PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: philosophy and religion
Jesus religious leader revered in Christianity, one of the world’s major religions. He is regarded by most Christians as the Incarnation of God. The history of Christian reflection on the teachings and...
Greek philosopher
Aristotle ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Classical antiquity and Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became...
Greek philosopher
Socrates ancient Greek philosopher whose way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on Classical antiquity and Western philosophy. Socrates was a widely recognized and controversial...
Greek philosopher
Plato ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates (c. 470–399 bce), teacher of Aristotle (384–322 bce), and founder of the Academy, best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence....
English poet
John Milton English poet, pamphleteer, and historian, considered the most significant English author after William Shakespeare. Milton is best known for Paradise Lost, widely regarded as the greatest epic...
Christian Apostle
St. Paul the Apostle one of the leaders of the first generation of Christians, often considered to be the most important person after Jesus in the history of Christianity. In his own day, although he was...
Chinese philosopher
Confucius China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have profoundly influenced the civilizations of China and other East Asian countries. Confucius was born near the...
president of United States
Thomas Jefferson draftsman of the Declaration of Independence of the United States and the nation’s first secretary of state (1789–94) and second vice president (1797–1801) and, as the third president...
German religious leader
Martin Luther German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain...
British author, philosopher, and statesman
Francis Bacon lord chancellor of England (1618–21). A lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and master of the English tongue, he is remembered in literary terms for the sharp worldly wisdom of a few dozen essays;...
English philosopher
John Locke English philosopher whose works lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism,classical liberalism in particular. He was an inspirer of both the European...
Italian poet
Dante was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia (The Divine...
Christian bishop and theologian
St. Augustine ; feast day August 28) bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of...
German philosopher
Immanuel Kant German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the various...
Holy Roman emperor [747?–814]
Charlemagne king of the Franks (768–814), king of the Lombards (774–814), and first emperor (800–814) of the Romans and of what was later called the Holy Roman Empire. Around the time of the birth of Charlemagne—conventionally...
German philosopher
Karl Marx revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist. He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated...
Swiss-born French philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation. Rousseau was the least...
American linguist
Noam Chomsky American theoretical linguist whose work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by treating language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity. Through his...
German philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel German philosopher who developed a dialectical scheme that emphasized the progress of history and of ideas from thesis to antithesis and thence to a synthesis. Hegel was the...
French mathematician and philosopher
René Descartes 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,...
pope
St. John Paul II ; beatified May 1, 2011; canonized April 27, 2014; feast day October 22) was the bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005. He was the first non-Italian pope...
French philosopher and author
Voltaire one of the greatest of all French writers. Although only a few of his works are still read, he continues to be held in worldwide repute as a courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty....
French heroine
St. Joan of Arc ; canonized May 16, 1920; feast day May 30; French national holiday, second Sunday in May) national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance,...
Dutch-Jewish philosopher
Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher, one of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal figures of the Enlightenment. His masterwork is the treatise...
French theologian
John Calvin theologian and ecclesiastical statesman. He was the leading French Protestant reformer and the most important figure in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation. His interpretation...
Christian Apostle
St. Peter the Apostle was a disciple of Jesus Christ, recognized in the early Christian church as the leader of the 12 disciples and by the Roman Catholic Church as the first of its unbroken succession...
Italian statesman and writer
Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an...
Scottish philosopher
Adam Smith Scottish social philosopher and political economist, instrumental in the rise of classical liberalism. Adam Smith is a towering figure in the history of economic thought. Known primarily for...
Scottish philosopher
David Hume Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science...
prophet of Islam
Muhammad the founder of Islam and the proclaimer of the Qurʾān. Muhammad is traditionally said to have been born in 570 in Mecca and to have died in 632 in Medina, where he had been forced to emigrate...
English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, scientist, and historian, best known for his political philosophy, especially as articulated in his masterpiece Leviathan (1651). Hobbes viewed government primarily...
British philosopher and economist
John Stuart Mill English philosopher, economist, and exponent of utilitarianism. He was prominent as a publicist in the reforming age of the 19th century, and remains of lasting interest as a logician...
Italian Christian theologian and philosopher
St. Thomas Aquinas ; canonized July 18, 1323; feast day January 28, formerly March 7) Italian Dominican theologian, the foremost medieval Scholastic. He developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian...
pope
St. Gregory VII ; canonized 1606; feast day, May 25) was one of the greatest popes of the medieval church, who lent his name to the 11th-century movement now known as the Gregorian Reform or Investiture...
French philosopher and author
Gabriel Marcel was a French philosopher, dramatist, and critic who was associated with the phenomenological and existentialist movements in 20th-century European philosophy. His work and style are often...
Dutch humanist
Erasmus Dutch humanist who was the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance, the first editor of the New Testament, and also an important figure in patristics and classical literature. Using the philological...
American philosopher
Hilary Putnam leading American philosopher who made major contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics,...
Danish philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and cultural critic who was a major influence on existentialism and Protestant theology in the 20th century. He attacked the literary, philosophical,...
British logician and philosopher
Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, and social reformer, a founding figure in the analytic movement in Anglo-American philosophy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950....
Muslim caliph
ʿAlī was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, and fourth of the “rightly guided” (rāshidūn) caliphs, as the first four successors of Muhammad are called. Reigning from 656 to 661,...
British biologist
Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist, educator, and advocate of agnosticism (he coined the word). Huxley’s vigorous public support of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary naturalism earned him the nickname...
British philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian-born British philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Wittgenstein’s two major works, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (1921; Tractatus...
president of United States
John Adams was an early advocate of American independence from Great Britain, a major figure in the Continental Congress (1774–77), the author of the Massachusetts constitution (1780), a signer of the...
archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas Cranmer was the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury (1533–56), adviser to the English kings Henry VIII and Edward VI. As archbishop, he put the English Bible in parish churches, drew up the...
pope
St. Gregory the Great ; Western feast day, September 3 [formerly March 12, still observed in the East]) was the pope from 590 to 604, a reformer and excellent administrator, “founder” of the medieval papacy,...
German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. His attempts to unmask the motives that underlie traditional...
German philosopher
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher, counted among the main exponents of existentialism. His groundbreaking work in ontology (the philosophical study of being, or existence) and metaphysics determined...
French philosopher and historian
Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and historian, one of the most influential and controversial scholars of the post-World War II period. The son and grandson of a physician, Michel Foucault was...
pope
Innocent III was the most significant pope of the Middle Ages. Elected pope on January 8, 1198, Innocent III reformed the Roman Curia, reestablished and expanded the pope’s authority over the Papal States,...
pope
Francis ushered in a new era of leadership of the Roman Catholic Church when he was elected pope in 2013. As the first pope from the Western Hemisphere, the first from South America, and the first from...
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