Thinkers

81 people, in date order

• Thales of Miletus c. 624–c. 546 BCE, philosopher
• Laozi c. 571–c. 471 BCE, philosopher
• Pythagoras c. 570–c. 495 BCE, philosopher
• Confucius 551–479 BCE, philosopher
• Sun Tzu c. 544–c. 496 BCE, military strategist
• Heraclitus c. 535–c. 475 BCE, philosopher
• Parmenides Born c. 515 BCE, philosopher
• Socrates c. 470–399 BCE, philosopher
• Democritus c. 460–c. 370 BCE, philosopher
• Plato c. 428–c. 348 BCE, philosopher
• Diogenes c. 412–323 BCE, philosopher
• Aristotle 384–322 BCE, philosopher
• Chanakya c. 375–c. 283 BCE, political thinker
• Mencius c. 372–c. 289 BCE, philosopher
• Zhuang Zhou c. 369–c. 286 BCE, philosopher
• Epicurus 341–270 BCE, philosopher
• Zeno of Citium c. 334–c. 262 BCE, philosopher
• Seneca the Younger c. 4 BCE–65 CE, philosopher
• Epictetus c. 50–c. 135, philosopher
• Nagarjuna c. 150–c. 250, philosopher
• Hypatia c. 360–415, philosopher
• Boethius c. 480–524, philosopher
• Adi Shankara c. 700–c. 750, philosopher
• Al-Farabi c. 872–c. 950, philosopher
• Avicenna c. 980–1037, philosopher and physician
• Al-Ghazali c. 1058–1111, theologian and philosopher
• Averroes 1126–1198, philosopher
• Zhu Xi 1130–1200, philosopher
• Maimonides c. 1138–1204, philosopher
• Ibn Khaldun 1332–1406, historian
• Erasmus 1466–1536, humanist
• Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527, political philosopher
• Wang Yangming 1472–1529, philosopher
• Thomas More 1478–1535, statesman and philosopher
• Michel de Montaigne 1533–1592, essayist
• Francis Bacon 1561–1626, philosopher
• Thomas Hobbes 1588–1679, philosopher
• René Descartes 1596–1650, philosopher
• Margaret Cavendish 1623–1673, philosopher
• Baruch Spinoza 1632–1677, philosopher
• John Locke 1632–1704, philosopher
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646–1716, philosopher and mathematician
• Montesquieu 1689–1755, political philosopher
• Voltaire 1694–1778, philosopher
• David Hume 1711–1776, philosopher
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778, philosopher
• Denis Diderot 1713–1784, philosopher
• Adam Smith 1723–1790, economist and philosopher
• Immanuel Kant 1724–1804, philosopher
• Edmund Burke 1729–1797, political thinker
• Thomas Paine 1737–1809, political theorist
• Mary Wollstonecraft 1759–1797, philosopher
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770–1831, philosopher
• Arthur Schopenhauer 1788–1860, philosopher
• Auguste Comte 1798–1857, philosopher
• John Stuart Mill 1806–1873, philosopher
• Søren Kierkegaard 1813–1855, philosopher
• Henry David Thoreau 1817–1862, philosopher
• Karl Marx 1818–1883, philosopher and economist
• Friedrich Engels 1820–1895, philosopher
• Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900, philosopher
• Sigmund Freud 1856–1939, neurologist
• Émile Durkheim 1858–1917, sociologist
• Max Weber 1864–1920, sociologist
• Bertrand Russell 1872–1970, philosopher
• Carl Jung 1875–1961, psychiatrist
• Ziya Gökalp 1876–1924, sociologist
• John Maynard Keynes 1883–1946, economist
• Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889–1951, philosopher
• Martin Heidegger 1889–1976, philosopher
• Jean-Paul Sartre 1905–1980, philosopher
• Hannah Arendt 1906–1975, political theorist
• Simone de Beauvoir 1908–1986, philosopher
• Marshall McLuhan 1911–1980, media theorist
• Milton Friedman 1912–2006, economist
• Frantz Fanon 1925–1961, political philosopher
• Michel Foucault 1926–1984, philosopher
• Noam Chomsky 1928–, linguist
• Amartya Sen 1933–, economist
• Slavoj Žižek 1949–, philosopher
• Judith Butler 1956–, philosopher