F AM O U S M O D E R N P H I L O S O P H E R S

Seventeenth Century Philosophers

(1600s)

Sir Francis
Bacon
English
(1561-1626)

Thomas
Hobbes
English
(1588-1679)

Rene
Descartes
French
(1596-1650)

Sir Francis Bacon advocated the use of inductive

reasoning (as opposed to the deductive reasoning used by
the rationalists of his day) and is hence known as the
father of empiricism. He was also very influential in
developing the modern scientific method.
One of the earliest modern philosophers to hold a
materialist worldview, Thomas Hobbes is primarily
remembered for his contributions to political
philosophy. He wrote Leviathan and argued for concepts
such as individual freedoms, equality, and representative
government. He also believed that humans are naturally
anarchic and need a sovereign to rule over them.Note:
The tiger in the comic Calvin & Hobbes is named after
him.
Rene Descartes is often called the father of modern
philosophy. Together with Spinoza and Leibniz, he is
considered one of the three great continental
rationalists. He is also known for espousing
adualism.Descartes made many important contributions
to the field of mathematics but is perhaps most famous
for his saying Cogito ergo sum (Latin for I think,
therefore I am). Basically, he wanted to know whether
or not there was anything in this world that we could
really know for sure. He started by doubting everything,
even his own existence. However, he came to the
conclusion that if he was thinking about the question,
Do I exist? then he must exist, otherwise there
wouldnt be an I to ask the question.

Baruch
Spinoza
Dutch, of
Jewish origin
(1632-1677)

John Locke
English
(1632-1704)

Gottfried
Leibniz
German
(1646-1716)

Baruch Spinoza rejected the mind-body dualism of

Descartes and is often considered to have held a more
pantheistic worldview, arguing that all things are
ultimately one. He believed in an impersonal God and
took a critical approach to the Bible and this led to his
writings being strongly condemned by religious leaders.
John Locke was the first of three great British
empiricists (the other two being Berkeley and Hume).
He is most famous for his idea of the tabula rasa
(Latin for blank slate). Basically, he felt that we are all
born with a mind that is like a blank sheet of paper. As we
go through life, we have experiences (all of which come
by way of our five senses) and that everything we know
or think of is a product of these experiences. Known as
the father of liberalism, he also advanced social contract
theory but disagreed with Hobbes support of the absolute
monarchy. Note: A character from the TV show Lost is
named after him.
The last of the three great continental rationalists,
Gottfried Leibniz believed that our world was the best
possible world that God could have created. He is also
remembered for his contributions to mathematics he
developed calculus independent of Newton and played a
major role in the development of the binary number
system and mechnical calculator.

Eighteenth Century Philosophers

(1700s)

George
Berkeley
Anglo-Irish
(1685-1753)

George Berkeley was an Anglican bishop and stands out

because of his extreme idealism. He believed that our
thoughts and sense perceptions are the only things that
really exist. According to Berkeley, the material world is
not really real we are all actually just thoughts
existing inside the mind of God!

Voltaire
French
(1694-1778)

David
Hume
Scottish
(1711-1776)

JeanJacques
Rousseau
Genevan
(1712-1778)

Adam
Smith

Voltaire was the pen name for Francois-Marie Arouet,

one of the key figures of the Enlightenment era. His
ideas on civil liberties and social reform helped pave the
way for the French and American revolutions. As a deist,
he focused more on understanding nature through the use
of reason as opposed to making appeals to authorities
such as the church.
David Humes empiricism was materialist (as opposed
to idealist, like Berkeleys) in that he mostly focused on
what can be directly observed and experienced in the
material world. He believed that every idea in our mind
can be traced to real things that we have experienced. For
example, we might have an idea of an angel (without
having ever experienced one) but that is simply a
combination of the idea of a man and the idea of
wings. Definitely a skeptic, he is thought by some to
also have been one of the earliest modern atheists. It is
often been pointed out that many of his ideas were similar
to those of the Buddha.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an important figure in the
Romantic movement and made key contributions to
educational and political theory. He believed in the
innate goodness of humans (contra Hobbes) and felt that
it was society that corrupts us.

Adam Smith is considered the father of modern

economics. He wrote The Wealth of Nations, in which he
advocated the idea of free market economies.

Scottish
(1723-1790)

Immanuel
Kant
German
(1724-1804)

Immanuel Kant is often considered to be the most

important modern philosopher. This is because he built
a bridge between rationalism and empiricism. He
believed that all knowledge comes from the senses but is
filtered through our rational minds. Therefore there is a
difference between how things really are (the thing in
itself) and how things are experienced by us (the thing
for me).

J.W. von
Goethe
German
(1749-1832)

J. W. von Goethe is often remembered as being more of a

literary great than a philosopher (his masterpiece
being Faust), but in reality, he was both, and more. He is
associated with Romanticism, a movement that put a
greater emphasis on feeling in reaction to the overemphasis on reason that was common during the
Enlightenment.

Nineteenth Century Philosophers

(1800s)

G. W. F.
Hegel
German
(1770-1831)

Auguste
Comte
French
(1798-1857)

John Stuart
Mill
British
(1806-1873)

Soren
Kierkegaar
d
Danish
(1813-1855)

G.W.F. Hegel was an idealist but not in the extreme like

Berkeley. He is associated with the Hegelian dialectic
a method of dialogue that involves presenting a thesis,
followed by an anti-thesis, and finally a synthesis.He was
very influential both in terms of later thinkers who agreed
with him (like Marx) as well as thinkers who developed
new ideas in opposition to him (like Kierkegaard).
Auguste Comte is known as the founder
of sociology andpositivism, the latter being the view that
the only authentic knowledge is that which we can
experience and verify scientifically.

John Stuart Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism (the

greatest happiness to the greatest number of people) and
made important contributions to liberal political
philosophy and the philosophy of science.

Soren Kierkegaard is considered the father of

existentialism, although his was a theistic existentialism
as opposed to the more common atheistic existentialism
of Nietzsche and Sartre. He believed that individuals
were responsible for their own lives and espoused a
passionate, irrational faith based on a leap in the dark.

Henry
David
Thoreau
American
(1817-1862)

Karl Marx
German
(1818-1883)

William
James
American
(1842-1910)

Friedrich
Nietzsche
German
(1844-1900)

Henry David Thoreau was a key figure in

Americantranscendentalism (which focused on an
intuitive spirituality over traditional religious beliefs). He
wroteWalden and was a proponent of simple living and
civil disobedience.

Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto with

Friedrich Engels, which opens with the lines, The
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles and thus laid the groundwork for
modern communism and socialism
William James is best known for
supporting pragmatism(the belief that ideas are
meaningful only if they work), his work on the
psychology of religious experiences, and his will-tobelieve doctrine (the idea that some truths must be
accepted without evidence). He was the brother of Henry
James, an important American writer.
Friedrich Nietzsche is most famous for the statement,
God is dead. which comes from a story he wrote about
a madman who goes around a village shouting, Where is
God? Finally, the madman answers his own question
and says, God is dead and we have killed him.
Nietzsche was referring to the great change that had
happened in Europe during the nineteenth century. Up to
that point, the Christian God had been the foundation for
morality and peoples purpose in life. However, science
and secularism had grown to a point where many people
felt God was no longer necessary. Nietzsches radical
questioning of objective truth had a profound influence
on existentialism, nihilism (the idea that life has no
purpose
or meaning), and postmodernism.

Twentieth Century Philosophers

(1900s)

Edmund
Husserl
German
(1859-1938)

Bertrand
Russell
British
(1872-1970)

Ludwig
Wittgenstei
n
AustrianBritish
(1889-1951)

Jean-Paul
Sartre
French
(1905-1980)

Edmund Husserl founded the phenomenologymovement,

which sought to systematically determine the essential
properties of consciousness by reflecting upon the
subjective phenomena we experience.

Bertrand Russell was one of the founders of analytical

philosophy, a school of thought that uses scientific
methods to solve philosophical problems and which tends
to dominate in the US and UK in contrast to the
existentialism and Marxism found in mainland Europe.
One of his best known popular works is Why I Am Not a
Christian.
A student of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein is
sometimes referred to as the greatest philosopher of the
twentieth century. He believed that the meanings of
words reside in their ordinary uses and that philosophers
often distort their meanings and end up playing language
games.

Jean-Paul Sartre is probably the most

famousexistentialist and is known for the phrase
existence precedes essence. Instead of starting with
the idea of purpose and then humans existing because of
that purpose, existentialists start with the existence of
humans and emphasize that humans must create their
own meaning and purpose.Sartres lover, Simone de
Beauvoir was also a famous philosopher and an
important feminist.