Greek philosopher. Aristotle's father, Nicomachus, was a noted physician. Aristotle studied (367–347 B.C.) under Plato at the Academy and there wrote many dialogues that were praised for their eloquence.

Ancient writers believed that Democritus was the student of Leucippus. They are associated together as the first philosophers to hypothesize that invisible material objects—atoms—make up the universe.

Greek philosopher, b. Samos; son of an Athenian colonist. He claimed to be self-taught, although tradition states that he was schooled in the systems of Plato and Democritus by his father and various philosophers.

Greek philosopher. Plato's teachings have been among the most influential in the history of Western civilization.

Neoplatonist philosopher. A native of Egypt, perhaps of Roman descent, he went to Alexandria c.232 to devote himself to philosophy.

Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, founder of the Pythagorean school. He migrated from his native Samos to Crotona and established a secret religious society or order similar to, and possibly influenced by, the earlier Orphic cult.

Greek philosopher of Athens, famous for his view of philosophy as a pursuit proper and necessary to all intelligent men.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Scholastic philosopher, Doctor of the Church, called the Universal Doctor.

From Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia
Franciscan philosopher and theologian, whose thought represents the last great synthesis of the high Middle Ages. Through his doctrines on freedom, epistemology, and anthropology, among others.

Theologian, born near Nantes, W France. He studied under Roscellinus and Guillaume de Champeaux (c.1070–1171). MORE

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Saint, called Anselm of Canterbury, Italian-born English philosophical theologian.

Italian theologian, scholastic philosopher, and Dominican friar, whose works include Summa contra Gentiles (1259-64) and Summa Theologiae (1267-73), the first attempt at a comprehensive theological system.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Dutch humanist, b. Rotterdam. He was ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church and studied at the Univ. of Paris. Erasmus' influence began to be felt in Europe after 1500.

Italian philosopher, b. Nola. He entered the Dominican order early in his youth but was accused of heresy and fled (c.1576) to take up a career of study and travel.

Italian author and statesman, one of the outstanding figures of the Renaissance, b. Florence.

More was born in London on 7 February 1478, and executed on Tower Hill in the same city on 6 July 1535.

Italian philosopher and Dominican friar. During his imprisonment by the Spaniards (1599-1626) he wrote his celebrated utopian fantasy, La città del sole.

Hume was born David Home on 7 May 1711 in Edinburgh, and died there on 25 August 1776.

English philosopher, politician, and writer, a founder of modern scientific research. His works include Essays (1597, revised and augmented 1612 and 1625), characterized by pith and brevity; The Advancement of Learning (1605), a seminal work discussing scientific method; Novum Organum (1620), in which he redefined the task of natural science.

Irish philosopher and cleric. Drawing on the empiricism of John Locke, he argued that there is no existence independent of subjective perception (esse est percipi).

German philosopher and mathematician who was one of the founders of the differential calculus and symbolic logic.

German metaphysician, one of the greatest figures in philosophy. German idealist philosopher. He sought to determine the limits of man's knowledge in Critique of Pure Reason (1781).

Swiss philosopher and writer who held that the individual is essentially good but usually corrupted by society. His written works include The Social Contract and Émile (both 1762).

Locke was born on 29 August 1632 at Wrington, Somerset, into a Puritan family of the minor gentry.

French philosopher and mathematician who worked in attempting to reduce the physical sciences to purely mathematical principles.

Hobbes was born at Westport (now a part of Malmesbury), Wiltshire on 5 April 1588. He died 4 December 1679 at Hardwick, Derbyshire.

French philosopher, founder of the school of philosophy known as positivism , educated in Paris.

American philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who cofounded pragmatism, made many contributions to logic, and was one of the original developers of semiotics.

Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, first came to prominence through the publication of his Logical Investigations.

German philosopher; put forward the concepts of the superman and the death of God in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85); one of the precursors of existentialism.

German idealist philosopher who interpreted nature and human history and culture as expressions of a dialectical process in which Spirit, or Mind, realizes its full potentiality. MORE

French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist; chief French exponent of atheistic existentialism.

British philosopher and jurist: a founder of utilitarianism.

British philosopher and economist known especially for his interpretations of empiricism and utilitarianism...

British philosopher born in Austria; explored language and meaning; influenced logical positivism.

German existentialist philosopher: he expounded his ontological system in Being and Time (1927).

Danish philosopher and religious thinker. Kierkegaard's outwardly uneventful life in Copenhagen contrasted with his intensive inner examination of self and society.

Religion and philosophy founded in India c.525 B.C. by Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha. There are over 300 million Buddhists worldwide.

From The Encyclopedia of Ethics
Commonly regarded as the greatest Neo-Confucian philosopher, Chu Hsi lived in the Sung Dynasty (960 to 1279).

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Chinese Taoist writer. Little is known about his life. He was a native of the state of Meng, on the border of present-day Shandong and Henan provinces, and is said to have lived as a hermit.

Dalai Lama is the title given to the one who enjoys the highest spiritual rank in Lamaism, a Tibetan form of Buddhism introduced into Tibet in the seventh century A.D.

From The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics
Lao Tzu seems to have been a contemporary of CONFUCIUS (sixth to fifth century BCE), and is traditionally viewed as the author of the classic of TAOISM, the Tao Te Ching, or the ‘Classic of the Way and Its Power’.

Chinese Confucian philosopher. The principal source for Mencius' life is his own writings. He was born in the ancient state of Ch'ao, in modern Shandong province.

Ghandi mobilized the largest nonviolent mass movement known in world history under the banner of satyagraha—the active pursuit of truth through love and nonviolence (ahimsa). Gandhi’s ideas of truth and justice have contributed immensely to the development of moral and political thought, and his demonstrations of the positive and revolutionary power of nonviolence has had a worldwide impact.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Hindu mystic. He was born of a poor Brahman family in Bengal, and his given name was Gadadhar Chatterjee.

Feom Chamber's Biographical Dictionary
Tenzin Gyatso was born into a peasant family in Taktser, Amdo province, and was designated the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama by the monks of Lhasa in 1937.

Danish philosopher and religious thinker. Kierkegaard's outwardly uneventful life in Copenhagen contrasted with his intensive inner examination of self and society.

German philosopher; put forward the concepts of the superman and the death of God in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85); one of the precursors of existentialism.

Russian novelist. Remarkable for their profound psychological insight, Dostoevsky's novels have greatly influenced Russian writers, and since the beginning of the 20th century have been increasingly influential abroad.

Czech novelist writing in German. In his two main novels The Trial (1925) and The Castle (1926), published posthumously against his wishes, he portrays man's fear, isolation, and bewilderment in a nightmarish dehumanized world.

French novelist, dramatist, and essayist, noted for his pessimistic portrayal of man's condition of isolation in an absurd world.

French writer noted for his diaries and novels, such as The Immoralist (1902) and Lafcadio's Adventures (1914), which examine alienation and the drive for individuality in an often disapproving society.

French philosopher and playwright, a major representative of French existential thought.

German psychiatrist, philosopher, and theologian. A founder of modern existentialism, he was concerned with human reactions to extreme situations.

Spanish philosopher and writer. His novels, poetry, and philosophical studies, such as The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) often address the conflict between reason and faith and the solitary nature of human existence.

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Russian religious thinker. He began as a “Kantian Marxist” in epistemology, ethical theory, and philosophy of history, but soon turned away from Marxism (although he continued to accept Marx’s critique of capitalism) toward a theistic philosophy of existence.

Samuel Beckett achieved worldwide fame in 1953 with his play Waiting for Godot. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 and was a hugely influential figure in twentieth-century drama.

Theologian and philosopher of religion, born in Renfrew, Renfrewshire, W Scotland, UK.

Swiss Protestant theologian who advocated a return to the principles of the Reformation and the teachings of the Bible.

Jewish theologian, existentialist philosopher, and scholar of Hasidism, born in Austria, whose works include I and Thou (1923), Between Man and Man (1946), and Eclipse of God (1952).

American philosopher and theologian, b. Germany, educated at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, Halle, and Breslau. In 1912 he was ordained a minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He taught theology at the universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, and Leipzig and philosophy at the Univ. of Frankfurt until he was dismissed in 1933 because of his opposition to the Nazi regime.

American religious and social thinker. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, he served as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, where he became deeply interested in social problems.

German Lutheran theologian and New Testament scholar. He was a professor at Marburg University 1921-51, and during the Third Reich played a leading role in the Confessing Church, a Protestant anti-Nazi movement.

Danish philosopher and religious thinker. Kierkegaard's outwardly uneventful life in Copenhagen contrasted with his intensive inner examination of self and society.

Edith Stein’s philosophical work falls into two parts, the earlier phenomenology which took its impetus from her years as personal assistant to Husserl, responsible for the editing and transcription of his notes, and her later, Thomist writings.

Lithuanian-born French philosopher. He studied with the German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl, and helped to introduce phenomenology into France in the 1930s.

French philosopher and playwright, a major representative of French existential thought.

German existentialist philosopher: he expounded his ontological system in Being and Time (1927).

Merleau-Ponty has been presented both as a phenomenologist and as an existentialist, but a study of his thought reveals the limited utility of general labels of this kind.

The early years of Scheler’s philosophical career were spent in Jena, which at that time was dominated by idealism of the neo-Kantian variety. However the study of Husserl’s Logical Investigations converted him to phenomenology, which he interpreted as essentially realist in character.

The first stage in Paul Ricoeur’s thought, reinforced by his study of the works of Jaspers in a prisoner of war camp in Germany during the Second World War, is existentialist.