Greece
17 philosophers
Socrates
The father of Western philosophy. Never wrote anything down, all we know comes from Plato....
Plato
Founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning. The Theory of For...
Aristotle
Tutored Alexander the Great. Founded the Lyceum and the Peripatetic school. Invented forma...
Epictetus
Born a slave, became one of the greatest philosophers. His master reportedly twisted his l...
Diogenes
Lived in a barrel in Athens and carried a lamp in daylight looking for an honest man. Told...
Epicurus
His garden school admitted women and slaves, unheard of in ancient Greece. Often misunders...
Zeno of Citium
Founded Stoicism after being shipwrecked in Athens and discovering philosophy in a booksto...
Protagoras
Man is the measure of all things is the first expression of relativism. Charged high fees ...
Thales
The first philosopher in Western history. Predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BC. Fell into a...
Heraclitus
You cannot step into the same river twice. Everything flows is his central doctrine. Known...
Parmenides
Argued that change and motion are illusions. Being is, non-being is not. His poem On Natur...
Pythagoras
More than a mathematician, he founded a religious and philosophical community. Believed in...
Anaximander
Student of Thales who wrote the first surviving prose book in philosophy. Introduced the a...
Xenophanes
The first critic of anthropomorphic religion. If horses had hands, he joked, they would dr...
Zeno of Elea
Defended Parmenides with paradoxes designed to prove motion is impossible. Achilles can ne...
Democritus
The laughing philosopher who found human affairs comic. Co-founded atomism with Leucippus:...
Sextus Empiricus
Compiled the definitive handbook of ancient skepticism. Systematized Pyrrhonism with modes...