieth century's most ambitious and original philosophical systems: …

G. E. Moore

1873 – 1958
Modern

G.E. Moore was a British philosopher whose commitment to common sense, meticulous analysis of philosophical concepts, and rigorous argumentative style made him one of the …

Ernst Cassirer

1874 – 1945

Ernst Cassirer was the last great representative of the Marburg Neo-Kantian school and the most ambitious philosopher of culture of the twentieth century, whose three-volume …

Max Scheler

1874 – 1928

Max Scheler was the most original German phenomenologist after Husserl, whose *Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values* (1913–1916) offered a systematic alternative to …

José Vasconcelos

1882 – 1959

José Vasconcelos was a Mexican philosopher, educator, and statesman whose visionary synthesis of aesthetics, metaphysics, and racial theory produced one of the most ambitious philosophies …

Hajime Tanabe

1885 – 1962

Hajime Tanabe (1885–1962) was a Japanese philosopher and the second major thinker of the Kyoto School, who initially developed a neo-Kantian and Hegelian social ontology …

Martin Heidegger

1889 – 1976
Modern

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher whose investigation of the 'question of Being' (Seinsfrage) made him one of the most important and controversial thinkers of …

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1889 – 1951
Modern

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who is widely considered the most important philosopher of the 20th century. He produced two revolutionary philosophies in a …

Antonio Gramsci

1891 – 1937
Modern

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, political theorist, and communist leader whose concept of cultural hegemony — the mechanism by which a ruling class …

Rudolf Carnap

1891 – 1970
Modern

Rudolf Carnap was a German-American philosopher who was the leading figure of logical positivism and one of the most important philosophers of science of the …

B.R. Ambedkar

1891 – 1956

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer, and philosopher whose lifelong intellectual and political battle against the caste system produced one of …

Walter Benjamin

1892 – 1940
Modern

Walter Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist whose unique synthesis of Marxism, Jewish messianism, and modernist aesthetics produced some of the …

José Carlos Mariátegui

1894 – 1930

José Carlos Mariátegui was a Peruvian Marxist intellectual and political organizer whose 'Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality' (1928) remains the most original work of …

Max Horkheimer

1895 – 1973
Modern

Max Horkheimer was a German philosopher and sociologist who, as director of the Institute for Social Research (the Frankfurt School), developed critical theory — a …

Herbert Marcuse

1898 – 1979
Contemporary

Herbert Marcuse was a German-American philosopher and critical theorist who became the most politically influential member of the Frankfurt School, particularly during the 1960s counterculture. …

Hans-Georg Gadamer

1900 – 2002
Contemporary

Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher whose magnum opus Truth and Method developed philosophical hermeneutics — the theory of understanding and interpretation — into a …

244 philosophers

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