Prominent Historians and Philosophers

Prominent Historians and Philosophers who have made major contributions to our understanding of our world and the human condition.

Selected profiles list by activity period:

Photo: The School of Athens by Raphael

BCE

• Pythagoras - Ὁ Πυθαγόρας (c. 570 BCE – c. 495 BCE) Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement of Pythagoreanism.
• Herodotus - Ἡρόδοτος (c. 484 BCE – c. 425 BCE) Greek historian, "Father of History"
• Socrates - Σωκράτης (c. 469 BCE – 399 BCE) Greek philosopher. A founder of Western philosophy
• Thucydides, Θουκυδίδης (c. 460 BCE – c. 395 BCE) A Greek historian, father of "scientific history"
• Plato - Πλάτων (428/7 BCE – 348/7 BCE) Greek philosopher. A founder of Western philosophy
• Diogenes of Sinope (Διογένης ὁ Σινωπεύς) (c. 412/404 BCE – 323 BCE) Greek cynic philosopher
• Speusippus of Athens (c. 408 BCE – 339/8 BCE) Greek philosopher (Plato's nephew)
• Aristotel - Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs (384 BCE – 322 BCE) Greek philosopher
• Zeno of Citium, Ζήνων ὁ Κιτιεύς (334 BCE – 262 BCE) Greek philosopher
• Sima Qian, 司马迁 (c. 145/135 BCE – 86 BCE) Chinese historian, father of Chinese historiography

0 – 1000 CE

• Philon of Alexandria, Φίλων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, פילון האלכסנדרוני (c. 20 BCE – 50 AC) Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher in Alexandria, Egypt.
• Seneca (c. 1 BCE – 65 CE) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature.
• Flavius, Josephus Titus; יוסף בן מתתיהו - Yosef ben Matityahu (37 – c. 100 CE) Jewish historian in Ancient Rome
• Plutarch, Plutarchus, Πλούταρχος (c. 46 – 120 CE) Greek historian, biographer and essayist
• Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 117 CE) Senator and historian of the Roman Empire.
• Hypatia - Ὑπατία of Alexandria (370 – 415 CE) Greek scholar from Alexandria, Egypt, considered the first notable woman in mathematics, philosophy and astronomy.
• Agathias Scholasticus, Αγαθίας σχολαστικός (c. AD 530 – 582/594), of Myrina (Mysia), Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558. His famous works: Cyclus, (The Circle) - compilation of "modern" (in Justinian's day) poems and epigrams which Agathias edited, and in which he included about 100 of his own productions. Historiæ - a sequel to Procopius' (public) history of Justinian's reign.

1000 – 1500

• Avicenna, ابن سینا, Aβιτζιανός, Ibn Sīnā (c. 980 – 1037) Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time.
• عمر خیام Omar Khayyám (1048 – 1131) Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology. He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses or rubaiyat (quatrains).
• Saxo "Longus" Grammaticus (c. 1150 – c. 1220) Danish Historian.
• Wincenty Kadłubek (1161 – 1223) Polish historian
• Maimonides - הרמב"ם موسى-ابن-ميمون (c. 1138 – 1204) Jewish philosopher of Spanish origin.
• Desiderius Erasmus (28/10/1466 – 12/7/1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic philosopher priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian.
• Machiavelli, Niccolo (5/3/1469 – 21/6/1527) Italian philosopher
• Martín de Azpilcueta or Doctor Navarrus, was an important Spanish canonist and theologian in his time, and an early economist, the first to develop monetarist theory.

XVI century

• Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). Italian painter, architect, art historian known for Lives of The Artists (1550).
• דוד גאנז David Gans (1561 – 1626) Jewish mathematician, historian, astronomer and astrologer, of Prague.
• Sir Francis Bacon (22/1/1561 – 9/4/1626) English philosopher

XVII century

• Uriel da Costa אוריאל ד'אקוסטה (c. 1585/91 – 1640) Dutch Jewish philosopher and skeptic from Portugal
• Thomas Hobbes (5/4/1588 – 14/12/1679) English philosopher
• René Descartes (31/3/1596 – 11/2/1650) French philosopher
• Baruch de Spinoza - ברוך שפינוזה, Benedictus de Spinoza (11/24/1632 – 21/2/1677) Jewish philosopher of Dutch origin
• John Locke (29/8/1632 – 28/10/1704) English philosopher
• Capt. Edward Johnson (1598 - 1672), seminal author of the first history of New England

XVIII century

• Voltaire (21/11/1694 – 30/5/1778) French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (28/6/1712 – 2/7/1778) Genevan philosopher & writer. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.
• Imanuel Kant (22/4/1724 – 12/2/1804) German philosopher
• Moses Mendelssohn - משה מנדלסון; (c 6/9/1729 – 4/1/1786) German Jewish philosopher

XIX century

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (28/7/1770 – 14/11/1831) German philosopher, of the German Idealism movement
• Carlo Cattaneo (1801 - 1869) Italian philosopher and Revolutionary
• Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) Danish philosopher and theologian
• Christiam Mommsen (30/11/1817 – 1/11/1903) German historian and writer; his masterpiece - "The History of Rome". Nobel Prize in Literature 1902.
• Karl Marx (5/5/1818 – 14/3/1883) German Jewish philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist and writer
• John Venn (4/8/1834 – 4/4/1923) British logician and philosopher, famous for introducing the Venn diagram.
• Friedrich Nietzsche (15/10/1844 – 25/8/1900) German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet and composer.

XX century

• Henri Bergson (18/10/1859 – 4/1/1941) French philosopher. Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927.
• John Dewey (1859 – 1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer
• Martin Buber, מרטין בובר‎; (8/2/1878 – 13/6/1965) Austrian-born Jewish philosopher
• Franz Kafka (3/7/1883 – 3/6/1924) German-language Jewish novelist who revolutionized thinking and literature of the XX century
• Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) Jewish German philosopher, historian and educator
• Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26/4/1889 – 29/4/1951) Austrian-British philosopher
• Aldous Leonard Huxley (26/7/1894 – 22/11/1963) English-American writer and philosopher
• Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902 – 1994) Austro-British philosopher
• Jean-Paul Sartre (21/6/1905 – 15/4/1980) French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic
• Simone de Beauvoir (9/1/1908 – 14/4/1986) French novelist and philosopher
• Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909 – 1997) Russian-British philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century, and as the dominant liberal scholar of his generation.
• A.J. Ayers (1910 – 1989) British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, and a Special Operations MI6 agent.
• Bernard Lewis (born 1916) British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies

this project is in HistoryLink