Table Of Content101 Great
Philosophers
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101 Great
Philosophers
Madsen Pirie
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Contents
Preface ix
Thales 1
Anaximander 3
Pythagoras 5
Xenophanes 7
Heraclitus 9
Parmenides 11
Anaxagoras 13
Empedocles 15
Protagoras 17
Zeno 19
Diogenes 21
Socrates 23
Democritus 25
Antisthenes 27
Plato 29
Aristotle 31
Epicurus 33
Aristarchus 35
Archimedes 37
Seneca 39
Epictetus 41
Ptolemy 43
vi 101GreatPhilosophers
Marcus Aurelius 45
Sextus Empiricus 47
Plotinus 49
Saint Augustine of Hippo 51
St Anselm 53
Roger Bacon 55
Thomas Aquinas 57
William of Occam (Ockham) 59
Francesco Petrarch 61
Desiderius Erasmus 63
Niccolo Machiavelli 65
Galileo Galilei 67
Thomas Hobbes 69
Rene´ Descartes 71
Blaise Pascal 73
John Locke 75
Benedict de Spinoza 77
Isaac Newton 79
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 81
Giambattista Vico 83
Bernard Mandeville 85
Bishop (George) Berkeley 87
Charles, Baron de Montesquieu 89
Voltaire (Franc¸ois-Marie Arouet) 91
Benjamin Franklin 93
David Hume 95
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 97
Denis Diderot 99
Adam Ferguson 101
Adam Smith 103
Immanuel Kant 105
Edmund Burke 107
Thomas Jefferson 109
Johann Herder 111
Contents vii
Jeremy Bentham 113
Wilhelm Hegel 115
Arthur Schopenhauer 117
Mary Shelley 119
Auguste Comte 121
Fre´de´ric Bastiat 123
Ludwig Feuerbach 125
John Stuart Mill 127
Harriet Taylor Mill 129
Charles Darwin 131
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon 133
Søren Kierkegaard 135
Mikhail Bakunin 137
Karl Marx 139
Herbert Spencer 141
Charles Peirce 143
William James 145
Friedrich Nietzsche 147
John Dewey 149
Edmund Husserl 151
Max Weber 153
Bertrand Russell 155
G. E. Moore 157
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 159
Erwin Schro¨dinger 161
Martin Heidegger 163
Ludwig Wittgenstein 165
Herbert Marcuse 167
Friedrich Hayek 169
Gilbert Ryle 171
Michael Oakeshott 173
Karl Popper 175
Arthur Koestler 177
Ayn Rand 179
viii 101GreatPhilosophers
Jean-Paul Sartre 181
Hannah Arendt 183
H. L. A. Hart 185
Isaiah Berlin 187
A. J. Ayer 189
John Rawls 191
Thomas Kuhn 193
Michel Foucault 195
Noam Chomsky 197
Jacques Derrida 199
Robert Nozick 201
A–Z of Entries 203
Preface
The Ideas of 101 Great Philosophers
This is very much a personal list. It represents the 101 thinkers I
have chosen for their impact and significance on human
thought. Others might have made a different selection, but
almost certainly one with considerable overlap. Anyone familiar
withtheWesterntraditionwillrecognizenearlyallthenameson
thislist,andconcurwiththeinclusionofmostofthem.Mylistis
withintheWesterntraditionofEuropeanandAmericanthinkers,
and I have taken a broad definition of what it is to be a
philosopher.
A few of my choices fall outside the usual modern narrow
definitionoftheword;thisisdeliberate.Anyonewhosethought
has changed the way we think about ourselves, our societies or
our world, has a potential claim to be included. A handful of
scientists, who in previous periods might have been called
‘natural philosophers’, are included if their work has achieved
that.
Tofeatureinthislistisinnosenseamarkofapproval.Someof
these thinkers led virtuous lives; others did not. Some have
blessed the cause of human happiness; others have blighted it.
This book features great thinkers, good and bad, saints and
sinners.
Of course, it is not possible in entries as compact as these to
