Ancient Greek Philosophers
Philosopher↕ | Born (approx.)↕ | Died (approx.)↕ | School/Movement↕ | Key Idea↕ | Major Work↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Socrates | 470 BC | 399 BC | Classical Greek | Socratic method of questioning, examined life | No written works; known through Plato's dialogues |
Plato | 428 BC | 348 BC | Platonism | Theory of Forms, philosopher-kings | The Republic |
Aristotle | 384 BC | 322 BC | Peripatetic | Empiricism, logic, golden mean | Nicomachean Ethics |
Pythagoras | 570 BC | 495 BC | Pythagoreanism | Mathematics underlies reality, harmony of spheres | No surviving texts; oral tradition |
Heraclitus | 535 BC | 475 BC | Pre-Socratic | Everything flows (panta rhei), unity of opposites | Fragments (On Nature) |
Democritus | 460 BC | 370 BC | Atomism | All matter is made of indivisible atoms | Fragments only; The Great World-System (lost) |
Epicurus | 341 BC | 270 BC | Epicureanism | Pleasure as absence of pain, atomic swerve | Letter to Menoeceus |
Zeno of Citium | 334 BC | 262 BC | Stoicism | Virtue is the sole good, live according to nature | Republic (mostly lost) |
Diogenes of Sinope | 412 BC | 323 BC | Cynicism | Reject material possessions, live naturally | No written works; known through anecdotes |
Parmenides | 515 BC | 450 BC | Eleatic | Being is unchanging, change is illusion | On Nature (poem) |
Empedocles | 494 BC | 434 BC | Pluralist | Four classical elements, forces of Love and Strife | On Nature, Purifications |
Thales of Miletus | 624 BC | 546 BC | Milesian / Pre-Socratic | Water is the fundamental substance | No surviving texts |
Anaximander | 610 BC | 546 BC | Milesian | The apeiron (boundless) as origin of all | On Nature (fragments) |
Plotinus | 204 AD | 270 AD | Neoplatonism | The One as ultimate reality, emanation | Enneads |
Protagoras | 490 BC | 420 BC | Sophism | Man is the measure of all things | Truth (lost) |
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