GREAT PHILOSOPHERS

Great Philosophers in the West

There were so many great philosophers in the world and there is not a record of all of them as at that time there was no media to restore their teachings. With time their memory faded away and they were lost in the pages of history. One another reason of not having the records of the eminent philosophers and saints is that the philosophers who didn’t make their pupils were lost in the time. Pupils made their teacher famous and wrote their teachings and make their names counted in the history. To judge a philosopher is a great stupidity as to judge anyone you must be more learned than him. We can only classify them as most renounced, which again depends upon their followers. Philosophers who got some light or enlightenment were least interested in the world and making of disciples and passed away unknown. It was their surrounding and disciple who made them famous and wrote about them and their thoughts.

Here are some famous philosophers of the west or from rest of the world except India as India was so rich in religion and Philosophy that it gave numerous saints and philosophers, and they will be listed in the second part. Of these all philosophers mainly are from Greek civilization another richest civilization of the world and in some fields it did a really Great job.

Thales: Considered the first ever western philosopher.

SOCRATES: Ancient Greek philosopher who changed philosophy from a study of natural science to ethics and politics. First in the series of master and Pupil in western region and was the foremost, and his Pupil Plato was also equally rather more popular.

PLATO: Ancient Greek philosopher and student of Socrates, most influential philosopher of all time. Works: The Republic.

ARISTOTLE: Ancient Greek philosopher and was a student of Plato. Second most influential philosopher of all time In the west. Some consider him as the top most philosophers. He was also related with Alexander the Great and was his Teacher. He is undoubtedly the most renounced philosopher. Works: The Nichomachean Ethics, The Metaphysics, The Politics.

Plotinus: Fused Platonic principles with Christian teaching, the last of the ancient Greek philosophers. Works: The Enneads.

St Augustine: (354-430 AD) Continued Plotinus' project of Platonic Christianity. The first of the Scholastic philosophers. Works: The Confessions, The City of God.

St Anselm: Scholastic, mostly famous for his argument for the existence of God, the Ontological Argument, which was based on the argument that it would be contradictory to God's nature for him not to exist. Works: The Monologion.

ST AQUINAS: The greatest Scholastic, he changed their emphasis from Plato to Aristotle, promoting him as the greatest of all philosophers and attempting to fuse Aristotelianism and Christianity. Works: The Summa Theologica.

William of Ockham: (1288-1348) Scholastic. He was a English philosopher.

DESCARTES: The father of modern philosophy The Meditations, Discourse on Method..

Malebranche: Considered the equal of Descartes. The Search After Truth.

LOCKE: Empiricist. Famous for his views on the human mind.

HUME: Works: A Treatise on Human Nature, The Enquiries.

KANT: Considered to be the greatest of the modern philosophers, his influence is all-pervasive in almost every area of philosophy. Works: Critique of Pure Reason, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.

HEGEL: Argued that all history was progressing towards a perfect state of being. Works: Phenomenology of Spirit, The Philosophy of Right. He was guide of Karl marx.

Marx: Follower of Hegel, took his ideas and changed them into Communism. Works: The Communist Manifesto, Capital.

NIETZSCHE: Mostly a moral philosopher

Wittgenstein: Student of Russell, and also considered equally great philosopher.

Sartre: Famous French existentialist. Works: Being and Nothingness.

Lao Tzu or Lao Tse: (6 century BC) Chinese philosopher.

Confucius: (551-479BC) a great Chinese philosopher and started Confuciusnism.

Bertrand Russell: (1872-1970) a great mathematician and philosopher, also a great poet. Works; Problems of Philosophy, History of Western Philosophy, Principia.