- German Philosophy
German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Leibniz through Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Weber, to contemporary philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein. - Karl Heinrich Marx
There are few economists who have become both so reviled, and admired as Marx. Indeed some would even question whether Marx deserves to be called an economist; others would prefer terms like 'bungling and failed revolutionary'. However, there are certainly few economists who read so widely and wrote so much as Marx. Whether you love or loathe Marx, we cannot deny his writings had profound influence on the twentieth century. What Did Marx Believe? - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, and poet who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most recognized work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal documentarian and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", … - Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17 1790) was one of the most critical Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a leading author, political theorist, politician, printer, scientist, inventor, civic activist, environmentalist, and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation, … - Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph.D (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, political activist, and a prolific author and lecturer. He is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, considered to be one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics made in the 20th century. - William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. William James was born at the Astor House in New York City, son of Henry James, Sr., … - Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, and philosopher who is best known for "Walden", a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, "Civil Disobedience", an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. - David Bowie
David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and audio engineer. Active in five decades of rock music, and frequently re-inventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an influential innovator, particularly for his work through the 1970s. Bowie has taken cues from a wide range of fine art, philosophy and literature. He is also a film and stage actor, … - Woody Allen
Woody Allen is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His large body of work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era. Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, … - Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 - November 22, 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. - Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 - July 9, 1797) was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Great Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (April 26, 1889 in Vienna, Austria - April 29, 1951 in Cambridge, England) was an Austrian philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking ideas to philosophy, primarily in the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. His influence has been wide-ranging, placing him among the most significant philosophers of the 20th century. - Sam Harris
Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American writer. He is the author of "The End of Faith" (2004), which was inspired by the September 11, 2001 attacks, and which won the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and "Letter to a Christian Nation" (2006), a rejoinder to the criticism the first book attracted. His articles have appeared in "Newsweek", "The Los Angeles Times", "The Times" of London, and "The Boston Globe". - Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 - 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book "Leviathan" established the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy. Although Hobbes is today best remembered for his work on political philosophy, he contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, geometry, theology, ethics, general philosophy, and what would now be called political science. - Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (April 26, 121 - March 17, 180) was Roman Emperor from 161 to his death in 180. He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and is also considered one of the most important stoic philosophers. His tenure was marked by wars in Asia against a revitalized Parthian Empire, and with Germanic tribes along the "limes Germanicus" into Gaul and across the Danube. A revolt in the East, led by Avidius Cassius, failed. - Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson LL.D. (13 December 1784), often referred to simply as Dr Johnson, is one of England's best known literary figures : a poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English literature. He was also a great wit and prose stylist, well known for his "aphorisms". Dr Johnson is the most quoted of English writers after Shakespeare and has been described as one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century England. - Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875, Kesswil – June 6, 1961, Küsnacht) was a Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker, and founder of analytical psychology. Jung's unique and broadly influential approach to psychology has emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician for most of his life, … - Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. Dennett is currently the Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. - Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born July 6, 1946 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is a Jewish-Australian philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He specializes in practical ethics, approaching ethical issues from a preference utilitarian perspective. In addition, he holds an atheistic view of the world. - Virginia Postrel
Virginia I. Postrel (born 14 January 1960) is an American political and cultural writer of broadly libertarian, or classical liberal, views. She is best known for her two non-fiction books, "The Future and Its Enemies" and "The Substance of Style". In the former she explains her philosophy, "dynamism," a forward-looking and change-seeking philosophy which generally favors unregulated organization through "spontaneous order". - Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. Rorty's long and diverse career saw him working in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the analytical tradition he would later famously reject. - Confucius
Confucius (lit. "Master Kung," 551 BCE - 479 BCE) was an esteemed Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese thought and life. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, … - John Smith
John Smith (1618-52) was an English educator, born at Achurch, Northamptonshire. He entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1636, took his B.A. in 1640 and his M.A. in 1644, at which time he was chosen fellow of Queens' College. His health seems to have been precarious from the first. His labors were princepally confined to his office as teacher, for which he had remarkable qualifications. His preaching was with a rare degree of eloquence, … - Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. (b. January 31, 1949, Oklahoma City, USA), is an American integral thinker and author. Working outside the academic mainstream, he has drawn on a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, philosophy, mysticism, postmodernism, science and systems theory to formulate what he characterizes as an integral theory of consciousness. He is a leading proponent of the Integral thought movement, and founded the Integral Institute in 1998. - John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck (February 27 1902 - December 20 1968) was one of the best-known and most widely read American writers of the 20th century. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, he wrote "Of Mice and Men" (1937) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and subsequent Great Depression. - Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong (also "Mao Tse-tung" in Wade-Giles;) was a Chinese Marxist military and political leader and philosopher, who led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Mao is also recognized as a poet and calligrapher. Regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history, … - Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze, (January 18, 1925 - November 4, 1995) was a French philosopher of the late 20th century. From the early 1960s until his death, Deleuze wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular books were the two volumes of "Capitalism and Schizophrenia": "Anti-Oedipus" (1972) and "A Thousand Plateaus" (1980), both co-written with Félix Guattari. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is most famous for his work "The World as Will and Representation". - Brian Leiter
Brian Leiter (born 1963) is an American professor of law and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been teaching since 1995. Before this he taught for two years in the law school at the University of San Diego, and was also a visiting professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Princeton University and both his J.D. and Ph.D. (in philosophy) from the University of Michigan. - John Lewis
John Lewis (February 1, 1889 - February 12, 1976) was a British Unitarian minister and Marxist philosopher and author of many works on philosophy, anthropology, and religion. Lewis's father, a successful builder and architect, came from a Welsh farming family, and was a very religious Methodist. Young Lewis's social and political views clashed with those of his father. Their quarrels eventually led to his father disinheriting him. - Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson is the curator of the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference, an influential annual conference. Anderson, who is British, was born in Pakistan in 1957. His parents were medical missionaries and he spent most of his early life in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan before going to public school in England. In 1978 he graduated from Oxford University, with a 'First' in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. - Scott Adams
Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is the creator of the "Dilbert" comic strip and the author of several business commentaries, social satires, and experimental philosophy books. - Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759 - 10 September 1797) was a British writer, philosopher and feminist. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"'"',, (28 August 1749 - 22 March 1832) was a German polymath. Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, Humanism, science, and painting. His most enduring work, the two-part dramatic poem "Faust", is considered one of the peaks of world literature. Goethe's other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the bildungsroman "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship", … - Carl Icahn
Carl Celian Icahn (born February 16, 1936) is an American billionaire financier, corporate raider, and private equity investor. - David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (b. December 20 1917, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania - d. October 27 1992, London) was an American-born quantum physicist, who made significant contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project. - Massimo Pigliucci
As professor of ecology and evolution, he does research and teaching at SUNY-Stony Brook when he is not pursuing his interests in philosophy of science at the same institution. - John Searle
John Rogers Searle (born July 31 1932 in Denver, Colorado) is the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, and for his views on practical reason and the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities. He was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize and the Jovellanos Prize in 2000, and the National Humanities Medal in 2004. - Matt Yglesias
Matt Yglesias (born May 18, 1981) is a popular American political blogger and a prominent voice in the liberal blogosphere. Yglesias attended Harvard University where he studied philosophy. He graduated "magna cum laude" in 2003. He was editor-in-chief of "The Harvard Independent", a weekly newsmagazine, and also wrote for several other campus publications. He is currently a staff writer at "The Atlantic Monthly " magazine. - Duns Scotus
Blessed John Duns Scotus (c. 1266 - November 8, 1308) was a theologian, philosopher, and logician. Some argue that during his tenure at Oxford, the systematic examination of what differentiates theology from philosophy and science began in earnest. He was one of the most influential theologians and philosophers of the High Middle Ages, nicknamed "Doctor Subtilis" for his penetrating manner of thought.
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