World Philosophy Atlas
World Philosophy Atlas
Where philosophy was done, and when: the cities, schools and monasteries where thinkers were born, studied, taught and died, from Athens and Qufu to Baghdad, Nālandā and Paris.
Choose a century to see which places were alive with philosophy then, or a tradition to follow it across the world. Each place lists its thinkers and what they did there: born, studied, taught, worked or died.
Filters
- Berkeley, 18 thinkers
- Stanford, 9 thinkers
- Los Angeles, 7 thinkers
- Mexico City, 8 thinkers
- Chicago, 21 thinkers
- Notre Dame, 3 thinkers
- Ann Arbor, 8 thinkers
- Detroit, 4 thinkers
- Pittsburgh, 10 thinkers
- Toronto, 7 thinkers
- Charlottesville, 6 thinkers
- Lima, 2 thinkers
- Washington, D.C., 6 thinkers
- Philadelphia, 6 thinkers
- Princeton, 31 thinkers
- New Brunswick, 6 thinkers
- New York, 49 thinkers
- New Haven, 16 thinkers
- Providence, 4 thinkers
- Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 45 thinkers
- Fort-de-France, 2 thinkers
- Buenos Aires, 4 thinkers
- São Paulo, 3 thinkers
- Marrakesh, 2 thinkers
- Salamanca, 3 thinkers
- Fez, 4 thinkers
- Córdoba, 4 thinkers
- Edinburgh, 6 thinkers
- Timbuktu
- Oxford, 48 thinkers
- Zaragoza, 4 thinkers
- Accra, 4 thinkers
- London, 35 thinkers
- Cambridge, 28 thinkers
- Paris, 37 thinkers
- Algiers, 3 thinkers
- Amsterdam, 3 thinkers
- Trier, 1 thinker
- Cologne, 6 thinkers
- Basel, 4 thinkers
- Turin, 3 thinkers
- Hippo Regius, 1 thinker
- Freiburg im Breisgau, 12 thinkers
- Frankfurt am Main, 10 thinkers
- Heidelberg, 9 thinkers
- Marburg, 7 thinkers
- Göttingen, 5 thinkers
- Florence, 4 thinkers
- Jena, 6 thinkers
- Padua, 4 thinkers
- Rome, 10 thinkers
- Copenhagen, 2 thinkers
- Berlin, 21 thinkers
- Naples, 3 thinkers
- Elea, 3 thinkers
- Vienna, 13 thinkers
- Königsberg, 4 thinkers
- Warsaw, 5 thinkers
- Athens, 12 thinkers
- Miletus, 3 thinkers
- Johannesburg, 3 thinkers
- Alexandria, 3 thinkers
- St Petersburg, 2 thinkers
- Cairo, 4 thinkers
- Kampala, 3 thinkers
- Damascus, 3 thinkers
- Baghdad, 10 thinkers
- Basra, 5 thinkers
- Rayy, 4 thinkers
- Isfahan, 4 thinkers
- Nishapur, 5 thinkers
- Bukhara, 1 thinker
- Lahore, 1 thinker
- Kashmir Valley, 1 thinker
- Delhi, 3 thinkers
- Kanchipuram, 1 thinker
- Varanasi, 2 thinkers
- Nalanda, 4 thinkers
- Navadvipa, 1 thinker
- Kolkata, 6 thinkers
- Lhasa, 2 thinkers
- Chang'an, 3 thinkers
- Luoyang, 3 thinkers
- Mount Lu, 2 thinkers
- Beijing, 7 thinkers
- Qufu, 1 thinker
- Andong, 1 thinker
- Kyoto, 10 thinkers
- Mount Hiei, 3 thinkers
- Adelaide, 4 thinkers
- Kamakura, 3 thinkers
- Tokyo, 7 thinkers
- Melbourne, 9 thinkers
- Canberra, 5 thinkers
- Sydney, 3 thinkers
Land and coasts only: modern borders are left out, since they did not exist in most of these periods. Dots are sized by the number of thinkers. Coastlines: Natural Earth (public domain).
387 of the site’s 695 thinkers have a place on the Atlas so far, with 95 places. Every place and role is sourced; more are added as they are checked.
Places
95 places
Rome
As the capital of a Mediterranean empire, Rome drew philosophers to it.
10 thinkers here
- Cicero worked here, 63–43 BCE
- Seneca worked here, 49–65 CE
- Epictetus studied here, 89 CE
- Marcus Aurelius worked here, 161–180 CE
- Plotinus taught here, 244–270 CE
- Porphyry studied here, 263–268 CE
- Giordano Bruno died here, 1600
- George Santayana died here, 1952
- Bruno de Finetti taught here, 1954–1985
- Luciano Floridi studied here, 1988
Elea
Elea was a Greek colony on the Tyrrhenian coast of southern Italy, founded some thirty years before Parmenides was born, and it gave its name to the Eleatic school.
3 thinkers here
- Parmenides born here, 515 BCE
- Zeno of Elea born here, 490 BCE
- Xenophanes worked here
Athens
Athens was a leading centre of Greek philosophy for almost a thousand years.
12 thinkers here
- Socrates born here, 469 BCE; died here, 399 BCE
- Xenophon born here, 430 BCE
- Plato taught here, 387–347 BCE; born here, 428 BCE; died here, 347 BCE
- Aristotle studied here, 367–347 BCE; taught here, 335–323 BCE
- Epicurus taught here, 307–270 BCE
- Arcesilaus taught here, 268–241 BCE
- Zeno of Citium taught here, 263 BCE
- Chrysippus taught here, 230–207 BCE
- Carneades taught here, 129 BCE
- Proclus taught here, 437–485 CE
- Anaxagoras worked here
- Diogenes of Sinope worked here
Miletus
Miletus, the most prosperous of the Greek cities of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, is where the written history of Greek philosophy is usually said to begin.
3 thinkers here
- Thales born here, 620 BCE
- Anaximander born here, 610 BCE
- Anaximenes worked here, 550–528 BCE
Salamanca
Salamanca's university, which grew from a cathedral school and received a royal charter from Alfonso IX of León in 1218, became the seat of the 'School of Salamanca'.
3 thinkers here
- Francisco de Vitoria taught here, 1526–1546
- Francisco Suárez studied here, 1561
- Miguel de Unamuno taught here, 1901–1936
Córdoba
Córdoba, in al-Andalus, was the birthplace of three major thinkers of medieval Iberia.
4 thinkers here
Edinburgh
Edinburgh was a centre of the Scottish Enlightenment.
6 thinkers here
- David Hume born here, 1711
- Adam Smith worked here, 1778–1790
- Charles Darwin studied here, 1825
- W. D. Ross studied here, 1895
- Julius Nyerere studied here, 1949
- Timothy Williamson taught here
Oxford
Oxford's university produced the Franciscan philosophers Duns Scotus and William of Ockham in the late Middle Ages.
48 thinkers here
- Duns Scotus taught here, 1298–1299
- William of Ockham studied here, 1318
- Thomas Hobbes studied here, 1602–1608
- John Locke studied here, 1652–1658
- Jeremy Bentham studied here, 1760–1766
- Oscar Wilde studied here, 1874–1878
- W. D. Ross taught here, 1902–1947
- Gilbert Ryle taught here, 1924–1968
- A. J. Ayer studied here, 1929
- Isaiah Berlin taught here, 1932
- Wilfrid Sellars studied here, 1934–1937
- J. L. Austin taught here, 1935–1960
- Radhakrishnan taught here, 1936
- Otto Neurath died here, 1945
- Elizabeth Anscombe taught here, 1946–1970
- Iris Murdoch taught here, 1948–1963
- J. J. C. Smart studied here, 1948
- Peter Strawson taught here, 1948–2006
- Philippa Foot taught here, 1949
- Thomas Nagel studied here, 1958–1960
- David Gauthier studied here, 1961
- Daniel Dennett studied here, 1963
- Paul Grice taught here, 1967
- J. L. Mackie taught here, 1967–1981
- Kit Fine studied here, 1967
- Simon Blackburn taught here, 1969–1990
- Matilal taught here, 1976–1991
- Charles Taylor taught here, 1976–2026
- Michael Sandel studied here, 1981
- G. A. Cohen taught here, 1985–2008
- Miranda Fricker studied here, 1985–1996
- David Chalmers studied here, 1987–1988
- Michael Smith studied here, 1989
- Luciano Floridi taught here, 1990–2023
- Timothy Williamson taught here, 2000–2026
- Amia Srinivasan taught here, 2019–2026
- John Searle studied here
- Peter Singer studied here
- Bernard Williams studied here
- David Armstrong studied here
- Arthur Prior taught here
- R. M. Hare taught here
- Derek Parfit worked here
- Toby Ord worked here
- Will Kymlicka studied here
- Fazlur Rahman studied here
- Ronald Dworkin taught here
- Richard Wollheim studied here
Zaragoza
Zaragoza, on the Ebro, nurtured Muslim and Jewish philosophy in medieval Iberia.
4 thinkers here
- Hasdai Crescas worked here, 1389–1411
- José Martí studied here, 1874
- Ibn Bajja born here
- Solomon ibn Gabirol worked here
London
London has been a centre of English philosophy since the seventeenth century.
35 thinkers here
- Francis Bacon born here, 1561
- John Locke worked here, 1668
- Isaac Newton worked here, 1696–1727
- Mary Astell worked here, 1731
- Jeremy Bentham born here, 1748; died here, 1832
- Mary Wollstonecraft born here, 1759
- Edmund Burke studied here; worked here, 1765–1794
- John Stuart Mill born here, 1806; worked here, 1823–1858
- Karl Marx worked here, 1849–1883; died here, 1883
- J. M. E. McTaggart born here, 1866
- Virginia Woolf born here, 1882
- C. D. Broad born here, 1887
- A. N. Whitehead taught here, 1910–1924
- A. J. Ayer born here, 1910
- Alan Turing born here, 1912
- Peter Strawson born here, 1919
- B. R. Ambedkar studied here, 1923
- Frank Ramsey died here, 1930
- Friedrich Hayek taught here, 1931–1950
- Kwame Nkrumah studied here, 1945
- Karl Popper taught here, 1946–1969
- Alasdair MacIntyre studied here, 1949
- Richard Wollheim taught here, 1949–1982
- Charles W. Mills born here, 1951
- Michael Oakeshott taught here, 1951
- Paul Feyerabend studied here, 1952
- Kwame Anthony Appiah born here, 1954
- Imre Lakatos taught here, 1960–1974
- David Bohm taught here, 1961–1987
- Graham Priest studied here, 1970–1974
- G. A. Cohen taught here, 1985
- Nancy Cartwright taught here, 1991–2026
- Miranda Fricker taught here, 1995–2012
- Joseph Raz taught here, 2011
- Amia Srinivasan taught here, 2019
Cambridge
Cambridge's colleges, Trinity especially, were home to leading figures of modern science and of analytic philosophy.
28 thinkers here
- Francis Bacon studied here, 1573–1575
- Isaac Newton taught here, 1669–1696
- Charles Darwin studied here, 1828–1831
- Henry Sidgwick taught here, 1883–1900
- A. N. Whitehead taught here, 1884–1910
- J. M. E. McTaggart taught here, 1897–1923
- Bertrand Russell taught here, 1899–1916
- Frank Ramsey born here, 1903; taught here, 1924–1930
- G. E. Moore taught here, 1911–1939
- J. J. C. Smart born here, 1920
- C. D. Broad taught here, 1923–1953
- Michael Oakeshott studied here, 1925
- Ludwig Wittgenstein taught here, 1929–1951
- Alan Turing studied here, 1934
- Marshall McLuhan studied here, 1943
- Imre Lakatos studied here, 1959
- Ian Hacking studied here, 1962
- Simon Blackburn studied here, 1962–1965
- Graham Priest studied here, 1967–1970
- Elizabeth Anscombe taught here, 1970–1986
- Carol Gilligan taught here, 1992–1993
- Amartya Sen worked here, 1998–2026
- Judith Jarvis Thomson studied here
- Philip Pettit worked here
- Kwame Anthony Appiah studied here
- Philip Kitcher studied here
- Aurobindo studied here
- Norbert Wiener studied here
Paris
Paris has been a major centre of philosophy since the twelfth century.
37 thinkers here
- Peter Abelard taught here, 1108–1140
- Bonaventure taught here, 1254–1257
- Thomas Aquinas taught here, 1256–1272
- Duns Scotus taught here, 1302–1307
- Marsilius of Padua taught here, 1312–1313
- Desiderius Erasmus studied here, 1495
- Thomas Hobbes worked here, 1640–1651
- Karl Marx worked here, 1845
- Henri Bergson born here, 1859
- Pierre Duhem born here, 1861; studied here, 1882–1888
- Ferdinand de Saussure taught here, 1881–1891
- Oscar Wilde died here, 1900
- Simone de Beauvoir born here, 1908
- Simone Weil born here, 1909
- Émile Durkheim died here, 1917
- Jiddu Krishnamurti studied here, 1920–1921
- Gilles Deleuze born here, 1925; taught here, 1969–1987
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty studied here, 1926–1930; taught here, 1949–1961
- Paul Benacerraf born here, 1931
- Hannah Arendt worked here, 1933–1939
- Walter Benjamin worked here, 1933–1940
- José Ortega y Gasset worked here, 1937–1939
- Octavio Paz worked here, 1945
- Emmanuel Levinas taught here, 1947–1995
- Paul Ricoeur taught here, 1956
- Jean-François Lyotard taught here, 1959
- Jacques Derrida taught here, 1960–2004
- Ali Shariati studied here, 1964
- Jean Baudrillard taught here, 1966–1987
- Michel Foucault taught here, 1970–1984
- Roger Caillois died here, 1978
- Pierre Bourdieu taught here, 1981
- Ian Hacking taught here, 2000–2006
- Milan Kundera died here, 2023
- Jean-Paul Sartre studied here
- Aimé Césaire studied here
- Paulin Hountondji studied here
Amsterdam
Amsterdam, in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, sheltered several unorthodox thinkers.
3 thinkers here
- René Descartes worked here, 1629
- Baruch Spinoza born here, 1632
- L. E. J. Brouwer taught here, 1912–1951
Trier
Trier was a Roman colony from the first century CE and, at the end of the third century, became one of the capitals of the Tetrarchy, seat of the Western Empire's junior emperor; UNESCO calls it a 'second Rome'.
1 thinker here
- Karl Marx born here, 1818
Cologne
Cologne was the German centre of Dominican learning in the Middle Ages and also housed a Franciscan studium generale.
6 thinkers here
- Thomas Aquinas studied here, 1248
- Duns Scotus taught here, 1307–1308
- Meister Eckhart worked here, 1323–1327
- Nicholas of Cusa worked here, 1426
- Karl Marx worked here, 1842
- Edith Stein worked here, 1933
Basel
Basel, on the Rhine, combined a university with busy printing houses such as Johann Froben's.
4 thinkers here
- Desiderius Erasmus worked here, 1521–1529
- Friedrich Nietzsche taught here, 1869–1879
- Karl Jaspers died here, 1969
- Hermann Hesse worked here
Turin
The University of Turin has been a home for logic, Marxist thought and semiotics.
3 thinkers here
- Giuseppe Peano studied here, 1876–1880; taught here, 1880–1932
- Antonio Gramsci studied here, 1911–1915; worked here, 1915–1922
- Umberto Eco studied here, 1954; taught here, 1961
Freiburg im Breisgau
Freiburg im Breisgau was a centre of phenomenology between the world wars.
12 thinkers here
- Desiderius Erasmus worked here, 1529
- Max Weber taught here, 1894
- Edmund Husserl taught here, 1916–1928
- Edith Stein worked here, 1916–1918
- Hans Jonas studied here, 1921
- Martin Heidegger taught here, 1928
- Emmanuel Levinas studied here, 1928–1929
- Herbert Marcuse studied here, 1928
- Nishitani Keiji studied here, 1937–1939
- Friedrich Hayek taught here, 1962–1968
- Hannah Arendt studied here
- Walter Benjamin studied here
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main gave its name to the Frankfurt School of critical theory.
10 thinkers here
- Arthur Schopenhauer worked here, 1833–1860
- Erich Fromm born here, 1900
- Franz Rosenzweig worked here, 1920–1929
- Martin Buber taught here, 1923–1933
- Paul Tillich taught here, 1929–1933
- Max Horkheimer worked here, 1930–1958
- Abraham Joshua Heschel taught here, 1938
- Hans-Georg Gadamer taught here, 1947–1949
- Theodor W. Adorno taught here, 1949–1969
- Jürgen Habermas taught here, 1956–1994
Heidelberg
The University of Heidelberg was a centre of German social thought, psychiatry and philosophy in the twentieth century.
9 thinkers here
- Franz Boas studied here, 1877
- Max Weber taught here, 1896
- Karl Jaspers studied here, 1901–1908; taught here, 1913–1937
- Stanisław Leśniewski studied here, 1904–1910
- György Lukács worked here, 1917
- Erich Fromm studied here, 1922
- Hannah Arendt studied here, 1926
- Hans-Georg Gadamer taught here, 1949–1968; died here, 2002
- Endel Tulving studied here
Marburg
The University of Marburg was the base of Hermann Cohen, who taught there for almost four decades.
7 thinkers here
- Hans-Georg Gadamer born here, 1900; studied here, 1919–1922
- Rudolf Otto taught here, 1917–1937
- Martin Heidegger taught here, 1923–1928
- Hannah Arendt studied here, 1924–1925
- Paul Tillich taught here, 1924–1925
- José Ortega y Gasset studied here
- Hermann Cohen taught here
Göttingen
The University of Göttingen joined mathematics and philosophy in the early twentieth century.
5 thinkers here
- Rudolf Otto studied here, 1888–1892
- David Hilbert taught here, 1895–1943
- Edmund Husserl taught here, 1901–1916
- Karl Jaspers studied here, 1903–1906
- Gerhard Gentzen studied here, 1929–1933; worked here, 1934–1943
Florence
Florence, a merchant republic and later a grand duchy, shaped Italian thought from Dante to Galileo.
4 thinkers here
- Dante Alighieri born here, 1265
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola worked here, 1494
- Niccolò Machiavelli worked here, 1498–1512
- Galileo Galilei worked here, 1610–1642
Jena
In the 1790s and 1800s the small university town of Jena was the main centre of German Idealism.
6 thinkers here
- Anton Wilhelm Amo taught here, 1739
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte taught here, 1794–1799
- F. W. J. Schelling taught here, 1798–1803
- G. W. F. Hegel taught here, 1801–1807
- Gottlob Frege taught here, 1874–1917
- Rudolf Carnap studied here
Padua
Padua's university, in the Venetian Republic, drew students and teachers from across Europe.
4 thinkers here
- Nicholas of Cusa studied here, 1423
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola studied here, 1482
- Galileo Galilei taught here, 1592–1610
- Marsilius of Padua studied here
Copenhagen
Copenhagen was the lifelong home of Søren Kierkegaard.
2 thinkers here
- Søren Kierkegaard born here, 1813
- Niels Bohr taught here, 1916–1962
Berlin
Berlin, the Prussian capital, was a centre first of the Jewish and German Enlightenment and then of idealist philosophy.
21 thinkers here
- Moses Mendelssohn worked here, 1743–1786
- Friedrich Schleiermacher taught here, 1810–1834
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte taught here, 1810–1814
- G. W. F. Hegel taught here, 1818–1831; died here, 1831
- Arthur Schopenhauer taught here, 1820
- Ludwig Feuerbach studied here, 1824–1826
- Karl Marx studied here, 1836–1841
- F. W. J. Schelling taught here, 1841
- Søren Kierkegaard studied here, 1841
- Franz Boas worked here, 1885
- W. E. B. Du Bois studied here, 1892–1894
- Hermann Cohen taught here, 1912–1918
- Albert Einstein worked here, 1914
- Paul Tillich taught here, 1919–1924
- Hans Jonas studied here, 1921–1924
- Carl Hempel studied here, 1925
- Max Weber studied here
- Walter Benjamin studied here
- José Ortega y Gasset studied here
- Carl Schmitt taught here
- Abraham Joshua Heschel studied here
Naples
Naples, the great city of southern Italy, was home to a university and to powerful religious houses.
3 thinkers here
- Thomas Aquinas taught here, 1272
- Giordano Bruno studied here, 1565–1575
- Giambattista Vico taught here, 1741
Vienna
Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, was home to two influential movements of modern philosophy.
13 thinkers here
- Franz Brentano taught here, 1874–1895
- Edmund Husserl studied here, 1884–1886
- Ludwig Wittgenstein born here, 1889
- Friedrich Hayek born here, 1899
- Karl Popper born here, 1902
- Viktor Frankl born here, 1905; died here, 1997
- György Lukács worked here, 1919–1929
- Antonio Gramsci worked here, 1923
- Otto Neurath worked here, 1924–1934
- Kurt Gödel studied here, 1924–1929
- Paul Feyerabend born here, 1924
- Rudolf Carnap taught here, 1931
- A. J. Ayer studied here, 1933
Königsberg
Königsberg, near the south-eastern shore of the Baltic and today the Russian city of Kaliningrad, is inseparable from Immanuel Kant.
4 thinkers here
- Immanuel Kant born here, 1724; studied here; taught here, 1755–1796; died here, 1804
- Johann Herder studied here, 1762–1764
- David Hilbert taught here, 1886–1895
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte worked here
Warsaw
Between the two world wars the University of Warsaw brought together the logicians Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski and Alfred Tarski.
5 thinkers here
- Alfred Tarski born here, 1901; taught here, 1924–1939
- Abraham Joshua Heschel born here, 1907
- Chaim Perelman born here, 1912
- Jan Łukasiewicz taught here, 1915–1939
- Stanisław Leśniewski taught here, 1919–1939
St Petersburg
St Petersburg, on the Baltic at the mouth of the Neva, was a city of writers and radicals in late imperial Russia.
2 thinkers here
- Fyodor Dostoevsky died here, 1881
- Ayn Rand born here, 1905
Marrakesh
Marrakesh was the seat of the Almohad rulers who patronised philosophy in the twelfth century.
2 thinkers here
- Ibn Rushd worked here, 1159–1198
- Ibn Tufayl worked here, 1163–1184
Fez
Fez, in northern Morocco, links several lives in the western Islamic world.
4 thinkers here
- Ibn Bajja died here, 1139
- Maimonides worked here, 1160–1165
- Fatima Mernissi born here, 1940
- Ibn Khaldun worked here
Algiers
Algiers, the capital of Algeria under French colonial rule, shaped two very different French-language philosophers.
3 thinkers here
- Jacques Derrida born here, 1930
- Albert Camus studied here, 1940
- Pierre Bourdieu worked here, 1958–1960
Hippo Regius
Hippo Regius, a port of Roman North Africa on the coast of what is now eastern Algeria, was Augustine's home for the last four decades of his life.
1 thinker here
- Augustine of Hippo worked here, 391–430 CE; died here, 430 CE
Alexandria
Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, Alexandria became a leading centre of Hellenic scholarship and science.
3 thinkers here
- Philo of Alexandria worked here, 20 BCE – 50 CE
- Plotinus studied here, 232–243 CE
- John Philoponus worked here, 490–570 CE
Cairo
Cairo and Fustat, now part of it, were a meeting place of Muslim and Jewish learning and later of modern Islamic reform.
4 thinkers here
- Ibn al-Haytham died here, 1040
- Maimonides worked here, 1166–1204
- Ibn Khaldun taught here, 1382–1406
- Muhammad Abduh studied here
Damascus
Damascus drew philosophers, mystics and jurists across five centuries.
3 thinkers here
- Al-Farabi died here, 950–951 CE
- Ibn Arabi worked here, 1223–1240
- Ibn Taymiyya worked here, 1269–1328
Baghdad
As the capital of the Abbasid caliphs, Baghdad was a centre of the movement that translated Greek philosophy and science into Arabic.
10 thinkers here
- Al-Kindi worked here, 833–842 CE
- Al-Ash'ari worked here, 915–936 CE
- Saadia Gaon died here, 942 CE
- Al-Farabi studied here, 943 CE
- Al-Mawardi died here, 1058
- Al-Ghazali taught here, 1091–1095
- Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī died here, 1274
- Al-Jahiz worked here
- Abu Bakr al-Razi worked here
- Miskawayh worked here
Basra
Basra, founded as an Arab garrison town near the head of the Gulf, became what the Encyclopaedia Iranica calls the intellectual crossroads of the Islamic world in the eighth to tenth centuries.
5 thinkers here
- Al-Jahiz born here, 776 CE
- Al-Kindi born here, 800 CE
- Al-Ash'ari studied here, 915 CE
- Ibn al-Haytham born here, 965 CE
- Mulla Sadra died here, 1635–1641
Rayy
Rayy, an old Persian city near modern Tehran, gave its name to two major thinkers, both known as al-Razi.
4 thinkers here
- Abu Bakr al-Razi born here, 865 CE
- Ibn Sina worked here, 1014–1015
- Fakhr al-Din al-Razi born here, 1149
- Miskawayh worked here
Isfahan
Isfahan hosted three phases of Persian philosophical and scientific life.
4 thinkers here
- Ibn Sina worked here, 1024–1037
- Miskawayh died here, 1030
- Omar Khayyam worked here, 1075–1092
- Mulla Sadra studied here, 1597
Nishapur
Nishapur, a great city of Khorasan, was a centre of theology, science and Sufism.
5 thinkers here
- Omar Khayyam born here, 1048
- Al-Qushayri worked here, 1072
- Al-Ghazali studied here, 1085
- Farid al-Din Attar died here, 1221
- Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī studied here
Bukhara
Bukhara, seat of the Samanid court, was where Ibn Sina grew up and was educated.
1 thinker here
- Ibn Sina studied here, 970–999 CE
Lhasa
Lhasa, with its ancient Jokhang temple, was the religious heart of Tibetan Buddhism.
2 thinkers here
- Tsongkhapa worked here, 1409
- 14th Dalai Lama studied here, 1941–1959
Lahore
Lahore was the intellectual home of Muhammad Iqbal, the poet and philosopher whom Britannica calls the greatest twentieth-century poet to write in Urdu.
1 thinker here
- Muhammad Iqbal studied here, 1895; taught here, 1908; died here, 1938
Kashmir Valley
In the Kashmir Valley, around the year 1000, Abhinavagupta wrote some of the most studied works of Sanskrit philosophy and aesthetics.
1 thinker here
- Abhinavagupta born here; worked here, 1014
Delhi
Delhi has been a centre of learning across several eras.
3 thinkers here
- Shah Waliullah born here, 1703; died here, 1762
- B. R. Ambedkar died here, 1956
- Daya Krishna studied here
Kanchipuram
Kanchipuram, a temple city of south India not far from modern Chennai, was a seat of Vedānta learning.
1 thinker here
- Rāmānuja studied here
Varanasi
Varanasi, on the Ganges, is one of India's sacred cities.
2 thinkers here
- Radhakrishnan worked here, 1939–1948
- The Buddha taught here
Nalanda
Nalanda, in what is now Bihar, was a major centre of Buddhist monastic learning in India.
4 thinkers here
- Xuanzang studied here, 636 CE
- Nagarjuna studied here
- Dharmakīrti studied here
- Śāntideva studied here
Navadvipa
Navadvipa in Bengal became the second great home of Navya-Nyāya, the 'new' school of Indian logic and epistemology.
1 thinker here
- Raghunātha Śiromaṇi born here, 1475
Kolkata
Calcutta was a centre of modern Indian thought and reform.
6 thinkers here
- Rabindranath Tagore born here, 1861
- Vivekananda born here, 1863
- Aurobindo born here, 1872; worked here, 1906–1910
- Radhakrishnan taught here, 1921
- Amartya Sen studied here
- Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya taught here
Chang'an
Chang'an, the Tang capital on the site of modern Xi'an, was where much Buddhist learning from India was translated into Chinese.
Luoyang
Luoyang, on the Luo river in the Yellow River plain, served as a capital for several Chinese courts.
Mount Lu
Mount Lu rises south of the Yangtze in northern Jiangxi.
2 thinkers here
- Zhou Dunyi worked here, 1071–1073
- Zhu Xi worked here, 1179–1181
Beijing
Beijing, capital of the Qing empire, drew scholars from across China.
7 thinkers here
- Dai Zhen worked here, 1754–1777
- Feng Youlan studied here, 1915–1918
- John Dewey taught here, 1919–1921
- Bertrand Russell taught here, 1920
- Xiong Shili taught here, 1925; died here, 1968
- Mou Zongsan studied here, 1929–1933
- Li Zehou studied here, 1954; worked here, 1954
Qufu
Qufu, in Shandong, is honoured as the home of Confucius, who taught in the state of Lu.
1 thinker here
- Confucius a centre of their work, 551–479 BCE
Andong
The countryside around Andong, in south-eastern Korea, was the home of Yi Hwang (Toegye), one of the two great Neo-Confucian philosophers of Joseon Korea.
1 thinker here
- Yi Hwang (Toegye) born here, 1501
Kyoto
Kyoto, still Japan's new imperial capital when the emperor Saga summoned Kūkai there in 809, hosted Buddhist, Confucian and modern philosophy in turn.
10 thinkers here
- Kūkai worked here, 809–823 CE
- Shinran born here, 1173; died here, 1263
- Kamo no Chōmei died here, 1216
- Zeami worked here, 1374–1434
- Nishida Kitarō taught here, 1910–1929
- Watsuji Tetsurō taught here, 1925–1934
- Nishitani Keiji taught here, 1935–1963
- Itō Jinsai taught here
- Tanabe Hajime taught here
- Kuki Shūzō taught here
Mount Hiei
Mount Hiei, above Kyoto, was the centre of the Tendai school and the training ground of the Buddhist reformers of Japan's Kamakura period.
3 thinkers here
Kamakura
Kamakura became the seat of Japan's first military government in 1180 and a centre of new Buddhist movements.
3 thinkers here
- Nichiren taught here, 1253–1271
- Nishida Kitarō worked here, 1929–1945
- D. T. Suzuki worked here, 1946–1966
Tokyo
Edo, the shogun's capital, and the modern city of Tokyo that grew from it have been centres of Japanese philosophy since the seventeenth century.
7 thinkers here
- Ogyū Sorai born here, 1666; died here, 1728
- Jun'ichirō Tanizaki born here, 1886
- Okakura Kakuzō worked here, 1887–1898
- Nishida Kitarō studied here, 1891–1894
- Watsuji Tetsurō taught here, 1934–1949
- D. T. Suzuki died here, 1966
- Nitobe Inazō taught here
Timbuktu
Timbuktu, on the southern edge of the Sahara, was an intellectual and spiritual capital of West Africa.
Accra
Accra, the capital of Ghana, became a meeting point for Pan-African politics and academic African philosophy.
4 thinkers here
- Kwame Nkrumah studied here, 1926–1930
- Kwasi Wiredu taught here, 1961
- W. E. B. Du Bois died here, 1963
- Kwame Gyekye taught here, 1969–2009
Johannesburg
In Johannesburg, in September 1906, Mohandas Gandhi led a mass meeting of Indians who pledged to resist the Transvaal's new ordinance requiring the registration of its Indian population.
3 thinkers here
- Mahatma Gandhi worked here, 1914
- Desmond Tutu worked here, 1975–1986
- Achille Mbembe worked here
Kampala
Kampala's Makerere University, known in the mid-twentieth century as Makerere University College of East Africa, educated a generation of East African writers and thinkers.
3 thinkers here
- Julius Nyerere studied here, 1946
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o studied here, 1959–1964
- John Mbiti taught here, 1964–1974
Berkeley
The University of California at Berkeley drew logicians, philosophers of science and philosophers of language from the 1940s.
18 thinkers here
- Herbert Simon worked here, 1939–1942
- David Bohm studied here, 1943
- Alfred Tarski taught here, 1945–1983
- Thomas Kuhn taught here, 1956–1964
- Paul Feyerabend taught here, 1958–1990
- John Searle taught here, 1959
- Lotfi Zadeh taught here, 1959–1991
- Thomas Nagel taught here, 1963–1966
- Stanley Cavell taught here, 1963
- Paul Grice taught here, 1967–1988
- Hubert Dreyfus taught here, 1968–2016
- Donald Davidson taught here, 1981–2003
- Sally Haslanger studied here, 1985
- Richard Wollheim taught here, 1985–2003
- Bernard Williams taught here, 1987
- Agnes Callard studied here, 2008
- Judith Butler taught here
- Langdon Winner studied here
Stanford
Stanford University in California has housed philosophers, economists and educators.
9 thinkers here
- Donald Davidson taught here, 1951–1967
- Ian Hacking taught here, 1975–1982
- Nel Noddings taught here, 1977
- Milton Friedman worked here, 1977
- Peter Godfrey-Smith taught here, 1991–2003
- Nancy Cartwright taught here, 1991
- Richard Rorty taught here, 1998
- V. Y. Mudimbe taught here
- Helen Longino taught here
Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has trained and employed many analytic philosophers.
7 thinkers here
- Wesley Salmon studied here, 1950
- David Lewis taught here, 1966–1970
- Angela Davis taught here, 1970
- Hilary Putnam studied here
- Robert Adams taught here
- Kit Fine taught here
- Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò studied here
Mexico City
Mexico City has been a centre of philosophy in the Americas since the colonial era.
8 thinkers here
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz worked here, 1669–1695
- Octavio Paz born here, 1914
- Leopoldo Zea worked here, 1948–1952
- Erich Fromm taught here, 1951
- Miguel León-Portilla taught here, 1957
- Enrique Dussel taught here, 1976–2023; died here, 2023
- José Vasconcelos worked here
- Samuel Ramos taught here
Chicago
The University of Chicago became a centre of pragmatism and later of émigré philosophy.
21 thinkers here
- John Dewey taught here, 1894–1904
- George Herbert Mead taught here, 1894–1931
- Hilary Putnam born here, 1926
- Herbert Simon studied here, 1933–1936
- Rudolf Carnap taught here, 1936
- Wesley Salmon studied here, 1944–1947
- Richard Rorty studied here, 1946–1952
- Leo Strauss taught here, 1949–1967
- Friedrich Hayek taught here, 1950–1962
- Clifford Geertz taught here, 1960–1961
- Paul Tillich taught here, 1962–1965
- Paul Ricoeur taught here, 1970–1992
- Stephen Toulmin taught here, 1973–1986
- Donald Davidson taught here, 1976–1981
- Milton Friedman taught here, 1977
- Fazlur Rahman taught here, 1988
- Iris Marion Young taught here, 2000–2006
- Hannah Arendt taught here
- Martha Nussbaum taught here
- Agnes Callard taught here
- Christine Korsgaard taught here
Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame, in northern Indiana, has been a home for the philosophy of religion.
3 thinkers here
- Alvin Plantinga taught here, 1982–2026
- Peter van Inwagen taught here, 1995–2026
- Alasdair MacIntyre taught here
Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, Michigan, is home to the University of Michigan.
8 thinkers here
- Wilfrid Sellars born here, 1912
- Arthur Danto born here, 1924
- Alvin Plantinga born here, 1932
- Jaegwon Kim taught here, 1967–1987
- Elizabeth Anderson taught here, 1987–2026
- Sally Haslanger taught here, 1992–1998
- Alvin Goldman taught here
- Kit Fine taught here
Detroit
Detroit is home to Wayne State University, whose philosophy department employed Edmund Gettier and Alvin Plantinga in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
4 thinkers here
- Wesley Salmon born here, 1925
- Edmund Gettier taught here, 1957–1967
- Alvin Plantinga taught here, 1958–1963
- H. Odera Oruka studied here, 1969
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, gathered philosophers of science, logicians and theorists of rational choice in the later twentieth century.
10 thinkers here
- Herbert Simon taught here, 1949
- Wilfrid Sellars taught here, 1963–1989
- Bas van Fraassen studied here, 1966
- Carl Hempel taught here, 1973
- David Gauthier taught here, 1980
- Wesley Salmon taught here, 1981–1999
- Iris Marion Young taught here, 2000
- Larry Laudan taught here
- Ernest Sosa studied here
- Shelly Kagan taught here
Toronto
The University of Toronto has been a centre for philosophy, media theory and psychology.
7 thinkers here
- David Gauthier born here, 1932; taught here, 1958–1980
- Emma Goldman died here, 1940
- Marshall McLuhan taught here, 1946–1980
- Endel Tulving studied here, 1954
- Bas van Fraassen taught here, 1969–1982
- Ian Hacking taught here, 1982–2004
- Charles W. Mills studied here, 1985
Charlottesville
Charlottesville, Virginia, is the seat of the University of Virginia.
6 thinkers here
- Richard Rorty taught here, 1982–1998
- Cora Diamond taught here, 2002
- Jonathan Haidt taught here, 2011
- Elizabeth Barnes taught here, 2014–2026
- Trenton Merricks taught here
- James F. Childress taught here
Lima
Lima, the capital of Peru, was the base of two influential twentieth-century Latin American thinkers.
2 thinkers here
- José Carlos Mariátegui worked here, 1923–1930
- Gustavo Gutiérrez born here, 1928
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, has been home to reformers and philosophers.
6 thinkers here
- Frederick Douglass died here, 1895
- Anna Julia Cooper died here, 1964
- Tom L. Beauchamp taught here, 1970
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr taught here, 1984–2026
- Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò taught here
- Jason Brennan taught here
Philadelphia
Philadelphia's universities have hosted philosophers from several traditions.
6 thinkers here
- Kwame Nkrumah studied here, 1939–1943
- Nelson Goodman taught here, 1946–1964
- Sally Haslanger taught here, 1989–1992
- Jonathan Haidt studied here, 1992
- Noël Carroll taught here, 2008
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr taught here
Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey, has been home to many analytic philosophers since the mid-twentieth century.
31 thinkers here
- Stephen Kleene studied here, 1934
- Alan Turing studied here, 1938
- David Bohm taught here, 1947
- Carl Hempel taught here, 1955–1973
- Albert Einstein worked here, 1955
- Paul Benacerraf taught here, 1960–2007
- Richard Rorty taught here, 1961–1982
- Hilary Putnam taught here, 1961
- Robert Nozick studied here, 1963
- Thomas Kuhn taught here, 1964
- Larry Laudan studied here, 1965
- Alvin Goldman studied here, 1965
- Robert Stalnaker studied here, 1965
- Thomas Nagel taught here, 1966–1980
- T. M. Scanlon taught here, 1966–1984
- Donald Davidson taught here, 1967–1970
- David Lewis taught here, 1970–2001
- Clifford Geertz worked here, 1970–2006
- Philip Kitcher studied here, 1974
- Saul Kripke taught here, 1976–1998
- Michael Walzer worked here, 1980–2007
- Bas van Fraassen taught here, 1982–2008
- Shelly Kagan studied here, 1982
- Sally Haslanger taught here, 1986–1989
- Harry Frankfurt taught here, 1990–2002
- Peter Singer taught here, 1999–2026
- Adam Elga taught here, 2001–2026
- Philip Pettit taught here, 2002–2026
- Kwame Anthony Appiah taught here, 2002–2014
- Michael Smith taught here, 2004–2026
- Jerry Fodor studied here
New Brunswick
New Brunswick, New Jersey, is the main campus of Rutgers University.
6 thinkers here
- Milton Friedman studied here, 1932
- Jerry Fodor taught here, 1988
- Alvin Goldman taught here, 1994
- Theodore Sider taught here, 2002–2007
- Peter Kivy taught here, 2016
- Ernest Sosa taught here
New York
New York became a refuge and a forum for philosophy in the twentieth century.
49 thinkers here
- Thomas Paine died here, 1809
- William James born here, 1842
- José Martí worked here, 1881–1895
- Franz Boas taught here, 1896–1936
- John Dewey taught here, 1904–1930
- Milton Friedman born here, 1912
- B. R. Ambedkar studied here, 1913
- James Baldwin born here, 1924
- Richard Rorty born here, 1931
- Paul Tillich taught here, 1933–1955
- Max Horkheimer worked here, 1934
- Herbert Marcuse worked here, 1934–1942
- Erich Fromm taught here, 1934–1941
- Audre Lorde born here, 1934
- Carol Gilligan born here, 1936
- Theodor W. Adorno worked here, 1938
- Leo Strauss taught here, 1938–1948
- Alvin Goldman born here, 1938
- Isaiah Berlin worked here, 1940–1942
- Hannah Arendt worked here, 1941–1975
- Stephen Jay Gould born here, 1941
- Abraham Joshua Heschel taught here, 1945–1972
- Martha Nussbaum born here, 1947
- Iris Marion Young born here, 1949
- Hans Jonas taught here, 1955
- Robert Nozick studied here, 1959
- Judith Jarvis Thomson studied here, 1959
- Malcolm X died here, 1965
- Saul Kripke taught here, 1968–1976
- Thomas Nagel taught here, 1980–2026
- Ayn Rand died here, 1982
- Richard Wollheim taught here, 1982–1985
- Kit Fine taught here, 1997–2026
- Theodore Sider taught here, 2007–2011
- Noël Carroll taught here, 2008–2026
- David Chalmers taught here, 2009–2026
- Graham Priest taught here, 2009–2026
- Jonathan Haidt taught here, 2011–2026
- Kwame Anthony Appiah taught here, 2014–2026
- Charles W. Mills taught here, 2016–2021
- Miranda Fricker taught here, 2016–2026
- Harry Frankfurt taught here
- Jerry Fodor born here
- Philip Kitcher taught here
- Ronald Dworkin taught here
- Arthur Danto taught here
- Nancy Fraser taught here
- Simon Critchley taught here
- Massimo Pigliucci taught here
New Haven
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, trained and employed many twentieth-century philosophers.
16 thinkers here
- Richard Rorty studied here, 1952–1956
- Alvin Plantinga studied here, 1958
- Wilfrid Sellars taught here, 1959–1963
- Bas van Fraassen taught here, 1966–1969
- Harry Frankfurt taught here, 1976–1989
- Judith Butler studied here, 1984
- Shelly Kagan taught here, 1995
- Luciano Floridi worked here, 2023–2026
- Robert Adams taught here
- Lewis R. Gordon studied here
- Amia Srinivasan studied here
- James F. Childress studied here
- Ronald Dworkin taught here
- Robert Stalnaker taught here
- Christine Korsgaard taught here
- Tom L. Beauchamp studied here
Providence
Providence, Rhode Island, is home to Brown University.
4 thinkers here
- Ernest Sosa taught here, 1964–2007
- Martha Nussbaum taught here, 1986–1993
- Roderick Chisholm taught here, 1999
- Jaegwon Kim taught here
Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts
Boston and neighbouring Cambridge, home of Harvard University, were an early centre of American philosophy.
45 thinkers here
- Ralph Waldo Emerson born here, 1803
- C. S. Peirce born here, 1839
- William James taught here, 1872–1907
- George Santayana taught here, 1889–1912
- W. E. B. Du Bois studied here, 1895
- A. N. Whitehead taught here, 1924–1937
- Wilfrid Sellars studied here, 1937–1938
- Roderick Chisholm studied here, 1942
- Donald Davidson studied here, 1949
- Hubert Dreyfus studied here, 1951–1964
- Paul Tillich taught here, 1955–1962
- Thomas Kuhn taught here, 1956
- Claude Shannon taught here, 1956
- Clifford Geertz studied here, 1956
- Ronald Dworkin studied here, 1957
- Jerry Fodor taught here, 1959–1986
- Hilary Putnam taught here, 1961
- John Rawls taught here, 1962
- Saul Kripke studied here, 1962
- Thomas Nagel studied here, 1963
- Stanley Cavell taught here, 1963–1997
- Judith Jarvis Thomson taught here, 1964–2004
- Michael Walzer taught here, 1966–1980
- Carol Gilligan taught here, 1967–2002
- Stephen Jay Gould taught here, 1967
- Nelson Goodman taught here, 1968–1977
- Robert Nozick taught here, 1969–2002
- Michael Sandel taught here, 1980–2026
- Elizabeth Anderson studied here, 1981–1987
- Martha Nussbaum taught here, 1983
- T. M. Scanlon taught here, 1984–2026
- Robert Stalnaker taught here, 1988–2026
- Sally Haslanger taught here, 1998–2026
- Adam Elga studied here, 2001
- Peter Godfrey-Smith taught here, 2006–2011
- Henry David Thoreau studied here
- W. V. O. Quine taught here
- David Lewis studied here
- Daniel Dennett worked here
- Okakura Kakuzō worked here
- Frances Kamm taught here
- Norbert Wiener taught here
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr studied here
- Christine Korsgaard taught here
- Alex Byrne taught here
Fort-de-France
Fort-de-France, capital of Martinique, was Aimé Césaire's base for most of his life.
2 thinkers here
- Aimé Césaire taught here, 1940–1945; worked here, 1945–2001; died here, 2008
- Frantz Fanon studied here
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires has been a meeting point for Latin American and European thought.
4 thinkers here
- José Ortega y Gasset taught here, 1916
- María Lugones born here, 1944
- Rodolfo Kusch studied here
- Roger Caillois worked here
São Paulo
São Paulo's universities have hosted logicians, physicists and educators.
3 thinkers here
- David Bohm taught here, 1955
- Newton da Costa taught here, 1967–1984
- Paulo Freire died here, 1997
Adelaide
The University of Adelaide brought together two philosophers of mind in the early 1950s.
4 thinkers here
- J. J. C. Smart taught here, 1950–1972
- U. T. Place worked here, 1951–1954
- Frank Jackson taught here, 1967
- David Chalmers studied here, 1983–1986
Melbourne
Melbourne has been a centre of Australian philosophy since the mid-twentieth century.
9 thinkers here
- Peter Singer born here, 1946; studied here
- David Armstrong taught here, 1956–1964
- Michael Smith studied here, 1980
- Graham Priest taught here, 2000–2013
- Toby Ord studied here, 2002
- Greg Restall taught here, 2013–2021
- Frank Jackson studied here
- C. A. J. Coady taught here
- Jay L. Garfield taught here
Canberra
Canberra, Australia's capital, is the seat of the Australian National University.
5 thinkers here
- J. J. C. Smart taught here, 1976
- Philip Pettit taught here, 1983–2002
- Frank Jackson taught here, 1986–2026
- Michael Smith taught here, 1995–2004
- David Chalmers taught here, 2004–2026
Sydney
The University of Sydney was the home of John Anderson, who held its Challis chair of philosophy.
3 thinkers here
- J. L. Mackie born here, 1917; taught here, 1959–1963
- David Armstrong studied here; taught here, 1964–1991
- Peter Godfrey-Smith studied here