philosopher
Other forms: philosophers
A philosopher is someone engaged in the study of philosophy. Have you ever wondered about the meaning of life? This is the type of weighty question a philosopher tackles.
In ancient Greek, the word philosopho meant a “lover of wisdom.” Thales of Miletus, who lived in the 7th century B.C., generally gets credit for being the first western philosopher, though he is much less well known than Socrates, Plato or Aristotle. René Descartes, famous for his declaration, “I think, therefore I am,” is considered the first modern philosopher, though he lived in the 17th century.
Definitions of philosopher
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a specialist in philosophyexamples:Pierre AbelardFrench philosopher and theologian; lover of Heloise (1079-1142)Anaxagorasa presocratic Athenian philosopher who maintained that everything is composed of very small particles that were arranged by some eternal intelligence (500-428 BC)Anaximandera presocratic Greek philosopher and student of Thales who believed the universal substance to be infinity rather than something resembling ordinary objects (611-547 BC)Anaximenesa presocratic Greek philosopher and associate of Anaximander who believed that all things are made of air in different degrees of density (6th century BC)Hannah ArendtUnited States historian and political philosopher (born in Germany) (1906-1975)Aristotleone of the greatest of the ancient Athenian philosophers; pupil of Plato; teacher of Alexander the Great (384-322 BC)Abul-Walid Mohammed ibn-Ahmad Ibn-Mohammed ibn-RoshdArabian philosopher born in Spain; wrote detailed commentaries on Aristotle that were admired by the Schoolmen (1126-1198)Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn SinaArabian physician and influential Islamic philosopher; his interpretation of Aristotle influenced St. Thomas Aquinas; writings on medicine were important for almost 500 years (980-1037)Viscount St. AlbansEnglish statesman and philosopher; precursor of British empiricism; advocated inductive reasoning (1561-1626)Jeremy BenthamEnglish philosopher and jurist; founder of utilitarianism (1748-1831)Henri Louis BergsonFrench philosopher who proposed elan vital as the cause of evolution and development (1859-1941)Bishop BerkeleyIrish philosopher and Anglican bishop who opposed the materialism of Thomas Hobbes (1685-1753)Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethiusa Roman who was an early Christian philosopher and statesman who was executed for treason; Boethius had a decisive influence on medieval logic (circa 480-524)Giordano BrunoItalian philosopher who used Copernican principles to develop a pantheistic monistic philosophy; condemned for heresy by the Inquisition and burned at the stake (1548-1600)Martin BuberIsraeli religious philosopher (born in Austria); as a Zionist he promoted understanding between Jews and Arabs; his writings affected Christian thinkers as well as Jews (1878-1965)Ernst CassirerGerman philosopher concerned with concept formation in the human mind and with symbolic forms in human culture generally (1874-1945)Cleanthesancient Greek philosopher who succeeded Zeno of Citium as the leader of the Stoic school (300-232 BC)Isidore Auguste Marie Francois ComteFrench philosopher remembered as the founder of positivism; he also established sociology as a systematic field of studyMarie Jean Antoine Nicolas CaritatFrench mathematician and philosopher (1743-1794)Kong the MasterChinese philosopher whose ideas and sayings were collected after his death and became the basis of a philosophical doctrine known a Confucianism (circa 551-478 BC)DemocritusGreek philosopher who developed an atomistic theory of matter (460-370 BC)Jacques DerridaFrench philosopher and critic (born in Algeria); exponent of deconstructionism (1930-2004)Rene DescartesFrench philosopher and mathematician; developed dualistic theory of mind and matter; introduced the use of coordinates to locate a point in two or three dimensions (1596-1650)John DeweyUnited States pragmatic philosopher who advocated progressive education (1859-1952)Denis DiderotFrench philosopher who was a leading figure of the Enlightenment in France; principal editor of an encyclopedia that disseminated the scientific and philosophical knowledge of the time (1713-1784)Diogenesan ancient Greek philosopher and Cynic who rejected social conventions (circa 400-325 BC)EmpedoclesGreek philosopher who taught that all matter is composed of particles of fire and water and air and earth (fifth century BC)EpictetusGreek philosopher who was a Stoic (circa 50-130)EpicurusGreek philosopher who believed that the world is a random combination of atoms and that pleasure is the highest good (341-270 BC)Ernst Heinrich HaeckelGerman biologist and philosopher; advocated Darwinism and formulated the theory of recapitulation; was an exponent of materialistic monism (1834-1919)David HartleyEnglish philosopher who introduced the theory of the association of ideas (1705-1757)Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGerman philosopher whose three stage process of dialectical reasoning was adopted by Karl Marx (1770-1831)Heraclitusa presocratic Greek philosopher who said that fire is the origin of all things and that permanence is an illusion as all things are in perpetual flux (circa 500 BC)Johann Friedrich HerbartGerman philosopher (1776-1841)Johann Gottfried von HerderGerman philosopher who advocated intuition over reason (1744-1803)Thomas HobbesEnglish materialist and political philosopher who advocated absolute sovereignty as the only kind of government that could resolve problems caused by the selfishness of human beings (1588-1679)David HumeScottish philosopher whose sceptical philosophy restricted human knowledge to that which can be perceived by the senses (1711-1776)Edmund HusserlGerman philosopher who developed phenomenology (1859-1938)HypatiaGreek philosopher and astronomer; she invented the astrolabe (370-415)William JamesUnited States pragmatic philosopher and psychologist (1842-1910)Immanuel Kantinfluential German idealist philosopher (1724-1804)Soren Aabye KierkegaardDanish philosopher who is generally considered. along with Nietzsche, to be a founder of existentialism (1813-1855)Lao-tseChinese philosopher regarded as the founder of Taoism (6th century BC)Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnitzGerman philosopher and mathematician who thought of the universe as consisting of independent monads and who devised a system of the calculus independent of Newton (1646-1716)John LockeEnglish empiricist philosopher who believed that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience (1632-1704)Titus Lucretius CarusRoman philosopher and poet; in a long didactic poem he tried to provide a scientific explanation of the universe (96-55 BC)Raymond LullySpanish philosopher (1235-1315)Ernst MachAustrian physicist and philosopher who introduced the Mach number and who founded logical positivism (1838-1916)Niccolo Machiavellia statesman of Florence who advocated a strong central government (1469-1527)Rabbi Moses Ben MaimonSpanish philosopher considered the greatest Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages who codified Jewish law in the Talmud (1135-1204)Nicolas de MalebrancheFrench philosopher (1638-1715)Herbert MarcuseUnited States political philosopher (born in Germany) concerned about the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and modern technology (1898-1979)Karl Marxfounder of modern communism; wrote the Communist Manifesto with Engels in 1848; wrote Das Kapital in 1867 (1818-1883)George Herbert MeadUnited States philosopher of pragmatism (1863-1931)John Stuart MillEnglish philosopher and economist remembered for his interpretations of empiricism and utilitarianism (1806-1873)James MillScottish philosopher who expounded Bentham's utilitarianism; father of John Stuart Mill (1773-1836)Baron de la Brede et de MontesquieuFrench political philosopher who advocated the separation of executive and legislative and judicial powers (1689-1755)George Edward MooreEnglish philosopher (1873-1958)Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzscheinfluential German philosopher remembered for his concept of the superman and for his rejection of Christian values; considered, along with Kierkegaard, to be a founder of existentialism (1844-1900)William of OckhamEnglish scholastic philosopher and assumed author of Occam's Razor (1285-1349)OrigenGreek philosopher and theologian who reinterpreted Christian doctrine through the philosophy of Neoplatonism; his work was later condemned as unorthodox (185-254)Jose Ortega y GassetSpanish philosopher who advocated leadership by an intellectual elite (1883-1955)Parmenidesa presocratic Greek philosopher born in Italy; held the metaphysical view that being is the basic substance and ultimate reality of which all things are composed; said that motion and change are sensory illusions (5th century BC)Blaise PascalFrench mathematician and philosopher and Jansenist; invented an adding machine; contributed (with Fermat) to the theory of probability (1623-1662)Charles Sanders PeirceUnited States philosopher and logician; pioneer of pragmatism (1839-1914)Ralph Barton PerryUnited States philosopher (1876-1957)Platoancient Athenian philosopher; pupil of Socrates; teacher of Aristotle (428-347 BC)PlotinusRoman philosopher (born in Egypt) who was the leading representative of Neoplatonism (205-270)PythagorasGreek philosopher and mathematician who proved the Pythagorean theorem; considered to be the first true mathematician (circa 580-500 BC)Willard Van Orman QuineUnited States philosopher and logician who championed an empirical view of knowledge that depended on language (1908-2001)Sir Sarvepalli RadhakrishnanIndian philosopher and statesman who introduced Indian philosophy to the West (1888-1975)Thomas ReidScottish philosopher of common sense who opposed the ideas of David Hume (1710-1796)Jean-Jacques RousseauFrench philosopher and writer born in Switzerland; believed that the natural goodness of man was warped by society; ideas influenced the French Revolution (1712-1778)Bertrand Arthur William RussellEnglish philosopher and mathematician who collaborated with Whitehead (1872-1970)Arthur SchopenhauerGerman pessimist philosopher (1788-1860)Albert SchweitzerFrench philosopher and physician and organist who spent most of his life as a medical missionary in Gabon (1875-1965)Lucius Annaeus SenecaRoman statesman and philosopher who was an advisor to Nero; his nine extant tragedies are modeled on Greek tragedies (circa 4 BC - 65 AD)Socratesancient Athenian philosopher; teacher of Plato and Xenophon (470-399 BC)Herbert SpencerEnglish philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (1820-1903)Oswald SpenglerGerman philosopher who argued that cultures grow and decay in cycles (1880-1936)Benedict de SpinozaDutch philosopher who espoused a pantheistic system (1632-1677)Rudolf SteinerAustrian philosopher who founded anthroposophy (1861-1925)Dugald StewartScottish philosopher and follower of Thomas Reid (1753-1828)Sir Rabindranath TagoreIndian writer and philosopher whose poetry (based on traditional Hindu themes) pioneered the use of colloquial Bengali (1861-1941)Pierre Teilhard de ChardinFrench paleontologist and philosopher (1881-1955)Thales of Miletusa presocratic Greek philosopher and astronomer (who predicted an eclipse in 585 BC) who was said by Aristotle to be the founder of physical science; he held that all things originated in water (624-546 BC)TheophrastusGreek philosopher who was a student of Aristotle and who succeeded Aristotle as the leader of the Peripatetics (371-287 BC)Simone WeilFrench philosopher (1909-1943)Alfred North WhiteheadEnglish philosopher and mathematician who collaborated with Bertrand Russell (1861-1947)Bernard Arthur Owen WilliamsEnglish philosopher credited with reviving the field of moral philosophy (1929-2003)Ludwig Josef Johan WittgensteinBritish philosopher born in Austria; a major influence on logic and logical positivism (1889-1951)XenophanesGreek philosopher (560-478 BC)Zeno of Citiumancient Greek philosopher who founded the Stoic school (circa 335-263 BC)Zeno of Eleaancient Greek philosopher who formulated paradoxes that defended the belief that motion and change are illusory (circa 495-430 BC)types:nativista philosopher who subscribes to nativismCynica member of a group of ancient Greek philosophers who advocated the doctrine that virtue is the only good and that the essence of virtue is self-controlempiricista philosopher who subscribes to empiricismepistemologista specialist in epistemologyexistential philosopher, existentialist, existentialist philosophera philosopher who emphasizes freedom of choice and personal responsibility but who regards human existence in a hostile universe as unexplainablegymnosophistmember of a Hindu sect practicing gymnosophy (especially nudism)libertariansomeone who believes the doctrine of free willmechanista philosopher who subscribes to the doctrine of mechanismmoralista philosopher who specializes in morals and moral problemsnaturalistan advocate of the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific termsnecessitariansomeone who does not believe the doctrine of free willnominalista philosopher who has adopted the doctrine of nominalismpluralista philosopher who believes that no single explanation can account for all the phenomena of naturepre-Socraticany philosopher who lived before Socratesobjectivist, realista philosopher who believes that universals are real and exist independently of anyone thinking of themScholastica Scholastic philosopher or theologianSophistany of a group of Greek philosophers and teachers in the 5th century BC who speculated on a wide range of subjectsStoica member of the ancient Greek school of philosophy founded by Zenotranscendentalistadvocate of transcendentalismyogione who practices yoga and has achieved a high level of spiritual insightKarl Popper, Popper, Sir Karl Raimund PopperBritish philosopher (born in Austria) who argued that scientific theories can never be proved to be true, but are tested by attempts to falsify them (1902-1994)elitistsomeone who believes in rule by an elite groupdeterminist, fatalist, predestinarian, predestinationistanyone who submits to the belief that they are powerless to change their destinypragmatistan adherent of philosophical pragmatismutilitariansomeone who believes that the value of a thing depends on its utilitytype of:bookman, scholar, scholarly person, studenta learned person (especially in the humanities); someone who by long study has gained mastery in one or more disciplines
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a wise person who is calm and rational; someone who lives a life of reason with equanimity
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