Thinkers

Wang Yangming Wang Yangming (王陽明 Wáng Yángmíng, 1472–1529; courtesy name Bó’ān, personal name Shǒurén 守仁) is the most influential Neo-Confucian thinker of the Ming dynasty and the founder of the so-called “school of mind” (xīnxué 心學). Besides being a philosopher, he was a senior state official and a successful military commander, and his doctrine arose in dialogue with that practical experience. His thought constitutes the chief alternative to the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy of Zhu Xi, the “school of principle” (lǐxué 理學), which dominated the imperial examination system. ...

Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) was born in Ramsgate, Kent, and built a career on both sides of the Atlantic. For decades he taught mathematics and logic at Trinity College, Cambridge and at University College London, before accepting — at the age of sixty-three — an invitation to join the philosophy faculty at Harvard, where he produced his most ambitious metaphysical work. This dual trajectory, from mathematical rigour to cosmological speculation, defines his philosophy in a singular way: process thought does not emerge from a break with science but from a sustained philosophical meditation on its foundations. ...

Wilfrid Sellars Wilfrid Sellars was one of the most profound and original American analytic philosophers of the twentieth century, though less widely read than his influence would warrant. Trained in a tradition that combined analytic rigor with a deep knowledge of the history of philosophy, he set out to articulate what he called the ultimate aim of philosophy: “to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” His work seeks to reconcile a commitment to science and naturalism with recognition of the normative dimension of thought and knowledge. He taught above all at the University of Pittsburgh, where he formed an influential line of students. ...

Wilhelm Dilthey Wilhelm Dilthey was born in Biebrich am Rhein (present-day Wiesbaden, Germany) on 19 November 1833 and died in Seis am Schlern (present-day northern Italy) on 1 October 1911. He held professorships in Basel, Kiel, and from 1882 in Berlin — where he occupied the chair once held by Hegel — and devoted his life to a project that remained unfinished yet profoundly influential: providing the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) with their own philosophical foundation, comparable to what Kant had given the natural sciences in the Critique of Pure Reason. ...

William James American philosopher and psychologist, co-founder of pragmatism and pioneer of modern psychology. Brother of novelist Henry James. He popularized and developed Peirce’s pragmatism in a more psychological and humanistic direction, with enormous influence on 20th-century philosophy, psychology, and theology. Key Concepts Pragmatism as method: an idea is true if it works, if it produces satisfactory consequences for action — truth as an instrumental value, not a static correspondence Truth as process: “truth happens to an idea; it becomes true, is made true by events” — truth is dynamic and verifiable in experience Radical empiricism: experience includes not only things but also the relations between them — a critique of classical empiricism that fragmented experience into isolated atoms Stream of consciousness: consciousness is not discrete and static but continuous, personal, and selective — a concept that profoundly influenced modernist literature Will to believe: when evidence is insufficient and a decision is forced and momentous (such as belief in God), it is rationally legitimate to believe on practical and emotional grounds Varieties of religious experience: religion should be evaluated by its effects on people’s lives, not by its metaphysics; mysticism has genuine psychological validity Pluralism: reality is multiple and unfinished — a critique of Hegelian absolute monism Influenced by Peirce — original pragmatic maxim Darwin — evolutionism and mental functionalism Hume — skepticism and empiricism Kant — theory of knowledge (critically) Influenced John Dewey — instrumentalism and philosophy of education Bergson — mutual influence in philosophy of life and time Wittgenstein — explicit references in Philosophical Investigations American psychology (functionalism, behaviorism) Liberal theology and the religious modernist movement Works The Principles of Psychology (1890); The Will to Believe (1897); The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); Pragmatism (1907); Radical Empiricism (1912). ...

William of Ockham Born around 1287 in the English village of Ockham, in Surrey, William entered the Franciscan order and studied at Oxford. Accused of heresy, he was summoned to the papal court at Avignon; caught up in the dispute between the Franciscans and Pope John XXII over evangelical poverty, he ended up fleeing to the court of Emperor Louis of Bavaria, under whose protection he lived until his death, around 1347. His work marks the end of classical Scholasticism and opens the way to Modernity. ...

Xenophanes of Colophon Itinerant Greek poet-philosopher, born in Colophon, in Ionia (the western coast of Asia Minor), around 570 BCE. When the Persian conquest of Ionia began in the mid-sixth century BCE, Xenophanes left his native city and spent the rest of his life wandering the Greek world, residing for periods in Zancle and Catana in Sicily and, according to tradition, in Elea in southern Italy. He lived to an exceptionally advanced age — ancient sources suggest he surpassed ninety years — and his entire output survives only in fragments preserved by later authors such as Sextus Empiricus, Simplicius, and Athenaeus. ...

Xunzi Xunzi (荀子 Xún Zǐ, “Master Xun”; personal name Kuàng 況), who lived around c. 310–c. 235 BCE, is, alongside Confucius and Mencius, one of the three great thinkers of classical Confucianism. He was active during the Warring States period and was a figure of prestige at the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi. His philosophy stands out for its argumentative rigour and its naturalism: whereas other Confucians grounded morality in a morally engaged celestial order, Xunzi grounds it in human culture, ritual, and deliberate education. ...

Zeno of Citium Founder of Stoicism. He taught at the Stoa Poikilê (Painted Porch) in Athens — hence the name of the school. After hearing the story of Socrates through the cynicism of Crates, he abandoned commerce to dedicate himself to philosophy. He taught that virtue is the only real good; everything else (wealth, health, fame) is indifferent (adiaphora). The universe is permeated by the divine Logos (rational fire) and each event occurs by rational necessity. ...

Zeno of Elea Born in Elea, in southern Italy, and active in the mid-fifth century BCE, Zeno was the most celebrated disciple of Parmenides — according to Plato, he accompanied his master to Athens, where the two are said to have conversed with the young Socrates. Tradition also attributes to him a heroic end: tortured by a tyrant whose overthrow he was plotting, he is said to have preferred death to betrayal. He is remembered above all as a master of argument. ...

Zhu Xi Note on romanisation: Chinese names are given in pinyin, with the original characters in parentheses on first occurrence. Tones are not graphically marked, in line with current editorial usage. Zhu Xi (朱熹), a Southern Song philosopher, is the great systematiser of what is conventionally called Neo-Confucianism — also known as Lixue (理學, “Learning of Principle”) or the Cheng-Zhu school, after the Cheng brothers (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi), whose writings Zhu Xi organised into a synthesis. A government official and teacher, he spent most of his life lecturing at private academies and revising the classical texts. His historical importance is hard to overstate: the educational curriculum grounded on his commentaries to the Sishu (四書, “Four Books”) was the basis of the Chinese imperial examinations from 1313 to 1905, and through that channel it also shaped the thought of Korea, Vietnam and Japan. ...

Note on sources and authorship: The dates of Zhuangzi (莊子, “Master Zhuang”; personal name Zhōu 周) are uncertain — c. 369–286 BCE is the conventional scholarly estimate, derived from mentions in period texts. The eponymous text Zhuangzi (莊子), as transmitted to us, is a compilation in three sections: the 7 inner chapters (nèipiān 內篇), generally attributed to Zhuangzi himself by modern scholarship; the 15 outer chapters (wàipiān 外篇) and the 11 miscellaneous chapters (zápiān 雜篇), regarded as works by later disciples and commentators. The edition that reached modernity is due to the scholar Guo Xiang (c. 252–312 CE). ...