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Philosophy Timeline: Every Tradition Side by Side

Five thousand years and seven traditions on one scale: who was thinking what at the same time, from the first wisdom texts to today.

Updated 13 October 2026

On this page

How to read a parallel philosophy timeline
Before philosophy had a name (to c. 800 BCE)
The Axial Age (c. 800–200 BCE)
Rome, India and Han China (c. 200 BCE–500 CE)
Translation and transmission (c. 500–1000)
Scholastics, Sufis and Neo-Confucians (c. 1000–1500)
Early modern philosophy, worldwide (c. 1500–1800)
The nineteenth century
The twentieth century
Philosophy today
History of philosophy timeline: the traditions at a glance
Every thinker on this site, in time order

A philosophy timeline usually runs in one line from ancient Greece to modern Europe. Set the traditions side by side and the history looks different: philosophy began independently in India, China and Greece between about 600 and 400 BCE, and Islamic, Jewish, Japanese, Korean, African and Latin American thinkers joined and crossed those lines over the next two thousand years.

This page follows the parallel timeline in Part IV of The Coordinates of Thought, which runs seven traditions across five thousand years on one scale. Below are the eras, a table of who was thinking what at the same time, and then every thinker on the site in time order.

How to read a parallel philosophy timeline

The book’s seven columns are Greek and Roman; Indian; Chinese; Islamic; Abrahamic scholastic (Jewish and Christian thought working on reason and revelation); modern European; and a seventh grouping African, Latin American, Japanese, Korean and other traditions, a grouping the book itself calls a compromise forced by space and uneven scholarship. Three rules shape it:

No column is the main one. In the Axial Age, Greece is one column among several.
Silence is shown, not hidden. When a tradition goes quiet, the gap is information.
Contact is marked separately. Translation and travel between traditions are noted apart, so that independent discovery can be told from borrowing.

Many early dates are approximate or traditional. Where scholars dispute a date, the thinker profiles say so.

Before philosophy had a name (to c. 800 BCE)

Egyptian instruction texts, such as the Maxims of Ptahhotep, and Mesopotamian wisdom literature gave advice on how to live. In India, the Creation Hymn of the Rigveda asks how the world began and wonders whether even the highest being knows. Early Chinese texts of the Zhou period, layers of the Book of Changes and the Book of Documents, tie political power to Heaven’s mandate. These are the raw materials; sustained argument comes next.

The Axial Age (c. 800–200 BCE)

The philosopher Karl Jaspers called this period the Axial Age. In several places with little or no contact, people began asking the same questions in recognisably similar terms. The book presents that pattern and the main explanations offered for it without asserting one.

First voices (c. 800–400 BCE)

India. The Upanishads record Yājñavalkya and Uddālaka Āruṇi on the self and the one reality (personal identity). The Buddha taught no-self and the end of suffering; Mahavira gave Jain thought its classical form; Ajita Kesakambali taught materialism.
China. Confucius made ethics a matter of cultivated character and role (normative ethics); Mozi answered with impartial care and a test of benefit; the Daodejing is traditionally ascribed to Laozi.
Greece. Thales and Anaximander asked what the world is made of; Heraclitus made change fundamental; Parmenides argued that change is impossible (ontology); Socrates turned philosophy to how to live.

Classical and Hellenistic schools (c. 400–200 BCE)

Greece. Plato and Aristotle; then the Hellenistic schools of Epicurus, the Stoics Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus, and the sceptic Pyrrho (skepticism).
China. The “Hundred Schools”: Mencius and Xunzi on human nature (moral psychology), Zhuangzi, Han Feizi and the Legalists, and the logicians Hui Shi and Gongsun Long.
India. The early schools take shape, and the emperor Aśoka supports the spread of Buddhism.
Jewish. Qoheleth, the voice of Ecclesiastes, asks whether anything under the sun has lasting worth (meaning in life).

Rome, India and Han China (c. 200 BCE–500 CE)

Greek and Roman. Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius; Sextus Empiricus records the sceptics; Plotinus founds Neoplatonism; Augustine, a North African, joins Platonism to Christianity.
Jewish. Philo of Alexandria reads scripture through Plato.
Indian and Buddhist. The Nyāya Sūtra sets out inference and debate; Nagarjuna argues that all things are empty of intrinsic nature; Vasubandhu and Asaṅga found Yogācāra; Bhartrhari writes on language; the Nāṭyaśāstra introduces rasa to aesthetics.
Chinese. Confucianism becomes state learning under the Han; Sima Qian writes history (philosophy of history); Wang Chong attacks superstition; Wang Bi and Guo Xiang reinterpret Daoist texts; Buddhism arrives from India.

Translation and transmission (c. 500–1000)

The Greek column closes conventionally with the emperor Justinian’s closing of the philosophical school at Athens in 529. Boethius and John Philoponus write at the turn. The Latin West then goes relatively quiet, and the action moves east and south.

Islamic. Greek works are translated into Arabic in Baghdad. Al-Kindi and Al-Farabi build falsafa on them; the Mu’tazila and Al-Ash’ari argue over divine justice and human action (free will); Al-Jahiz writes on rhetoric and nature.
Jewish. Saadia Gaon, writing in Arabic, weighs reason against revelation (revelation).
Indian and Buddhist. Dignāga and Dharmakīrti found Buddhist logic (sources of knowledge); Kumārila Bhaṭṭa defends the Veda; Adi Shankara systematises Advaita Vedānta.
Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Xuanzang travels to India and brings back texts; Fazang’s Huayan and the Chan of the Platform Sutra flourish; Wonhyo writes in Korea and Kūkai in Japan.

Scholastics, Sufis and Neo-Confucians (c. 1000–1500)

Islamic. Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni and Ibn al-Haytham; Al-Ghazali’s attack on the philosophers and Ibn Rushd’s reply (causation); Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi and Rumi; Ibn Khaldun’s science of society.
Jewish. Judah Halevi, Maimonides and Hasdai Crescas.
Latin Christian. Twelfth-century translations from Arabic bring Aristotle and his Muslim commentators to Europe. Anselm had already written; Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham follow; Christine de Pizan defends women.
Indian. Abhinavagupta on aesthetic experience; Rāmānuja and Madhva answer Advaita; Sriharsa’s sceptical dialectic; Gangesa founds New Nyāya.
Chinese and Japanese. The Neo-Confucians Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi; in Japan, Dōgen, Shinran and Zeami.

Early modern philosophy, worldwide (c. 1500–1800)

European. Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume and Kant, with Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Émilie du Châtelet and Mary Wollstonecraft (the mind–body problem).
Islamic. Mulla Sadra in Isfahan and Shah Waliullah in Delhi. Ending Islamic philosophy with the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258, as older textbooks did, misses them.
Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Wang Yangming, Wang Fuzhi and Dai Zhen; Yi Hwang (Toegye) in Korea; Ogyū Sorai in Japan.
Indian. Raghunātha Śiromaṇi carries New Nyāya forward.
African. Zera Yacob in Ethiopia tests every religious claim by reason (reason and intuition); Anton Wilhelm Amo, born on the Gold Coast, teaches in Germany.
Latin American. In Spain, Francisco de Vitoria questions the justice of the conquest of the Americas (war); Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz defends women’s learning.

The nineteenth century

Hegel, Schopenhauer, who drew on Indian and Buddhist texts, Kierkegaard, Mill, Marx and Nietzsche reshape European thought; Frege founds modern logic, and Peirce and William James found pragmatism. In India, Vivekananda presents Vedānta to Western audiences. In Japan after 1868 the word tetsugaku is coined for “philosophy”, as Western texts arrive. W. E. B. Du Bois begins the work that becomes Africana philosophy.

The twentieth century

European philosophy divides into analytic (Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine) and continental (Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, Arendt, Derrida). Nishida and the Kyoto School bring Buddhist ideas into dialogue with Western philosophy, and Watsuji writes an ethics of “betweenness”. New Confucians such as Xiong Shili, Feng Youlan and Mou Zongsan rebuild their tradition. In India, Radhakrishnan, Aurobindo, Ambedkar and Matilal; in Islamic thought, Iqbal and Seyyed Hossein Nasr; in Jewish thought, Buber, Rosenzweig and Levinas. African philosophers, among them Fanon, Wiredu, Hountondji and Oruka, debate what African philosophy is. Latin American thinkers, from Vasconcelos and Mariátegui to Zea, Salazar Bondy, Freire and Dussel, write on identity and liberation and ask whether the region has a philosophy of its own.

Philosophy today

The lines now cross constantly. Analytic philosophers work on Buddhist and Nyāya theories of knowledge, Confucian role ethics is debated alongside virtue ethics, and African philosophy has its own journals and departments. New questions, such as whether a machine could think (philosophy of AI) or what we owe to future generations (environmental ethics), are argued in every tradition at once.

History of philosophy timeline: the traditions at a glance

Seven columns are merged into five here to fit a screen. A dash marks a gap in the written record the site draws on.

Era	Greek, Latin and modern Western	Indian and Buddhist	Chinese	Islamic and Jewish	Japan, Korea, Africa, Latin America
c. 800–400 BCE	Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates	Upanishads, the Buddha, Mahavira	Confucius, Mozi, Laozi (trad.)	Hebrew prophets and wisdom books	—
c. 400–200 BCE	Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Stoics, Pyrrho	Early schools; Aśoka	Mencius, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi	Qoheleth	—
c. 200 BCE–500 CE	Lucretius, Seneca, Epictetus, Plotinus, Augustine	Nyāya Sūtra, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu	Wang Chong, Wang Bi; Buddhism arrives	Philo of Alexandria	—
500–1000	Boethius, Philoponus; then a quieter Latin West	Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Adi Shankara	Xuanzang, Fazang, Chan	Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Al-Ash’ari; Saadia Gaon	Wonhyo, Kūkai
1000–1500	Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham	Rāmānuja, Madhva, Gangesa	Zhang Zai, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi	Ibn Sina, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldun; Maimonides	Dōgen, Shinran
1500–1800	Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant	Raghunātha Śiromaṇi	Wang Yangming, Wang Fuzhi, Dai Zhen	Mulla Sadra, Shah Waliullah	Yi Hwang, Zera Yacob, Amo, Sor Juana
1800–1900	Hegel, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, Frege	Vivekananda	Encounter with Western thought	Islamic modernist reformers	Meiji Japan coins tetsugaku
1900–2000	Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Quine	Radhakrishnan, Ambedkar, Matilal	Feng Youlan, Mou Zongsan	Iqbal, Buber, Levinas	Nishida, Fanon, Wiredu, Freire, Dussel

Every thinker on this site, in time order

Here is the full timeline of philosophers in chronological order, built from the site’s thinker profiles: every philosopher, era by era and grouped by tradition, each linked to a profile with dates, key ideas and the question cards that name them. See also Famous philosophers and Eastern and western philosophy.

Before 500 BCE

Chinese: Confucius 551 – 479 BCE · Laozi traditionally 6th century BCE (historicity uncertain)
Greek & Roman: Thales c. 624 – 546 BCE · Anaximander c. 610 – 546 BCE · Anaximenes c. 586 – 526 BCE · Xenophanes c. 570 – 478 BCE · Pythagoras c. 570 – 495 BCE · Heraclitus c. 540 – 480 BCE · Parmenides c. 515 – 450 BCE
Indian: Uddālaka Āruṇi c. 8th century BCE · Yājñavalkya c. 8th – 7th century BCE (date of the texts that record him) · Mahavira c. 599 – 527 BCE

500–200 BCE

Buddhist: The Buddha c. 480 – 400 BCE (disputed)
Chinese: Mozi c. 470 – 391 BCE · Sunzi c. 5th century BCE · Mencius trad. c. 372 – 289 BCE · Zhuangzi c. 369 – c. 286 BCE · Gongsun Long c. 320 – 250 BCE · Hui Shi fl. 313 BCE · Xunzi c. 310 – after 238 BCE · Han Feizi c. 280 – 233 BCE
Greek & Roman: Anaxagoras c. 500 – 428 BCE · Empedocles c. 494 – 434 BCE · Zeno of Elea c. 490 – 430 BCE · Protagoras c. 490 – 420 BCE · Gorgias c. 483 – 375 BCE · Socrates c. 470 – 399 BCE · Democritus c. 460 – 370 BCE · Plato c. 428 – 348 BCE · Diogenes of Sinope c. 412 – 323 BCE · Aristotle 384 – 322 BCE · Pyrrho c. 360 – 270 BCE · Zeno of Citium c. 334 – 262 BCE · Arcesilaus c. 316 – 241 BCE · Chrysippus c. 280 – 207 BCE · Diodorus Cronus c. 4th – 3rd century BCE · Carneades c. 214 – 129 BCE
Indian: Ajita Kesakambali contemporary of the Buddha (c. 5th century BCE)
Jewish: Qoheleth c. 4th – 3rd century BCE

200 BCE – 500 CE

Buddhist: Nagasena trad. 2nd century BCE · Nagarjuna c. 150 – c. 250 CE · Asaṅga fl. 4th century CE · Vasubandhu c. 4th – 5th century CE · Dignāga c. 480 – 540
Chinese: Dong Zhongshu 179 – 104 BCE · Sima Qian c. 145 – 86 BCE · Wang Chong 27 – c. 100 CE · Wang Bi 226 – 249 · Guo Xiang d. 312
Greek & Roman: Cicero 106 – 43 BCE · Lucretius c. 99 – 55 BCE · Seneca c. 4 BCE – 65 CE · Longinus c. 1st century CE · Agrippa c. 1st century CE · Epictetus c. 50 – c. 135 CE · Marcus Aurelius 121 – 180 · Sextus Empiricus fl. 2nd century CE · Plotinus c. 204 – 270 · Porphyry c. 234 – 305 · Proclus 412 – 485 · John Philoponus c. 490 – 570
Indian: Bharata c. 200 BCE – 200 CE (date of the text) · Gautama (Akṣapāda) trad. c. 2nd century CE · Bhartrhari c. 5th century CE
Jewish: Philo of Alexandria c. 15/10 BCE – 45/50 CE
Medieval Christian: Boethius c. 480 – 524

500–1000

Buddhist: Jizang 549 – 623 · Xuanzang c. 602 – 664 · Fazang 643 – 712 · Dharmakīrti c. 6th – 7th century CE · Dharmottara c. 8th century CE
Indian: Prabhākara fl. c. 7th century CE · Kumārila Bhaṭṭa fl. c. 660 CE · Adi Shankara c. 700 – 750 CE (traditional dates 788 – 820) · Sankuka c. 9th century · Bhatta Lollata c. 9th century CE · Bhatta Nayaka c. 10th century CE
Islamic: Abu Dharr al-Ghifari d. 652 · Al-Shaybani 749 – 805 · Al-Shafi’i 767 – 820 · Al-Jahiz c. 776 – 869 · Al-Khwarizmi c. 780 – 850 · Al-Kindi c. 800 – 870 · Al-Farabi c. 870 – 950 · Al-Ash’ari 874 – 936 · Miskawayh c. 932 – 1030 · al-Māturīdī d. 944 · Ibn al-Haytham c. 965 – 1040 · Al-Mawardi 972 – 1058 · Al-Ma’arri 973 – 1057 · Al-Biruni 973 – c. 1050 · Ibn Sina 980 – 1037 · Ibn Hazm 994 – 1064
Japanese & Korean: Kūkai 774 – 835
Jewish: Saadia Gaon 882 – 942

1000–1500

Chinese: Zhou Dunyi 1017 – 1073 · Zhang Zai 1020 – 1077 · Cheng Hao 1032 – 1085 · Cheng Yi 1033 – 1107 · Wang Yangming 1472 – 1529
Indian: Abhinavagupta fl. c. 1000 · Rāmānuja c. 1017 – 1137 · Udayana 11th century CE · Sriharsa c. 12th century CE · Madhva c. 1238 – 1317 · Gangesa c. 14th century CE · Raghunātha Śiromaṇi c. 1460 – 1540
Islamic: Al-Ghazali c. 1058 – 1111 · Ibn Butlan d. 1066 · Ibn Bajja c. 1085 – 1138 · Ibn Tufayl c. 1110 – 1185 · Ibn Rushd 1126 – 1198 · Fakhr al-Din al-Razi 1149 – 1210 · Ibn Arabi 1165 – 1240 · Ibn Khaldun 1332 – 1406 · Al-Shatibi d. 1388
Japanese & Korean: Shinran 1173 – 1263 · Zeami c. 1363 – 1443
Jewish: Hasdai Crescas c. 1340 – 1410/11
Medieval Christian: Anselm 1033 – 1109 · Duns Scotus c. 1266 – 1308 · William of Ockham c. 1287 – 1347 · Christine de Pizan 1364 – c. 1430 · Francisco de Vitoria c. 1483 – 1546
Persian: Suhrawardi 1154 – 1191 · Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī 1201 – 1274 · Rumi 1207 – 1273

1500–1800

African & Africana: Anton Wilhelm Amo c. 1703 – after 1752
Chinese: Wang Fuzhi 1619 – 1692 · Dai Zhen 1724 – 1777
Islamic: Shah Waliullah 1703 – 1762
Japanese & Korean: Sen no Rikyū 1522 – 1591 · Ogyū Sorai 1666 – 1728
Medieval Christian: Teresa of Ávila 1515 – 1582
Modern European: Jean Bodin 1530 – 1596 · Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626 · Hugo Grotius 1583 – 1645 · Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679 · René Descartes 1596 – 1650 · Elisabeth of Bohemia 1618 – 1680 · Margaret Cavendish 1623 – 1673 · Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662 · Anne Conway 1631 – 1679 · John Locke 1632 – 1704 · Baruch Spinoza 1632 – 1677 · Nicolas Malebranche 1638 – 1715 · Isaac Newton 1643 – 1727 · G. W. Leibniz 1646 – 1716 · Mary Astell 1666 – 1731 · Samuel Clarke 1675 – 1729 · George Berkeley 1685 – 1753 · Thomas Bayes 1702 – 1761 · Émilie du Châtelet 1706 – 1749 · Thomas Reid 1710 – 1796 · David Hume 1711 – 1776 · Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778 · Adam Smith 1723 – 1790 · Immanuel Kant 1724 – 1804 · Edmund Burke 1729 – 1797 · William Paley 1743 – 1805 · Johann Herder 1744 – 1803 · Jeremy Bentham 1748 – 1832 · Brillat-Savarin 1755 – 1826 · Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797 · Friedrich Schleiermacher 1768 – 1834 · G. W. F. Hegel 1770 – 1831 · Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860
Persian: Mulla Sadra c. 1571 – 1640

The 19th century

American: Frederick Douglass 1818 – 1895 · C. S. Peirce 1839 – 1914 · Franz Boas 1858 – 1942 · W. E. B. Du Bois 1868 – 1963 · Aldo Leopold 1887 – 1948 · Norbert Wiener 1894 – 1964
Analytic: Gottlob Frege 1848 – 1925 · Giuseppe Peano 1858 – 1932 · Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970 · G. E. Moore 1873 – 1958 · W. D. Ross 1877 – 1971 · Jan Łukasiewicz 1878 – 1956 · Ernst Mally 1879 – 1944 · L. E. J. Brouwer 1881 – 1966 · Clive Bell 1881 – 1964 · Otto Neurath 1882 – 1945 · C. I. Lewis 1883 – 1964 · Walter Stace 1886 – 1967 · Stanisław Leśniewski 1886 – 1939 · C. D. Broad 1887 – 1971 · Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889 – 1951 · Rudolf Carnap 1891 – 1970
Chinese: Xiong Shili 1885 – 1968 · Feng Youlan 1895 – 1990
Continental: Ferdinand de Saussure 1857 – 1913 · Edmund Husserl 1859 – 1938 · Carl Schmitt 1888 – 1985 · Martin Heidegger 1889 – 1976 · Walter Benjamin 1892 – 1940 · Max Horkheimer 1895 – 1973 · Sergei Eisenstein 1898 – 1948 · Herbert Marcuse 1898 – 1979
Indian: Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941 · Vivekananda 1863 – 1902 · Aurobindo 1872 – 1950 · Radhakrishnan 1888 – 1975 · B. R. Ambedkar 1891 – 1956
Islamic: Muhammad Iqbal 1877 – 1938
Japanese & Korean: Watsuji Tetsurō 1889 – 1960
Jewish: Franz Rosenzweig 1886 – 1929
Latin American: José Vasconcelos 1882 – 1959 · Samuel Ramos 1897 – 1959
Modern European: Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882 · George Boole 1815 – 1864 · Eduard Hanslick 1825 – 1904 · Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910 · Henry Sidgwick 1838 – 1900 · Franz Brentano 1838 – 1917 · Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 – 1900 · W. K. Clifford 1845 – 1879 · Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900 · Émile Durkheim 1858 – 1917 · Henri Bergson 1859 – 1941 · Pierre Duhem 1861 – 1916 · A. N. Whitehead 1861 – 1947 · David Hilbert 1862 – 1943 · Max Weber 1864 – 1920 · J. M. E. McTaggart 1866 – 1925 · Rudolf Otto 1869 – 1937 · Johan Huizinga 1872 – 1945 · Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955 · Edward Bullough 1880 – 1934 · Niels Bohr 1885 – 1962

1900–1945

African & Africana: Frantz Fanon 1925 – 1961 · Desmond Tutu 1931 – 2021 · Kwame Gyekye 1939 – 2019 · Ifeanyi Menkiti 1940 – 2019 · Paulin Hountondji 1942 – 2024 · Lucius Outlaw b. 1944 · H. Odera Oruka 1944 – 1995
American: B. F. Skinner 1904 – 1990 · Marshall McLuhan 1911 – 1980 · John Wheeler 1911 – 2008 · Milton Friedman 1912 – 2006 · Claude Shannon 1916 – 2001 · David Bohm 1917 – 1992 · Thomas Kuhn 1922 – 1996 · Stanley Cavell 1926 – 2018 · Clifford Geertz 1926 – 2006 · Hayden White 1928 – 2018 · Hugh Everett III 1930 – 1982 · Don Ihde 1934 – 2024 · Carol Gilligan b. 1936 · Stephen Jay Gould 1941 – 2002 · Langdon Winner b. 1944 · Elizabeth Loftus b. 1944
Analytic: Gilbert Ryle 1900 – 1976 · Alfred Tarski 1901 – 1983 · Lon Fuller 1902 – 1978 · Karl Popper 1902 – 1994 · Frank Ramsey 1903 – 1930 · Ernst Mayr 1904 – 2005 · Carl Hempel 1905 – 1997 · Nelson Goodman 1906 – 1998 · Kurt Gödel 1906 – 1978 · Bruno de Finetti 1906 – 1985 · W. K. Wimsatt 1907 – 1975 · H. L. A. Hart 1907 – 1992 · W. V. O. Quine 1908 – 2000 · Stephen Kleene 1909 – 1994 · Isaiah Berlin 1909 – 1997 · Gerhard Gentzen 1909 – 1945 · A. J. Ayer 1910 – 1989 · J. L. Austin 1911 – 1960 · Wilfrid Sellars 1912 – 1989 · Arne Naess 1912 – 2009 · Alan Turing 1912 – 1954 · Paul Grice 1913 – 1988 · Arthur Prior 1914 – 1969 · Monroe Beardsley 1915 – 1985 · Roderick Chisholm 1916 – 1999 · Peter Geach 1916 – 2013 · Morris Weitz 1916 – 1981 · Herbert Simon 1916 – 2001 · G. H. von Wright 1916 – 2003 · J. L. Mackie 1917 – 1981 · Donald Davidson 1917 – 2003 · R. S. Peters 1919 – 2011 · R. M. Hare 1919 – 2002 · Peter Strawson 1919 – 2006 · Iris Murdoch 1919 – 1999 · Elizabeth Anscombe 1919 – 2001 · Philippa Foot 1920 – 2010 · J. J. C. Smart 1920 – 2012 · William Alston 1921 – 2009 · Lotfi Zadeh 1921 – 2017 · John Rawls 1921 – 2002 · Stephen Toulmin 1922 – 2009 · Imre Lakatos 1922 – 1974 · C. L. Hamblin 1922 – 1985 · Philip Anderson 1923 – 2020 · Frank Sibley 1923 – 1996 · U. T. Place 1924 – 2000 · Paul Feyerabend 1924 – 1994 · Arthur Danto 1924 – 2013 · Wesley Salmon 1925 – 2001 · Bernard Suits 1925 – 2007 · Richard Jeffrey 1926 – 2002 · Peter Winch 1926 – 1997 · Hilary Putnam 1926 – 2016 · George Dickie 1926 – 2020 · David Armstrong 1926 – 2014 · Endel Tulving 1927 – 2023 · Edmund Gettier 1927 – 2021 · John Bell 1928 – 1990 · E. D. Hirsch b. 1928 · Virginia Held 1929 – 2026 · Newton da Costa 1929 – 2024 · Nel Noddings 1929 – 2022 · Judith Jarvis Thomson 1929 – 2020 · Jaakko Hintikka 1929 – 2015 · Harry Frankfurt 1929 – 2023 · Bernard Williams 1929 – 2003 · Alasdair MacIntyre 1929 – 2025 · Robert Aumann b. 1930 · William Rowe 1931 – 2015 · Ronald Dworkin 1931 – 2013 · Paul Benacerraf 1931 – 2025 · John Searle 1932 – 2025 · Holmes Rolston III 1932 – 2025 · Fred Dretske 1932 – 2013 · David Gauthier 1932 – 2023 · Arnold Berleant b. 1932 · Alvin Plantinga b. 1932 · Ruth Millikan b. 1933 · Amartya Sen b. 1933 · Richard Swinburne b. 1934 · Peter Kivy 1934 – 2017 · Jaegwon Kim 1934 – 2019 · Michael Walzer b. 1935 · Jerry Fodor 1935 – 2017 · Ian Hacking 1936 – 2023 · C. A. J. Coady b. 1936 · Thomas Nagel b. 1937 · Robert Adams 1937 – 2024 · Cora Diamond b. 1937 · Tom Regan 1938 – 2017 · Robert Nozick 1938 – 2002 · Alvin Goldman 1938 – 2024 · Tom L. Beauchamp 1939 – 2025 · T. M. Scanlon b. 1940 · Saul Kripke 1940 – 2022 · Robert Stalnaker b. 1940 · Peter Klein b. 1940 · James F. Childress b. 1940 · Ernest Sosa b. 1940 · Larry Laudan 1941 – 2022 · G. A. Cohen 1941 – 2009 · David Lewis 1941 – 2001 · Bas van Fraassen b. 1941 · Peter van Inwagen b. 1942 · Paul Churchland b. 1942 · Douglas Walton 1942 – 2020 · Derek Parfit 1942 – 2017 · Daniel Dennett 1942 – 2024 · Brandon Carter b. 1942 · Laurence BonJour b. 1943 · Frank Jackson b. 1943 · Allen Carlson 1943 – 2025 · Steven Katz b. 1944 · Simon Blackburn b. 1944 · Roy Bhaskar 1944 – 2014 · Nancy Cartwright b. 1944 · Helen Longino b. 1944
Chinese: Mou Zongsan 1909 – 1995
Continental: Hans-Georg Gadamer 1900 – 2002 · Theodor W. Adorno 1903 – 1969 · Hans Jonas 1903 – 1993 · Georges Canguilhem 1904 – 1995 · Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 – 1980 · Hannah Arendt 1906 – 1975 · Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1908 – 1961 · Simone de Beauvoir 1908 – 1986 · Jacques Ellul 1912 – 1994 · Chaim Perelman 1912 – 1984 · Roger Caillois 1913 – 1978 · Paul Ricoeur 1913 – 2005 · Albert Camus 1913 – 1960 · Roland Barthes 1915 – 1980 · André Bazin 1918 – 1958 · Gilles Deleuze 1925 – 1995 · Michel Foucault 1926 – 1984 · Jürgen Habermas 1929 – 2026 · Hubert Dreyfus 1929 – 2017 · Pierre Bourdieu 1930 – 2002 · Jacques Derrida 1930 – 2004 · Umberto Eco 1932 – 2016 · Anthony Giddens b. 1938
Indian: Mohanty 1928 – 2023 · Matilal 1935 – 1991
Islamic: Seyyed Hossein Nasr b. 1933
Latin American: Leopoldo Zea 1912 – 2004 · Paulo Freire 1921 – 1997 · Augusto Salazar Bondy 1925 – 1974

Since 1945

American: R. Edward Freeman b. 1951 · Helen Nissenbaum b. 1954 · Matthew Crawford b. 1965
Analytic: Susan Haack 1945 – 2026 · Philip Pettit b. 1945 · Michael Oliver 1945 – 2019 · Peter Singer b. 1946 · Kit Fine b. 1946 · Jerome Wakefield b. 1946 · Hartry Field b. 1946 · Frans van Eemeren b. 1946 · Eva Kittay b. 1946 · Noël Carroll b. 1947 · Martha Nussbaum b. 1947 · Gerd Gigerenzer b. 1947 · Jerrold Levinson b. 1948 · Graham Priest b. 1948 · William Lane Craig b. 1949 · Iris Marion Young 1949 – 2006 · Carolyn Korsmeyer b. 1950 · Susan Wolf b. 1952 · Christine Korsgaard b. 1952 · Yuriko Saito b. 1953 · Michael Smith b. 1954 · Kwame Anthony Appiah b. 1954 · Timothy Williamson b. 1955 · Sally Haslanger b. 1955 · Derk Pereboom b. 1957 · Berys Gaut b. 1958 · Alex Byrne b. 1960 · Rae Langton b. 1961 · Jonathan Haidt b. 1963 · Luciano Floridi b. 1964 · Talia Mae Bettcher b. 1966 · Miranda Fricker b. 1966 · J. C. Beall b. 1966 · David Chalmers b. 1966 · Theodore Sider b. 1967 · Greg Restall b. 1969 · Christopher Boorse active 1970s – present · Frances Kamm active 1980s – present · Trenton Merricks active 1990s – present · Thomas Kelly active 2000s – present · Shannon Vallor active 2000s – present · Elizabeth Barnes active 2000s – present · Adam Elga active 2000s – present
Continental: Judith Butler b. 1956

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