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470 BCE
Socrates
Socratic Method. Socrates main contribution to Western philosophy is his method of inquiry that was called after him Socratic method, sometimes also known as elenchus. According to the latter, a statement can be considered true only if it cannot be proved wrong. -
427 BCE
Plato
Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the pivotal figure in the development of Western philosophy. -
384 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. ... As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all, areas of knowledge he touched. -
354 BCE
Saint Augustine of hippo
Saint Augustine of Hippo (/ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430 AD)[1] was a Roman African, early Christian theologian and philosopher from Numidia whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Period. -
1225
St. Thomas aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas (AKA Thomas of Aquin or Aquino) was an Italian philosopher and theologian of the Medieval period. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology at the peak of Scholasticism in Europe, and the founder of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology. -
1561
Francis Bacon
For Bacon, the only knowledge of importance to man was empirically rooted in the natural world, and a clear system of scientific inquiry would assure man's mastery over the world. He had a great reverence for Aristotle, although he found Aristotelian philosophy barren, disputatious and wrong in its objectives. -
Renè Decartes
René Descartes, French mathematician and philosopher was born in 1596. It was partly because of his contribution that western philosophy and mathematics flourished. In recognition of his contribution, he is often referred as “father or founder father of modern philosophy”. -
John Locke
John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. -
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. His contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. -
George Wilhelm
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure of German idealism. He achieved wide recognition in his day and—while primarily influential within the continental tradition of philosophy—has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. -
Charles Robert Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science. -
John Dewey
John Dewey was a leading proponent of the American school of thought known as pragmatism, a view that rejected the dualistic epistemology and metaphysics of modern philosophy in favor of a naturalistic approach that viewed knowledge as arising from an active adaptation of the human organism to its environment.
