Statistics for The 100 Greatest Philosophers

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Interest / Branch	Nationality	Main Contribution(s)	Philosopher	% Correct
Mathematics	Greek	His theorem related to right-angled triangles; the theory of melodical octaves in music.	Pythagoras	97%
Ethics	Chinese	Promoted education as a vocation; his ideas about the hierarchy of the state and loyalty.	Confucius	77%
Metaphysics	Greek	Founded the Academy; helped people recognise what it means to be virtuous.	Plato	66%
Epistemology	Greek	His technique for arguing a point; claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living.	Socrates	62%
Ethics	Roman	His 'Meditations' on Stoic philosophy; one of the first 'philosopher kings'.	Marcus Aurelius	49%
Biology	Greek	Invented the field of formal logic; pioneered zoology with his theories on classification.	Aristotle	48%
Aesthetics	German	His critique of morality and simultaneous praise and scorn of nihilism; conceived the 'Übermensch' and 'will to power'.	Friedrich Nietzsche	43%
Political Philosophy	German	"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"; "Religion is the opium of the masses".	Karl Marx	43%
Epistemology	English	Known as the 'father of liberalism'; pioneered the ideas of natural law, social contract, and religious toleration.	John Locke	38%
Epistemology	French	Invented analytical geometry with the use of algebra; made skepticism an essential part of the scientific method.	René Descartes	38%
Political Philosophy	Italian	Argued that politics has no relation to morality; prioritised empirical reasoning over religious dogma.	Niccolò Machiavelli	36%
Metaphysics	Greek	The formulation of an atomic theory of the universe; rejected divine intervention in science.	Democritus	35%
Epistemology	Danish	Deemed the first existential philosopher; argued that reality is more subjective rather than objective.	Søren Kierkegaard	35%
Political Philosophy	English	Justified government autocracy on the basis of public consent; stated that government's goal is upholding peace.	Thomas Hobbes	34%
Metaphysics	Greek	Said that fire forms the basic material principle of the universe; formulated the 'Analogy of the River'.	Heraclitus	33%
Asceticism	Greek	Advocated complete truthfulness at all times; developed cynicism and austere asceticism.	Diogenes	32%
Epistemology	German	Developed a dialectical scheme emphasising the progress of history; presented self-determination as man's essence.	Georg Hegel	32%
Aesthetics	German	Considered space and time "forms of intuition" in his idealist doctrine; elucidated a priori knowledge of objects.	Immanuel Kant	32%
Political Philosophy	Genevan	Formulated the social contract theory; developed radical ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity.	Jean-Jacques Rousseau	32%
Political Philosophy	British	Wrote 'On Liberty': applying utilitarianism to society and state; praised eccentricity as a source of ideals.	John Stuart Mill	32%
Metaphysics	Greek	His ingenious paradoxes related to motion; considered the founder of the dialectic.	Zeno of Elea	32%
Epistemology	French	Dsscribed humans' freedom and responsibilities; defined two types of reality in 'Being and Nothingness'.	Jean-Paul Sartre	31%
Political Philosophy	French	A pioneering figure of contemporary philosophical feminism; asserted that the individual is fundamentally free.	Simone de Beauvoir	31%
Christian Theology	Roman	Adapted Classical thought to Christian teaching; discussed the notions of the soul, creation and evil.	Augustine of Hippo	30%
Political Philosophy	British	Founded modern utilitarianism; his radical political views are associated with the welfare state.	Jeremy Bentham	29%
Metaphysics	Greek	Taught that the basic constituents of the world are atoms; promoted empiricism and hedonism.	Epicurus	28%
Christian Theology	Italian	The five proofs of God's existence; incorporated Aristotelian philosophy in Christianity in the 'Summa contra Gentiles'.	Thomas Aquinas	28%
Epistemology	Dutch	His pantheistic monism: that God did not create, but forms part of nature; criticised Biblical and Cartesian thought.	Baruch Spinoza	27%
Natural Philosophy	English	Thought to be the father of empiricism; contributed to the development of the scientific method.	Francis Bacon	27%
Mathematics	German	Proposed that the universe is made of an infinite number of "monads"; invented differential and integral calculus.	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	27%
Aesthetics	German	Created an atheistic metaphysical system; taught that humans are solely driven to act by the "will".	Arthur Schopenhauer	26%
Logic	Greek	Founded the Stoic school of philosophy; laid significance of the attainment of peace of mind.	Zeno of Citium	23%
Epistemology	French	Invented 'deconstruction'; developed logocentrism: placing one concept at the centre of theorising meaning.	Jacques Derrida	22%
Political Philosophy	French	Promoted the separation of state powers: executive, legislative and judicial; defended private property.	Montesquieu	22%
Ontology	German	Established the school of phenomenology; criticised historicism in logic based on intentionality.	Edmund Husserl	21%
Political Philosophy	German	Coined the phrase "the banality of evil"; outlined the faculty of human judgment in relation to political systems.	Hannah Arendt	21%
Metaphysics	Austrian	Wrote on the logical relationship between propositions and the world; advocated a highly restrictive language use.	Ludwig Wittgenstein	21%
History	French	Traced the development of Western civilisation; addressed the relations between power and knowledge.	Michel Foucault	21%
Logic	British	Championed analytic philosophy; developed the axiomatic method for logical deduction from basic propositions.	Bertrand Russell	20%
Metaphysics	German	Reinvigorated phenomenology and promoted postmodernism; devised a theory for technology.	Martin Heidegger	20%
Ontology	Greek	Invented the method of reasoned proof for assertions; pioneered the field of ontology.	Parmenides	20%
Philosophy of Language	American	Reformed linguistics with such theories as 'Transformational Generative Grammar'; promotes non-interventionism in war.	Noam Chomsky	19%
Ethics	Australian	Defined ethical actions as those that maximise overall pleasure; wrote on ideals to end global poverty.	Peter Singer	19%
Platonism	Roman	Developed a spiritual cosmology involving three elements: the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul.	Plotinus	18%
Medicine	Arab	His work 'Al Qanun Fi Al-Tibb' (The Canon of Medicine); his theory of essence posits three modalities.	Avicenna	17%
Epistemology	British	Anticipated modern monetarism, such as interest rate; "causes and effects are discoverable by experience".	David Hume	17%
Political Philosophy	American	His "justice as fairness" recommends equal basic liberties to eliminate inequality; devised the 'original position'.	John Rawls	17%
Christian Theology	Italian	Discovering the “ontological argument” for the theory of God in the Proslogion; his doctrine of the atonement.	Anselm of Canterbury	16%
Metaphysics	Irish	Developed immaterialism - the being of objects "is to be perceived"; stated that one's duty is to obey God's laws.	George Berkeley	16%
Mathematics	German	Founded analytic philosophy; held the truths of arithmetic are logical truths in the 'Begriffsschrift'.	Gottlob Frege	14%
Mathematics	Roman	Leader of the Neoplatonist school of philosophy in Alexandria; her development of geometry.	Hypatia	14%
Islamic Theology	Sephardic Jewish	Codified Jewish Law through 'The Guide for the Perplexed'; reconciled Aristotelian philosophy with the Torah.	Moses Maimonides	14%
Epistemology	Greek	Founded skepticism; advocated the suspension of judgement over the truth of all beliefs and dogma.	Pyrrho	14%
Epistemology	French	Introduced sociology and positivism; founded the 'Religion of Humanity': a secular belief system.	Auguste Comte	13%
Metaphysics	British	Argued that reality is a process and not material; his 'Principia Mathematica' is a key work in mathematical logic.	Alfred North Whitehead	12%
Metaphysics	Scottish	Argued that God can create and conserve “prime matter”; the idea of haecceity - giving the individual identity.	John Duns Scotus	12%
Pragmatism	American	Advanced the pragmatist movement; posited that emotions arise from physiological responses to external events.	William James	12%
Epistemology	British	Presented the verification principle as the only valid basis for philosophy; wrote 'Language, Truth and Logic'.	A.J. Ayer	11%
Metaphysics	French	His theory of “duration": the irreducible reality; discussed dualism in 'Matière et mémoire'.	Henri Bergson	11%
Ethics	Chinese	Advocated light taxes, free trade and welfare for the elderly; said that the human nature is good.	Mencius	11%
Philosophy of Science	American	Argued that scientific fields undergo periodic "paradigm shifts"; defined five cognitive values, such as 'precision'.	Thomas S. Kuhn	11%
Natural Philosophy	English	Challenged scholasticism and the papacy, partially ending the medieval period; developed the principle of parsimony.	William of Ockham	11%
Biology	British	Applied evolutionary theory and Darwinism to philosophy; formulated three principles regulating the universe.	Herbert Spencer	10%
Islamic Theology	Andalusian	Asserted that humans share the same intellect; contended that philosophy is just the revelation of God's might.	Averroës	9%
Epistemology	American	Leading proponent of pragmatism; reconnected philosophy with the mission of education-for-living.	John Dewey	9%
Social Theory	German	Argued that technological transformations had bettered society; developed the theory of communicative reason.	Jürgeb Habermas	9%
Rationality	Austrian	Rejected the inductive method in the empirical sciences; replaced critical realism with critical rationalism.	Karl Popper	9%
Jewish Theology	Roman	Used philosophy to justify religious teachings in the Torah; combined Jewish exegesis with Stoicism.	Philo	9%
Ontology	Austrian	His work 'Ich und Du' - expressing the dialogue of man with other beings; promoted Zionist thought.	Martin Buber	8%
Logic	American	Undermined the idea that all propositions are a priori; his semantics for modal logic involving possible worlds.	Saul Kripke	8%
Sociology	German	Argued that a capitalist society was a consumer society; coined 'identity thinking' to describe categorical thought.	Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno	8%
Daoism	Chinese	Promoted Daoist thought on nature and being; developed ideas on pragmatics and semantics.	Zhuang Zhou	8%
Epistemology	British	Led the turn from idealism to common-sense judgment; advocated non-ethical naturalism.	G.E. Moore	7%
Epistemology	Italian	Invented the philosophy of history; coined the constructivist aphorism "Verum esse ipsum factum".	Giambattista Vico	7%
Jewish Theology	German	Combined Judaism with the rationalism of the Enlightenment; advocated religious toleration.	Moses Mendelssohn	7%
Buddhism	Indian	Articulated the doctrine of emptiness; founded the Madhyamika (“Middle Way”) school.	Nagarjuna	7%
Logic	French	Argued that God and the universe can be known via logic and emotion; the father of metaphysical nominalism.	Peter Abelard	7%
Philosophy of Language	American	Blended philosophy and literature into 'neopragmatism'; advocated sentimental education to promote human rights.	Richard Rorty	7%
Islamic Theology	Persian	Developed of a systematic view of Sufism; combined Islamic spiritualism and fundamentalism.	Al-Ghazālī	6%
Logic	German	His theory of logical syntax; his book 'Der Raum' established a logical basis for the space-time theory.	Rudolf Carnap	6%
Neo-Confucianism	Chinese	Stated that the difference between good and evil is intuitive; propagated a genuine understanding of the self.	Wang Yangming	6%
Logic	American	Replaced first-order logic with his system 'New Foundations'; developed an indispensability argument.	Willard Van Orman Quine	6%
Islamic Theology	Arab	Propagated philosophy in the Islamic world; founded a metaphysical dualism differentiating body and mind.	Al-Kindī	5%
Political Philosophy	American	Pioneered three principles to determine how one deserves something; worked on decision theory.	Robert Nozick	5%
Neo-Confucianism	Chinese	Said that the cosmos has two aspects: the indeterminate and the determinate; systematised the Confucian ideals.	Zhu Xi	5%
Hinduism	Indian	Reformed the Vedanta tradition of Hinduism; founded four monasteries in every corner of India.	Adi Shankara	4%
Ethics	British	Coined the term 'moral luck'; his denial of political moralism, claiming that politics is never regulated by ethics.	Bernard Williams	4%
Epistemology	Roman	Taught that everything is by nature as it desires; developed the idea of autonomous knowledge domains.	Boethius	4%
Epistemology	Greek	Stated that the ultimate goal of philosophical research is to achieve ataraxia: a state of peace.	Sextus Empiricus	4%
Metaphysics	(Asian)	Divided logic into Takhayyul (idea) and Thubut (proof); introduced the theory of the Ten Intelligences.	Al-Fārābī	3%
History	Italian	Coined the circularity among “moments” of the four aspects of spirit; said that art is the expression of emotion.	Benedetto Croce	3%
Metaphysics	American	Argued that states of the mind are simply states of the brain; developed the metaphysics of modality.	David Kellogg Lewis	3%
Metaphysics	Japanese	Taught that the “Non-self ” is the ultimate reality where all subject–object cleavage is overcome.	Kitarō Nishida	3%
Philosophy of Mind	American	Dubbed foundationalist epistemology the "Myth of the Given"; described the behavioural web of language.	Wilfrid Sellars	3%
Anthropology	German	Held that man can only be comprehended by historical knowledge; worked on hermeneutical research.	Wilhelm Dilthey	3%
Islamic Theology	Andalusian	Taught that by self manifestation, one acquires "the primordial spirit of Muhammad"; wrote on Quranic exegesis.	Ibn al-'Arabī	2%
Hinduism	Indian	Developed the basis for the bhakti; taught that the phenomenal world is real and provides real knowledge.	Rāmānuja	2%
Political Philosophy	French	Advocated economic freedom and legal and educational reform; an early abolitionist, transhumanist, and feminist.	Nicolas de Condorcet	1%
Buddhism	Japanese	Taught that Pure Land Buddhism was the best path to mappō; found reciprocity between Amida and Sakyamuni.	Shinran	1%
Neoplatonism	Andalusian	Posited that all things comprise matter and form (Universal Hylomorphism); influenced Christian Scholasticism.	Solomon ibn Gabirol	1%