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Period: 470 BCE to 399 BCE
Socrates
He was an ancient Greek philosopher considered to be the main source of western thought. he was condemned to death for his Socratic method of questioning. Socrates believed that philosophy should achieved practical results for the greater well-being of society. He attempted to established an ethical system based on human reason rather than theological doctrine. -
Period: 428 to 348
Plato
he was a hugely important Greek philosopher and mathematician from the Socratic (or Classical) period. He is perhaps the best known, most widely studied and most influential philosopher of all time. In Ethics, he had a teleological or goal-orientated worldview. He concluded that reason and wisdom should govern, thus effectively rejecting the principles of Athenian democracy as only a few are fit to rule. -
Period: 624 to 546
Aristotle
He is one of the most important founding figures in Western Philosophy, and first to create a comprehensive system of philosophy, mainly Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics, etc. He made some highly influential contributions to the field of Ethics. He considered Ethics to be a practical science but also a general, rather than a certain, knowledge. Unlike some other moral philosophers before him, he started by posing the very general question of what it actually means to lead a good human life.