1001Philosophers

Most Famous Ancient Philosophers

Ancient philosophy stretches from the pre-Socratic Greek thinkers of the sixth century BC through the closing of the Platonic Academy in 529 AD. It is the period that produced the foundational vocabulary of Western thought — being, substance, form, virtue, justice, the good — together with parallel traditions in Indian and Chinese philosophy. The dominant figures of the Greek tradition are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, supplemented by the Stoic, Epicurean, and Skeptical schools that came after. Ancient philosophy treated the disciplined inquiry into reality and the good life as inseparable, and its categories continue to set the terms for almost every later debate.

Ancient philosophers

  • Aristotle 384 BC – 322 BC · Greek

    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath born in Stagira in 384 BC. A student of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great, he founded the Peripatetic school at the Lyceum in...

  • Marcus Aurelius 121 – 180 · Roman

    Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and the last of the so-called Five Good Emperors. He is remembered as much for his philosophical writing as for his rule, wh...

  • Plato 428 BC – 348 BC · Greek

    Plato was an Athenian philosopher and the founder of the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. A student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, ...

  • Confucius 551 BC – 479 BC · Chinese

    Confucius was a Chinese philosopher and political teacher of the Spring and Autumn period. His teachings, recorded by disciples in the Analects, emphasize personal and governmen...

  • Lao Tzu c. 571 BC – c. 471 BC · Chinese

    Lao Tzu, traditionally regarded as the founder of philosophical Taoism, is the legendary author of the Tao Te Ching, one of the most translated works of world literature. Modern...

  • Socrates 470 BC – 399 BC · Greek

    Socrates was a classical Athenian philosopher credited as a founder of Western philosophy. He wrote nothing himself; his ideas survive through the dialogues of his students, chi...

  • Cicero 106 BC – 43 BC · Roman

    Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer, and philosopher of the late Roman Republic, who served as consul in 63 BC and was murdered in 43 BC during the prosc...

  • Epictetus c. 50 – c. 135 · Greek

    Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher of the first and early second centuries, born into slavery in Hierapolis in Roman Phrygia and freed in adulthood. He taught Stoic philoso...

  • Epicurus 341 BC – 270 BC · Greek

    Epicurus was a Greek Hellenistic philosopher who founded the school known as the Garden in Athens around 307 BC. His ethics taught that pleasure, properly understood as the abse...

  • Seneca the Younger 4 BC – 65 · Roman

    Lucius Annaeus Seneca, commonly known as Seneca the Younger, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist of the first century. He served as tutor and later adviser t...

  • Mencius 372 BC – 289 BC · Chinese

    Mengzi, conventionally known in the West as Mencius, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the fourth century BC, traditionally regarded as the second sage of the Confucian tra...

  • Zhuangzi c. 370 BC – c. 287 BC · Chinese

    Zhuangzi was a Chinese Taoist philosopher of the fourth century BC, regarded with Lao Tzu as one of the two foundational figures of philosophical Taoism. The book that bears his...

  • Buddha c. 563 BC – c. 483 BC · Indian

    Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha or Awakened One, was the founder of Buddhism, traditionally said to have lived in northern India in the fifth century BC. Born into the r...

  • Democritus c. 460 BC – c. 370 BC · Greek

    Democritus of Abdera was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of the fifth and early fourth centuries BC, regarded with his teacher Leucippus as a co-founder of the atomist traditio...

  • Diogenes of Sinope c. 412 BC – 323 BC · Greek

    Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher and one of the founders of the Cynic school. After his exile from Sinope on the Black Sea coast he settled in Athens, where h...

  • Heraclitus c. 535 BC – c. 475 BC · Greek

    Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC, known in antiquity as the Obscure for the difficulty of his sayings. H...

  • Lucretius c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC · Roman

    Titus Lucretius Carus was a 1st-century BC Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, known for his sole surviving work, the long Latin poem De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things....

  • Han Feizi c. 280 BC – 233 BC · Chinese

    Han Feizi was a 3rd-century BC Chinese political philosopher and one of the principal founding figures of the Legalist school of philosophy. Drawing on earlier Legalist thinkers...

  • Mozi c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC · Chinese

    Mozi, also known as Mo Di or Master Mo, was a Chinese philosopher of the 5th century BC, founder of the Mohist school of philosophy, the major rival of early Confucianism during...

  • Nagarjuna c. 150 – c. 250 · Indian

    Nagarjuna was a 2nd or 3rd-century AD Indian Mahayana Buddhist philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka or Middle Way school, regarded as one of the most important philosop...

  • Plotinus c. 204 – 270 · Greek-Egyptian

    Plotinus was a 3rd-century philosopher of late antiquity, born in Roman Egypt and active in Rome, where he founded the philosophical school whose teaching is preserved in the En...

  • Plutarch 46 AD – 119 AD · Greek

    Plutarch of Chaeronea was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, biographer, and priest at Delphi. His Parallel Lives paired famous Greeks with famous Romans to illuminate the mo...

  • Pythagoras 570 BC – 495 BC · Greek

    Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher and mathematician born on the island of Samos around 570 BC. He founded a religious and philosophical brotherhood at Croton in southern Italy,...

  • Sun Tzu 544 BC – 496 BC · Chinese

    Sun Tzu was a Chinese strategist of the late Spring and Autumn period, traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, the earliest and most influential treatise on mili...

  • Zeno of Citium 334 BC – 262 BC · Greek

    Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher of Phoenician descent and the founder of Stoicism. After surviving a shipwreck on the voyage to Athens around 312 BC, he became a student ...

  • Chrysippus 279 BC – 206 BC · Greek

    Chrysippus of Soli was a Greek philosopher and the third head of the Stoic school, often regarded as its second founder. He was an extraordinarily prolific writer, credited in a...

  • John Chrysostom 347 AD – 407 AD · Greek

    John Chrysostom, the Golden-Mouthed, was an early Christian preacher, archbishop of Constantinople, and one of the most important Fathers of the Greek-speaking Church. After asc...

  • Liezi c. 450 BC – c. 375 BC · Chinese

    Liezi, also known as Lie Yukou, was a Chinese Taoist philosopher of the fifth century BC, traditionally regarded as one of the three foundational thinkers of philosophical Taois...

  • Parmenides c. 515 BC – c. 460 BC · Greek

    Parmenides of Elea was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC, the founder of the Eleatic school and one of the most influential thinker...

  • Patanjali c. 200 AD – c. 250 AD · Indian

    Patanjali was the Indian sage to whom the Yoga Sutras, the foundational text of the Yoga school of Indian philosophy, are attributed. The Sutras present a concise and systematic...

  • Proclus 412 AD – 485 AD · Greek

    Proclus Lycius was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and the last great head of the Platonic Academy at Athens. He systematized the Neoplatonic tradition inherited from Plotinus ...

  • Solon 630 BC – 560 BC · Greek

    Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet, traditionally counted as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Appointed archon during a period of severe social and economic cr...

  • Theophrastus c. 371 BC – c. 287 BC · Greek

    Theophrastus of Eresus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the immediate successor of Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic School at the Lyceum in Athens. He directed the schoo...

  • Xunzi 310 BC – 235 BC · Chinese

    Xunzi was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the late Warring States period and one of the three great classical Confucian thinkers, alongside Confucius and Mencius. Against Men...

  • Anaxagoras c. 500 BC – c. 428 BC · Greek

    Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was an ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th century BC, born in Ionia and active for many years in Athens, where he was a friend and report...

  • Antiphon c. 480 BC – 411 BC · Greek

    Antiphon was a Greek sophist of late fifth-century Athens, sometimes identified with Antiphon of Rhamnus, the celebrated orator and statesman of the same period. The two long fr...

  • Antisthenes c. 445 BC – c. 365 BC · Greek

    Antisthenes of Athens was an ancient Greek philosopher of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, a student of Socrates and traditionally regarded as the founder of the Cynic school of ph...

  • Arcesilaus 316 BC – 241 BC · Greek

    Arcesilaus of Pitane was a Greek philosopher and the founder of the New, or skeptical, Academy. As head of Plato's school he turned its dialectical method against the dogmatic c...

  • Athanasius 297 AD – 373 AD · Greek-Egyptian

    Athanasius of Alexandria was a fourth-century Egyptian Christian theologian and bishop and the central defender of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian doctrine in the decades fol...

  • Basil the Great 330 AD – 379 AD · Greek

    Basil of Caesarea, called the Great, was a fourth-century Cappadocian theologian, bishop, and the chief organizer of Eastern Christian monasticism. The elder brother of Gregory ...

  • Bhartrihari c. 450 AD – c. 510 AD · Indian

    Bhartrihari was an Indian Sanskrit grammarian and philosopher of language whose Vakyapadiya is one of the founding texts of Indian linguistic philosophy. Building on the grammat...

  • Bion of Borysthenes c. 325 BC – c. 250 BC · Greek

    Bion of Borysthenes was a Greek philosopher of the third century BC, the son of a freedman and a courtesan, who reinvented the ancient diatribe as a vehicle of moral instruction...

  • Cleanthes 330 BC – 230 BC · Greek

    Cleanthes of Assos was a Greek Stoic philosopher who succeeded Zeno of Citium as head of the Stoa around 262 BC. Originally a boxer who arrived in Athens with little money, he s...

  • Clement of Alexandria 150 AD – 215 AD · Greek

    Titus Flavius Clemens, known as Clement of Alexandria, was a Christian theologian and the first major teacher of the catechetical school at Alexandria, where he helped to shape ...

  • Crantor c. 340 BC – c. 275 BC · Greek

    Crantor of Soli was a Greek philosopher of the Old Academy and the first systematic commentator on Plato's Timaeus. A pupil of Xenocrates and the close friend and associate of P...

  • Cratylus c. 460 BC – c. 380 BC · Greek

    Cratylus was a Greek philosopher of late fifth and early fourth century BC Athens, an Heraclitean who carried the doctrine of universal flux to its extreme conclusion. According...

  • Critias c. 460 BC – 403 BC · Greek

    Critias was an Athenian aristocrat, sophist, tragedian, and statesman of the late fifth century BC and the most prominent of the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens after the city's...

  • Demonax c. 70 – c. 170 · Greek

    Demonax was a Cypriot Cynic philosopher of the second century AD who lived for most of his long life in Athens. The biographer Lucian, his pupil, devoted to him a brief Life tha...

  • Diogenes Laertius c. 180 – c. 240 · Greek

    Diogenes Laertius was a Greek biographer of philosophers of the third century AD, the author of the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, the most extensive surviving anci...

  • Empedocles c. 490 BC – c. 430 BC · Greek

    Empedocles of Acragas was an ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th century BC, born in the Greek city of Acragas in Sicily. His doctrine of the four elements, earth,...

  • Galen 129 AD – c. 216 AD · Greek

    Aelius Galenus, known as Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher of the Roman Empire and the most influential medical author of antiquity. Trained in ...

  • Gorgias 483 BC – 375 BC · Greek

    Gorgias of Leontini was a Greek Sophist and rhetorician who lived to a great age, traveling between Sicily and Athens as a celebrated public speaker. His treatise On Non-Being a...

  • Gregory of Nazianzus 329 AD – 389 AD · Greek

    Gregory of Nazianzus, called the Theologian, was a fourth-century Cappadocian Father, archbishop of Constantinople, and one of the principal architects of Trinitarian orthodoxy....

  • Gregory of Nyssa 335 AD – 395 AD · Greek

    Gregory of Nyssa was a fourth-century Cappadocian bishop and theologian and one of the architects of orthodox Trinitarian theology. The younger brother of Basil the Great and fr...

  • Guo Xiang 252 – 312 · Chinese

    Guo Xiang was a Chinese philosopher of the Western Jin dynasty and the most important commentator on the Zhuangzi, whose recension of the text became the standard one transmitte...

  • Iamblichus 245 AD – 325 AD · Syrian-Greek

    Iamblichus of Chalcis was a Syrian Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and the founder of the Syrian school of Neoplatonism. Departing from Plotinus and Porphyry, he held that intell...

  • Jaimini c. 300 BC – c. 200 BC · Indian

    Jaimini was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Mimamsa school of orthodox Hindu philosophy, traditionally dated to the third century BC, whose Mimamsa Sutras establish...

  • Justin Martyr 100 AD – 165 AD · Roman

    Justin Martyr was an early Christian apologist, the first Christian author known to have engaged Greek philosophy as a Christian. Born in Samaria, he sought wisdom among the Sto...

  • Leucippus c. 480 BC – c. 420 BC · Greek

    Leucippus was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and the founder, with his pupil Democritus, of the atomist tradition. Almost nothing survives of his biography or writing...

  • Origen 185 AD – 253 AD · Greek-Egyptian

    Origen of Alexandria was an early Christian theologian and biblical scholar, the most important and most controversial of the Greek Fathers of the Church. He produced the Hexapl...

  • Philo of Alexandria 25 BC – 50 AD · Hellenistic Jewish

    Philo of Alexandria was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who synthesized the Hebrew scriptures with Greek philosophical thought, especially Platonism and Stoicism. He developed ...

  • Polus c. 440 BC – c. 380 BC · Greek

    Polus of Acragas was a Greek sophist and rhetorician of the late fifth century BC, a pupil of the great rhetorician Gorgias and the author of a now-lost handbook of rhetoric. He...

  • Porphyry 234 AD – 305 AD · Phoenician-Greek

    Porphyry of Tyre was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and the most important pupil of Plotinus. He edited and arranged his teacher's writings into the Enneads, prefacing them wi...

  • Posidonius 135 BC – 51 BC · Greek

    Posidonius of Apamea was a Greek Stoic philosopher, polymath, and one of the most learned men of antiquity. Settling in Rhodes, where he taught the young Cicero, he produced enc...

  • Protagoras 490 BC – 420 BC · Greek

    Protagoras of Abdera was a Greek thinker traditionally counted as the first of the Sophists. He traveled widely as a teacher of rhetoric and civic virtue, charging substantial f...

  • Qin Guli c. 440 BC – c. 370 BC · Chinese

    Qin Guli was an early Chinese Mohist philosopher of the late fifth century BC, the principal disciple of Mozi and traditionally his successor as head of the Mohist school. His t...

  • Tertullian 155 AD – 220 AD · Roman

    Tertullian of Carthage was a prolific early Christian author and the first major Christian writer to compose his works in Latin, for which he is sometimes called the father of W...

  • Thales of Miletus c. 624 BC – c. 546 BC · Greek

    Thales of Miletus was an ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher of the 7th and 6th centuries BC, traditionally regarded as the first philosopher of the Western tradition and a f...

  • Vatsyayana c. 350 – c. 425 · Indian

    Vatsyayana, also called Pakshilasvamin, was a fourth- or fifth-century Indian Nyaya philosopher, the author of the Nyaya-bhasya, the foundational commentary on the Nyaya Sutras ...

  • Wang Bi 226 – 249 · Chinese

    Wang Bi was a Chinese philosopher of the Three Kingdoms period and the most important early commentator on the Daode jing and the Yijing. Although he died at twenty-three, his s...

  • Wang Chong 27 – c. 100 · Chinese

    Wang Chong was a Chinese philosopher of the Eastern Han dynasty and one of the most original critical and naturalist thinkers of the classical Chinese tradition. His Lunheng, th...

  • Xenophanes 570 BC – 475 BC · Greek

    Xenophanes of Colophon was a Greek philosopher and poet who traveled widely after leaving Ionia and lived to a great age. He produced the earliest sustained critique of anthropo...

  • Yang Zhu c. 440 BC – c. 360 BC · Chinese

    Yang Zhu was a Chinese philosopher of the Warring States period, founder of the school traditionally known as the Yangist, who became famous in early Confucian polemic for the d...

  • Philolaus 470 BC – 385 BC · Greek

    Philolaus of Croton was a Greek Pythagorean philosopher and the first member of the Pythagorean school whose writings survived into the classical period. His fragments, preserve...

  • Melissus of Samos c. 470 BC – c. 400 BC · Greek

    Melissus of Samos was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and the last great representative of the Eleatic school founded by Parmenides. Active in the mid-fifth century BC, he comm...

  • Sextus Empiricus c. 160 – c. 210 · Greek

    Sextus Empiricus was a Greek physician and philosopher of the second and early third centuries AD, the principal extant source for ancient Pyrrhonian Skepticism. His major works...

  • Aryadeva c. 175 – c. 275 · Indian

    Aryadeva was an Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka philosopher and the principal pupil of Nagarjuna, traditionally identified as a south Indian or Sinhalese monk who succeeded his teach...

  • Damascius 458 AD – 538 AD · Syrian-Greek

    Damascius was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and the last head of the Platonic Academy at Athens before its closure under the emperor Justinian in 529. After fleeing briefly t...

  • Lactantius c. 250 AD – c. 325 AD · Roman

    Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian Latin author and rhetorician who served as tutor to the son of the emperor Constantine. Trained in classical rhetori...

  • Alcinous c. 100 AD – c. 175 AD · Greek

    Alcinous was a Greek philosopher of the second century AD and the author of the Handbook of Platonism, the principal surviving systematic introduction to Middle Platonist doctri...

  • Kanada c. 200 BC – c. 100 BC · Indian

    Kanada was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Vaiseshika school of orthodox Hindu philosophy, traditionally dated to the second or third century BC, whose Vaiseshika S...

  • Anaximander 610 BC – 546 BC · Greek

    Anaximander was a Greek philosopher of Miletus, a pupil and successor of Thales, born around 610 BC. He is the first known thinker to have written a work of natural philosophy i...

  • Eusebius of Caesarea c. 260 AD – c. 340 AD · Greek-Roman

    Eusebius of Caesarea was a Greek Christian bishop, scholar, and historian and the principal author of the first surviving general history of the Christian Church. After the pers...

  • Philodemus c. 110 BC – c. 30 BC · Greek

    Philodemus of Gadara was a 1st-century BC Greek Epicurean philosopher and poet, who taught in Italy under the patronage of the Roman politician Lucius Calpurnius Piso. His works...

  • Aristo of Chios c. 320 BC – c. 250 BC · Greek

    Aristo of Chios was a Greek Stoic philosopher and pupil of Zeno of Citium who broke with his master on several important doctrines and led an austere variant of early Stoicism. ...

  • Macrobius c. 370 AD – c. 430 AD · Roman

    Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius was a Latin grammarian, philosopher, and Neoplatonist of the late Roman Empire and one of the principal transmitters of late ancient learning to t...

  • Asanga c. 310 AD – c. 390 AD · Indian

    Asanga was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and the co-founder, with his half-brother Vasubandhu, of the Yogacara or Consciousness-Only school of Mahayana philosophy. According to...

  • Dignaga c. 480 AD – c. 540 AD · Indian

    Dignaga was an Indian Buddhist logician and epistemologist and the founder of the Buddhist tradition of logic and philosophy of knowledge. His Pramana-samuccaya, the Compendium ...

  • Maximus of Tyre c. 125 AD – c. 185 AD · Greek

    Maximus of Tyre was a Greek Platonist philosopher of the Roman Empire who lectured at Athens, Rome, and elsewhere during the reign of Commodus. Forty-one of his short Dissertati...

  • Anaximenes 585 BC – 528 BC · Greek

    Anaximenes of Miletus was a Greek philosopher and the third of the Milesian school, after Thales and Anaximander. Born around 585 BC, he held that air is the underlying principl...

  • Theano c. 546 BC – c. 470 BC · Greek

    Theano of Croton was a Greek Pythagorean philosopher of the late sixth and early fifth century BC and one of the earliest women in the Western philosophical tradition. According...

  • Thrasymachus c. 459 BC – c. 400 BC · Greek

    Thrasymachus of Chalcedon was a Greek sophist of late fifth-century BC Athens and one of the most celebrated rhetoricians of his generation. His own writings on rhetoric and pol...

  • Zeno of Elea 490 BC – 430 BC · Greek

    Zeno of Elea was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Parmenides. He defended his teacher's claim that reality is one and unchanging by constructing a series of paradoxes intended...

  • Musonius Rufus 30 AD – 101 AD · Roman

    Gaius Musonius Rufus was a Roman Stoic philosopher and the teacher of Epictetus. Twice exiled by emperors who feared his moral influence, he insisted that philosophy is for ever...

  • Pyrrho of Elis c. 360 BC – c. 270 BC · Greek

    Pyrrho of Elis was an ancient Greek philosopher of the late fourth and early third centuries BC, the founder of the philosophical school of Skepticism that bears his name as Pyr...

  • Aesara of Lucania c. 350 BC – c. 280 BC · Greek

    Aesara of Lucania was a Pythagorean philosopher of the fourth or third century BC, possibly the daughter of the Pythagorean Aresas, and one of the few female Pythagoreans whose ...

  • Aetius the Doxographer c. 50 – c. 120 · Greek

    Aetius, sometimes called Aetius the Doxographer, was a Greek philosophical author of the first or second century AD, the compiler of a now-lost handbook of philosophical opinion...

  • Agrippa the Skeptic c. 10 – c. 80 · Greek

    Agrippa the Skeptic was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher of the first century AD, traditionally the author of the famous Five Modes of skeptical argument, preserved in Sextus Empi...

  • Akshapada Gautama c. 200 BC – c. 150 BC · Indian

    Akshapada Gautama is the traditional name of the author of the Nyaya Sutras, the foundational text of the Nyaya school of Indian philosophy and one of the six orthodox darshanas...

  • Alcmaeon of Croton c. 540 BC – c. 460 BC · Greek

    Alcmaeon of Croton was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and physician, sometimes counted among the early Pythagoreans of southern Italy. He is the earliest known author of a Gre...

  • Alexander of Aphrodisias c. 150 – c. 210 · Greek

    Alexander of Aphrodisias was a Peripatetic philosopher of the late second and early third centuries AD, head of the Aristotelian school in Athens at the end of the second centur...

  • Ammonius Saccas c. 175 AD – c. 242 AD · Egyptian-Greek

    Ammonius Saccas was a Greek philosopher of Alexandria and the founding teacher of Neoplatonism. The little we know of his life comes from his pupils, especially Plotinus and Ori...

  • Anaxarchus c. 380 BC – c. 320 BC · Greek

    Anaxarchus of Abdera was a Greek philosopher of the late fourth century BC, a Democritean who accompanied Alexander the Great on his eastern campaigns and the principal teacher ...

  • Andronicus of Rhodes c. 100 BC – c. 40 BC · Greek

    Andronicus of Rhodes was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher of the first century BC, traditionally counted as the eleventh head of the Aristotelian school in Athens, and the editor...

  • Antiochus of Ascalon 130 BC – 68 BC · Greek

    Antiochus of Ascalon was a Greek philosopher who broke with the skeptical New Academy of Carneades and Philo of Larissa to revive a positive, dogmatic Platonism. As head of the ...

  • Antipater of Tarsus c. 200 BC – c. 130 BC · Greek

    Antipater of Tarsus was a Greek Stoic philosopher and the head of the Stoic school in the second century BC, succeeding Diogenes of Babylon at Athens around 152 BC. His writings...

  • Antiphon the Sophist c. 480 BC – c. 410 BC · Greek

    Antiphon the Sophist was an Athenian sophist and intellectual of the late fifth century BC, traditionally distinguished by modern scholars from his contemporary, the orator Anti...

  • Apollodorus the Garden Tyrant c. 150 BC – c. 110 BC · Greek

    Apollodorus, called the Garden Tyrant, was a Greek Epicurean philosopher of the second century BC and head of the Garden in Athens, the eighth or ninth scholarch of the school. ...

  • Archelaus c. 490 BC – c. 405 BC · Greek

    Archelaus of Athens was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, pupil of Anaxagoras and, according to a strong ancient tradition, the teacher of Socrates. He combined his master's doc...

  • Archytas of Tarentum 428 BC – 347 BC · Greek

    Archytas of Tarentum was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, statesman, and friend of Plato, the leading figure of the late Pythagorean tradition. He served as elected general o...

  • Arete of Cyrene c. 370 BC – c. 340 BC · Greek

    Arete of Cyrene was a Greek philosopher of the Cyrenaic school and one of the earliest women in the Western philosophical tradition. The daughter of Aristippus the Elder, the fo...

  • Aristides Quintilianus c. 250 – c. 350 · Greek

    Aristides Quintilianus was a Greek philosophical music theorist of late antiquity, the author of the most extensive surviving ancient treatise on music, On Music in three books,...

  • Aristippus 435 BC – 356 BC · Greek

    Aristippus of Cyrene was a Greek philosopher and the founder of the Cyrenaic school. A pupil of Socrates who reacted in a very different direction from Plato, he held that the g...

  • Aristoxenus c. 360 BC – c. 300 BC · Greek

    Aristoxenus of Tarentum was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher and music theorist of the fourth century BC, a pupil of Aristotle and a son of the Pythagorean musician Spintharus. H...

  • Asclepigenia of Athens c. 430 – c. 485 · Greek

    Asclepigenia of Athens was a fifth-century Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and the daughter of Plutarch of Athens, the head of the Athenian Neoplatonic Academy. Marinus's Life of...

  • Asvaghosa c. 80 – c. 150 · Indian

    Asvaghosa was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, poet, and dramatist of the first and second century AD, traditionally counted as one of the most important Sanskrit poets and as a ...

  • Athenodorus Cananites c. 74 BC – c. 7 AD · Greek

    Athenodorus Cananites of Tarsus was a Greek Stoic philosopher of the first century BC and the first century AD, a pupil of Posidonius and the principal philosophical tutor of th...

  • Carneades 214 BC – 129 BC · Greek

    Carneades of Cyrene was a Greek philosopher and the most important head of the New Academy, the skeptical phase of Plato's school. He was famous for his ability to argue with eq...

  • Crates of Athens c. 350 BC – c. 268 BC · Greek

    Crates of Athens was a Greek philosopher and the fifth head of the Platonic Academy after Polemo, succeeding around 270 BC. Together with his slightly older friend Polemo, who h...

  • Crates of Thebes 365 BC – 285 BC · Greek

    Crates of Thebes was a Greek Cynic philosopher and the principal student of Diogenes of Sinope. Born wealthy, he gave away his property to his city and adopted the Cynic life of...

  • Critolaus of Phaselis c. 200 BC – c. 118 BC · Greek

    Critolaus of Phaselis was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher and the head of the Aristotelian school in the second century BC, one of the three philosophers, with Diogenes of Babyl...

  • Demetrius of Phalerum c. 350 BC – c. 280 BC · Greek

    Demetrius of Phalerum was a Peripatetic philosopher and Athenian statesman who governed Athens for ten years on behalf of Cassander before fleeing in exile to the court of Ptole...

  • Demetrius the Cynic c. 10 AD – c. 80 AD · Greek

    Demetrius the Cynic was a Greek philosopher of the first century AD and one of the most admired Cynics of the Roman period. Active in Rome and Greece, he was a close friend of S...

  • Diodorus Cronus c. 340 BC – c. 284 BC · Greek

    Diodorus Cronus was a Greek philosopher of the Dialectical school descended from the Megarians and one of the most important logicians of the early Hellenistic age. Active at Al...

  • Diogenes of Apollonia c. 460 BC – c. 390 BC · Greek

    Diogenes of Apollonia was a Greek pre-Socratic natural philosopher of the late fifth century BC and the last great representative of the early Ionian tradition of inquiry into t...

  • Diogenes of Babylon c. 230 BC – c. 150 BC · Greek

    Diogenes of Babylon, also called Diogenes the Stoic, was a Greek philosopher, the head of the Stoic school after Chrysippus, and one of the three philosophers, with the Academic...

  • Diogenes of Oenoanda c. 150 – c. 220 · Greek

    Diogenes of Oenoanda was an Epicurean philosopher of the second century AD who, in old age and at his own expense, had a long Epicurean inscription carved on the columned wall o...

  • Dong Zhongshu 179 BC – 104 BC · Chinese

    Dong Zhongshu was a Chinese Han-dynasty Confucian philosopher and statesman, the principal architect of the imperial Confucianism that, under his recommendation to the emperor W...

  • Eubulides of Miletus c. 400 BC – c. 330 BC · Greek

    Eubulides of Miletus was a Greek philosopher of the Megarian school and a contemporary and vigorous critic of Aristotle. He was renowned in antiquity for the invention or refine...

  • Eudemus of Rhodes c. 370 BC – c. 300 BC · Greek

    Eudemus of Rhodes was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher of the fourth century BC, a senior pupil of Aristotle who, on Aristotle's death, was passed over in the succession to Theop...

  • Hecato of Rhodes c. 150 BC – c. 75 BC · Greek

    Hecato of Rhodes was a Greek Stoic philosopher of the late second and early first centuries BC and one of the most prolific moralists of the late Hellenistic Stoa. A pupil of Pa...

  • Heraclides Lembus c. 200 BC – c. 130 BC · Greek

    Heraclides Lembus was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher and Egyptian official of the second century BC, who served Ptolemy VI Philometor and is credited with negotiating the famou...

  • Heraclides Ponticus c. 387 BC – c. 312 BC · Greek

    Heraclides Ponticus was a Greek philosopher of the early Academy, born at Heraclea on the Pontus and trained at Athens under Plato. A polymath of extraordinary range, he wrote o...

  • Hermarchus c. 325 BC – c. 250 BC · Greek

    Hermarchus of Mytilene was a Greek philosopher and Epicurus's chosen successor as the second head of the Garden in Athens. The principal philosophical writings attributed to him...

  • Hierocles the Stoic c. 100 AD – c. 180 AD · Greek

    Hierocles the Stoic was a Greek Stoic philosopher of the second century AD, distinct from the later Neoplatonist Hierocles of Alexandria. Substantial portions of his Elements of...

  • Hippasus of Metapontum c. 530 BC – c. 450 BC · Greek

    Hippasus of Metapontum was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and Pythagorean of the early fifth century BC, traditionally credited or, in the less friendly versions of the story,...

  • Hippias of Elis c. 470 BC – c. 400 BC · Greek

    Hippias of Elis was a Greek sophist of the late fifth century BC and one of the most colorful intellectuals of the age of Socrates. He boasted of a complete polymathic competenc...

  • Hippodamus of Miletus c. 498 BC – c. 408 BC · Greek

    Hippodamus of Miletus was a Greek architect, urban planner, mathematician, and political philosopher of the fifth century BC, traditionally credited with the design of the recta...

  • Lastheneia of Mantinea c. 380 BC – c. 320 BC · Greek

    Lastheneia of Mantinea was a Greek Platonist philosopher of the fourth century BC, one of the very few women known to have studied at Plato's Academy in Athens. According to Dio...

  • Lucius Annaeus Cornutus c. 20 – c. 65 · Roman

    Lucius Annaeus Cornutus was a Roman Stoic philosopher of the first century AD, a freedman of the Annaean family from Leptis Magna in North Africa, who taught philosophy in Rome ...

  • Lycophron c. 425 BC – c. 380 BC · Greek

    Lycophron was a Greek sophist and rhetorician of the late fifth and early fourth century BC, a pupil of Gorgias and one of the boldest political philosophers of the sophistic tr...

  • Marius Victorinus c. 290 AD – c. 364 AD · Roman

    Gaius Marius Victorinus was a Roman rhetorician, grammarian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and Latin Christian theologian whose late conversion in Rome around 355 became a pattern t...

  • Menippus of Gadara c. 280 BC – c. 180 BC · Greek

    Menippus of Gadara was a Greek Cynic philosopher and satirist of the third century BC, traditionally born a slave and later freed, whose mixed-genre satires of philosophical pre...

  • Numenius of Apamea c. 150 AD – c. 200 AD · Greek-Syrian

    Numenius of Apamea was a Greek-Syrian Pythagorean and Middle Platonist philosopher and one of the most important precursors of Plotinus and Neoplatonism. His doctrine of three g...

  • Oenomaus of Gadara c. 120 – c. 180 · Greek

    Oenomaus of Gadara was a Greek Cynic philosopher of the second century AD, the author of a celebrated polemic against Greek and Roman oracles called The Charlatans Unmasked, of ...

  • Onesicritus c. 360 BC – c. 290 BC · Greek

    Onesicritus of Astypalaea was a Greek Cynic philosopher of the late fourth century BC, a pupil of Diogenes of Sinope, who accompanied Alexander the Great on his Indian campaign ...

  • Panaetius 185 BC – 109 BC · Greek

    Panaetius of Rhodes was a Greek Stoic philosopher and the principal figure of the Middle Stoa. After studying under Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus, he settled in Ro...

  • Peregrinus Proteus c. 95 – 165 · Greek

    Peregrinus Proteus was a Greek Cynic philosopher of the second century AD, born in Parium on the Hellespont, who, according to the often hostile life by Lucian of Samosata, pass...

  • Persaeus of Citium c. 307 BC – c. 243 BC · Greek

    Persaeus of Citium was a Greek Stoic philosopher and household friend of Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school, whose name he shared with his teacher's birthplace. Sen...

  • Pherecydes of Syros c. 580 BC – c. 520 BC · Greek

    Pherecydes of Syros was a Greek thinker of the early sixth century BC, traditionally counted as the teacher of Pythagoras and the author of the first Greek prose work on the god...

  • Philo of Larissa c. 159 BC – c. 84 BC · Greek

    Philo of Larissa was the last head of the skeptical Platonic Academy and the teacher of Cicero in Rome. The successor of Clitomachus, he gradually moderated the radical skeptici...

  • Phintys of Sparta c. 350 BC – c. 280 BC · Greek

    Phintys of Sparta was a Pythagorean philosopher of the fourth or third century BC, the daughter of the Pythagorean Callicrates of Croton and one of the few female Pythagoreans w...

  • Polemo c. 350 BC – c. 270 BC · Greek

    Polemo of Athens was a Greek philosopher and the fourth scholarch of the Platonic Academy, succeeding Xenocrates and presiding over the school for nearly forty years until his d...

  • Polystratus c. 270 BC – c. 219 BC · Greek

    Polystratus was a Greek Epicurean philosopher and the third head of the Garden in Athens, succeeding Hermarchus around the middle of the third century BC. The papyrus rolls pres...

  • Prodicus of Ceos 465 BC – 395 BC · Greek

    Prodicus of Ceos was a Greek sophist and rhetorician of the late fifth century BC, contemporary with Socrates. Coming to Athens as an envoy from his island, he remained as a cel...

  • Shang Yang c. 390 BC – 338 BC · Chinese

    Shang Yang, also known as Lord Shang, was a Chinese statesman and philosopher of the Warring States period, the chief minister of the state of Qin under Duke Xiao, and one of th...

  • Shen Buhai c. 400 BC – 337 BC · Chinese

    Shen Buhai was a Chinese statesman and philosopher of the Warring States period, the chancellor of the small state of Han for fifteen years, and one of the founders of the Legal...

  • Sosipatra of Ephesus c. 350 – c. 410 · Greek

    Sosipatra of Ephesus was a fourth-century Greek Neoplatonist philosopher of late antiquity, whose teaching and prophetic activity in the city of Pergamum is recorded in Eunapius...

  • Speusippus c. 408 BC – c. 339 BC · Greek

    Speusippus was a Greek philosopher of Athens, the nephew of Plato, and his successor as scholarch of the Academy from 347 BC to his death in 339 BC. He broke with Plato on the t...

  • Sphaerus of Borysthenes c. 285 BC – c. 210 BC · Greek

    Sphaerus of Borysthenes was a Greek Stoic philosopher, pupil of Zeno of Citium and of Cleanthes, who later traveled to Sparta as the philosophical adviser to the reforming kings...

  • Stilpo c. 360 BC – c. 280 BC · Greek

    Stilpo of Megara was a Greek philosopher of the Megarian school and one of the most admired philosophical teachers of the early Hellenistic age. He was famed for his ethical sel...

  • Synesius of Cyrene c. 370 AD – c. 414 AD · Greek-Roman

    Synesius of Cyrene was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher and Christian bishop of Ptolemais in Roman Libya. A pupil of Hypatia at Alexandria, to whom he addressed several of his f...

  • Teles of Megara c. 290 BC – c. 230 BC · Greek

    Teles of Megara was a third-century-BC Greek Cynic philosopher, the earliest representative of the Cynic diatribe to survive in any substantial form. The Cynic Letters and the f...

  • Themistius 317 AD – 388 AD · Greek

    Themistius was a fourth-century Greek philosopher, rhetorician, and prefect of Constantinople. Committed to the Aristotelian tradition rather than to the dominant Neoplatonism o...

  • Vasubandhu c. 316 AD – c. 396 AD · Indian

    Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, one of the most important systematic thinkers in the Mahayana tradition. He first composed the Abhidharmakosha, an encyclopedic tr...

  • Vasumitra c. 100 – c. 170 · Indian

    Vasumitra was an Indian Buddhist abhidharma philosopher of the early second century AD, traditionally counted as one of the principal compilers of the Mahavibhasha, the great co...

  • Xenocrates c. 396 BC – c. 314 BC · Greek

    Xenocrates of Chalcedon was a Greek philosopher of the early Academy and the third scholarch after Plato and Speusippus, holding the office for twenty-five years. He systematize...

  • Aenesidemus c. 100 BC – c. 40 BC · Greek

    Aenesidemus of Cnossos was a 1st-century BC Greek philosopher who revived the Pyrrhonian school of Skepticism after a period in which Skepticism had been dominated by the New Ac...

  • Hipparchia of Maroneia c. 350 BC – c. 280 BC · Greek

    Hipparchia of Maroneia was an ancient Greek Cynic philosopher of the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC, one of the few women philosophers documented in the historical record f...

  • Strato of Lampsacus c. 335 BC – c. 269 BC · Greek

    Strato of Lampsacus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the third head of the Peripatetic School at the Lyceum in Athens, succeeding Theophrastus in 287 BC. Known in antiquity ...

  • Hypatia of Alexandria c. 360 – 415 · Greek-Egyptian

    Hypatia of Alexandria was a late ancient Greek-Egyptian philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer of the late fourth and early fifth centuries AD, the most prominent woman phil...