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470 BCE
Socrates
Socrates main contribution to Western philosophy is his method of inquiry that was called after him Socratic method, sometimes also known as elenchus. According to the latter, a statement can be considered true only if it cannot be proved wrong. The Socratic method which is dialectic breaks down a problem into a series of questions which are then sought to be answered. This method which is also used in scientific research by making a hypothesis and then either proving it. -
428 BCE
Plato
Plato is hailed as one of the founders of Western philosophy, science, and religion, and his works, along with those of Socrates, his teacher. Plato was among the earliest contributors to the fields of politics, education, literature, ethics, justice, virtue, and many more besides, from a philosophical standpoint. It is his work upon which the philosophers who succeeded him built their wide-ranging and varied theories and ideals. -
384 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato's theory of forms. -
354 BCE
Augustine
He is famous for being an inimitable Catholic theologian and for his agnostic contributions to Western philosophy. He argues that skeptics have no basis for claiming to know that there is no knowledge. In a proof for existence similar to one later made famous by René Descartes, Augustine says, “[Even] If I am mistaken, I am.” He is the first Western philosopher to promote what has come to be called "the argument by analogy" against solipsism. -
1225
Thomas Aquinas
He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology at the peak of Scholasticism in Europe, and the founder of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology. His most important and enduring works are the "Summa Theologica", in which he expounds his systematic theology of the "quinquae viae" (the five proofs of the existence of God), and the "Summa Contra Gentiles". -
1561
Francis Bacon
Bacon served as attorney general and Lord Chancellor of England, resigning amid charges of corruption. His more valuable work was philosophical. Bacon took up Aristotelian ideas, arguing for an empirical, inductive approach, known as the scientific method, which is the foundation of modern scientific inquiry. -
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes, French mathematician and philosopher was born in 1596. It was partly because of his contribution that western philosophy and mathematics flourished. In recognition of his contribution, he is often referred as “father or founder father of modern philosophy”. He is also considered as precursor of rationalist school of thought. -
John Locke
The English philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704) laid much of the groundwork for the Enlightenment and made central contributions to the development of liberalism. Trained in medicine, he was a key advocate of the empirical approaches of the Scientific Revolution. -
Immanuel Kant
His contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. This article focuses on his metaphysics and epistemology in one of his most important works, The Critique of Pure Reason. A large part of Kant’s work addresses the question “What can we know?” The answer, if it can be stated simply, is that our knowledge is constrained to mathematics and the science of the natural, empirical world. -
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one of the greatest systematic thinkers in the history of Western philosophy. In addition to epitomizing German idealist philosophy, Hegel boldly claimed that his own system of philosophy represented an historical culmination of all previous philosophical thought. -
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin is often cited as the greatest biologist in history. His most famous work, On the Origin of Species, explains the theory of evolution by natural selection, providing numerous supporting examples. Darwin believed that all of life on earth had descended from a common ancestor, whose offspring could vary slightly from the previous generation. -
John Dewey
John Dewey on education, experience and community. Arguably the most influential thinker on education in the twentieth century, Dewey’s contribution lies along several fronts. His attention to experience and reflection, democracy and community, and to environments for learning have been seminal.John Dewey has made, arguably, the most significant contribution to the development of educational thinking in the twentieth century.
