Timeline of Philosophers and their Principles

Socrates

470 BCE

Socrates was a widely recognized and controversial figure in his native Athens, so much so that he was frequently mocked in the plays of comic dramatists. Socrates, (born c. 470 BCE, Athens [Greece]—died 399 BCE, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher whose way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy

Plato

428 BCE

Best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence. Plato, (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece—died 348/347, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), teacher of Aristotle (384–322 BCE), and founder of the Academy.

Aristotle

384 BCE

The author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Even after the intellectual revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, Aristotelian concepts remained embedded in Western thinking, (born 384 BCE, Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece died 322, Chalcis, Euboea), ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history

Hypatia

355 BCE

Hypatia was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria, himself a mathematician and astronomer. The earliest female mathematician of whose life and work reasonably detailed knowledge exists. She was (born c. 355 CE—died March 415, Alexandria), mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who lived in a very turbulent era in Alexandria’s history.

Epicurus

341 BCE

Epicurus was born on the island of Samos of Athenian parents who had gone there as military settlers. His father, a schoolteacher, was named Neocles, his mother Chairestrate; both were of the same village, the deme Gargettos. According to his own report, Epicurus began his study of philosophy at the age of 14. He was (born 341 BC, Samos, Greece—died 270, Athens), Greek philosopher, author of an ethical philosophy of simple pleasure, friendship, and retirement.

Rene Descartes

Mar 31, 1596

A French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon Scholastic Aristotelianism, because he formulated the first modern version of mind-body dualism, from which stems the mind-body problem, and because he promoted the development of a new science grounded in observation and experiment, he is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy. He was (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden).

Immanuel Kant

Apr 22, 1724

A German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the various schools of Kantianism and idealism. He was(born April 22, 1724, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia]—died February 12, 1804, Königsberg). Kant was one of the foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment and arguably one of the greatest philosophers of all time.