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Bernard Williams Bernard Williams was one of the most important British moral philosophers of the twentieth century and one of the most penetrating critics of the ambition to ground ethics in a single, impersonal theoretical system. He taught at Cambridge, Berkeley, and Oxford. Against both utilitarianism and Kantianism, Williams insisted on the irreducible complexity of moral life, on the importance of the first-person perspective, of personal commitments and emotions, and on the inability of grand theories to capture everything that matters ethically. His writing combines classical learning, psychological sensitivity, and an elegant distrust of philosophical oversimplification. ...

Bertrand Russell Born in 1872 into an influential British aristocratic family — he was the grandson of a prime minister — Bertrand Russell had one of the longest and most varied careers in philosophy: he was a logician, mathematician, essayist, educator, and political activist, spanning nearly a century of history. He studied at Cambridge, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950, and, faithful to his pacifism, was imprisoned during the First World War and led, in his nineties, the campaign against nuclear weapons (the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 1955). He is, with Frege and Wittgenstein, one of the founders of analytic philosophy. ...

Blaise Pascal French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. A precocious genius (invented the mechanical calculator at age 19); converted to Jansenism after his “night of fire” (1654). His philosophy is an existential wager and a confrontation with the reason of the libertines. Key Concepts The wager (Pascal’s wager): pragmatic argument about belief in God. If God exists and you believe — infinite gain; if he does not exist and you believe — finite loss. If he exists and you do not believe — infinite loss. Prudent reason bets on God — even without rational proof “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of”: there is an order of the heart — intuition, love, feeling — irreducible to the demonstrative logic of Descartes Misery and grandeur of man: man is a roseau pensant (thinking reed) — fragile as nature, but his greatness lies in thinking; more noble than the universe because he knows that he dies The two infinities: between the great infinity (cosmos) and the small infinity (atom), man stands in the middle — without firm foundation either in sciences or in metaphysics Diversion (divertissement): man flees from confrontation with himself through agitation — boredom reveals the human misery that diversion hides. Critique of social superficiality Critique of Cartesianism: Descartes’ method is useful in the sciences, but illusory as a foundation for faith or morality; “Descartes useless and uncertain” Jansenism: Catholic current that emphasized the irresistible grace of Augustine; Pascal defended Port-Royal in the Provincial Letters against the Jesuits Influenced by Saint Augustine — grace, sin, predestination Montaigne — skepticism, human misery (point of departure and adversary) Descartes — rationalism (critique) Ancient Pyrrhonism — skepticism as apologetic weapon Influenced Kierkegaard — wager, paradox, subjectivity of faith Existentialism — anguish and human condition Modern Christian apologetics Decision theory and game theory (wager as precursor) Works Provincial Letters (1656–1657); Pensées (posthumous, 1670 — fragments of an unfinished apologetic); Treatise on the Arithmetic of the Triangle (1654). ...

Boethius “The last Roman and the first Scholastic.” He translated and commented on the Logic of Aristotle into Latin, transmitting it to the Middle Ages. The Isagoge of Porphyry — which Boethius translated and commented on — (introduction to the Categories) launched the debate of universals that will dominate Scholasticism. Imprisoned and condemned to death by Theodoric, he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy in prison — one of the most widely read works of the Middle Ages. ...

Bonaventure Giovanni di Fidanza, known as Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. Franciscan theologian and philosopher; cardinal and Minister-General of the Franciscan Order. Contemporary and cordial adversary of Thomas Aquinas. Called the Doctor Seraphicus. Key Concepts Itinerary of the Mind to God (Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, 1259): the soul ascends to God in six steps — from the external world (vestiges of God in creation) to the interior (soul as image of God) to the superior (contemplation of God in itself); divine illumination is necessary at each stage Divine illumination: human knowledge requires a special light infused by God — inheritance from Augustine against the pure Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas Exemplarism: creatures are vestiges (vestigia), images (imagines) or similitudes (similitudines) of God — the world is a book that speaks of God Theology as affective wisdom: theology is not theoretical science but sapientia — knowledge that moves toward love; contemplation surpasses speculation Creation in time: against Aristotle and Averroes, the world is not eternal — it was created from nothing (ex nihilo) Influenced by Augustine — illuminism, interiority and love Plato (via Augustine) — exemplarism and participation Anselm of Canterbury — ontological argument and faith seeking understanding Francis of Assisi — Franciscan spirituality Influenced Later Franciscan school (Duns Scotus, Ockham — though divergent) Western Christian mysticism Thomas Aquinas — debate on the eternity of the world Works Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1248–1255); Itinerary of the Mind to God (1259); Reduction of the Arts to Theology (1255); The Triple Way (c. 1259). ...

Buddha Note on sources and dating: The dates of Siddhārtha Gautama (also called Śākyamuni, “the sage of the Śākya clan”) are a matter of scholarly controversy. The traditional chronology places him at c. 563–483 BCE, but revised research of recent decades favours a “short chronology,” locating his death around 400 BCE (an approximate lifespan of c. 480–400 BCE). Equally important: the Buddha’s teachings were transmitted orally for generations and were only set down in writing centuries later, above all in the Pāli Canon (Tipiṭaka, Sanskrit Tripiṭaka). These texts are therefore not writings of the Buddha himself but later records of the monastic community, and reconstructing what he historically taught is a delicate philological task. ...

Byung-Chul Han Byung-Chul Han (한병철, b. 1959, Seoul) is a South Korean philosopher based in Germany. He studied metallurgy in Seoul before moving to Germany, where he completed his philosophy studies in Freiburg and Munich with a doctoral dissertation on Heidegger. He was professor at the University of the Arts in Berlin and has become one of the most widely translated voices of contemporary cultural criticism thanks to a series of short, aphoristic, densely phenomenological books. His central thesis is that contemporary society has moved from Foucault’s “disciplinary society” to a Leistungsgesellschaft — an achievement or performance society — in which the subject, dispensed from external coercion, exerts upon itself a violence all the more effective because voluntary. Han draws on Heidegger, Hegel, Hannah Arendt, and East Asian thought (especially Zen Buddhism) to diagnose our age. ...

Carl Schmitt Carl Schmitt is one of the most influential — and most controversial — jurists and political theorists of the twentieth century. Born in Plettenberg, Westphalia, on 11 July 1888, and died in the same city on 7 April 1985, Schmitt produced a vast and systematically coherent body of work spanning legal theory, theory of the state, political philosophy, and international law. His membership of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in May 1933 and his intellectual activity during the Third Reich mean that his reception is inevitably marked by ethical and political tension. His subsequent estrangement from regime structures (around 1936, following attacks from the SS) did not dispel the controversy. Nonetheless, the analytical rigour of his work continues to generate first-order philosophical and legal debate. ...

Charles Sanders Peirce American logician, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist. Founder of pragmatism and modern semiotics. One of the most original minds in the history of philosophy, though neglected in his lifetime. His work profoundly influenced William James, John Dewey, and the entire analytic and continental tradition of the 20th century. Key Concepts Pragmatism (pragmatic maxim): the meaning of a concept lies in its conceivable practical consequences — “Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have” Triadic semiotics: every sign involves three elements — sign (representamen), object, and interpretant; signification is always mediated and relational Icon, index, and symbol: three types of sign-object relation: resemblance (icon), causal/existential connection (index), arbitrary convention (symbol) Fallibilism: no belief is absolutely certain — knowledge is provisional and subject to revision; science advances through self-correction Synechism: continuity is a fundamental category of reality — a critique of atomism and nominalism Universal categories: Firstness (pure quality, possibility), Secondness (reaction, existence), Thirdness (mediation, law, sign) Community of inquirers: truth is the ideal limit toward which the scientific inquiry of an unlimited community of researchers converges Influenced by Kant — categories, transcendental logic Aristotle — logic, categories Hume and Berkeley — British empiricism (critiqued) Charles Darwin — evolutionism applied to thought Influenced William James — popularized pragmatism (modifying Peirce) John Dewey — instrumentalism Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy — language and use Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes — semiotics and text theory Habermas — discourse ethics and community of communication Works Collected Papers (posthumous, 8 vols.); key articles: “The Fixation of Belief” (1877); “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” (1878). ...

Charles Taylor Charles Taylor (b. 1931, Montreal) is a Canadian philosopher and professor emeritus at McGill University, widely regarded as one of the most influential voices in contemporary political and moral philosophy. Trained at Oxford, where he wrote his doctorate under Isaiah Berlin, Taylor brings together the continental hermeneutic tradition — especially Hegel, Heidegger, and Gadamer — and Anglo-American analytic debate in a rare synthesis. A Catholic convert, he is often associated with communitarianism, though he resists rigid labels. His work investigates the historical conditions of modern identity, the limits of naturalism in the human sciences, and the place of the religious in secular societies. He received the Templeton Prize in 2007 and the Kyoto Prize in 2008. ...

Chrysippus of Soli (c. 280–c. 207 BCE) was the third scholarch (head) of the Stoic school in Athens and is considered, alongside Zeno of Citium, the second founder of Stoicism. While Zeno founded the school and established its fundamental theses, it was Chrysippus who systematically elaborated Stoic logic, physics, and ethics, producing a monumental body of work that ancient tradition estimated at over 700 titles — almost all now lost. What we know of his thought comes from secondary sources: Diogenes Laërtius, Plutarch, Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, and Epictetus. ...

Cicero Roman philosopher, orator, and statesman. The most important figure in transmitting Greek philosophy to the Latin world. His eclecticism synthesized Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the skepticism of the New Academy. He coined much of the Latin philosophical vocabulary — essentia, qualitas, moralis — that shaped all subsequent Western philosophy. Key Concepts Natural law: there is a universal moral law, grounded in reason, that transcends the positive laws of each people — the foundation of Western natural law theory Res publica: the republic as “the people’s affair” (res populi); the state is only legitimate when it serves the common good and respects the law Duty (officium): ethical life consists in fulfilling duties arising from reason, human social nature, and the roles each person occupies — systematized in De Officiis Academic probabilism: influenced by the skepticism of the New Academy, he argues that in the absence of certainty we should act according to what seems most probable (verisimile) Humanitas: the ideal of full human formation combining philosophy, rhetoric, and civic virtue; the Roman equivalent of the Greek paideia Highest good (summum bonum): debate among schools — for Stoics, virtue; for Epicureans, pleasure. Cicero leans toward Stoicism but presents arguments from all schools Influenced by Plato and Aristotle — politics, ethics, theory of knowledge Zeno of Citium — Stoicism (cosmopolitanism, natural law, duty) Epicurus — addressed critically Carneades — skepticism of the New Academy Influenced Augustine and all medieval philosophy — Latin vocabulary and natural law Thomas Aquinas — natural law theory Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Rousseau — republican theory Locke and Kant — natural rights and moral duty Renaissance humanism — ideal of humanitas Works On the Republic (De Re Publica, 54 BC); On the Laws (De Legibus, 52 BC); Tusculan Disputations (Tusculanae Disputationes, 45 BC); On Duties (De Officiis, 44 BC); On the Nature of the Gods (De Natura Deorum, 45 BC). ...

Claude Lévi-Strauss French anthropologist and philosopher; founder of structuralism in the human sciences. He applied Saussure’s model of linguistics to anthropology, transforming the study of myths, kinship, and “primitive” cultures. Key Concepts Structuralism: behind the diversity of cultural phenomena lie universal unconscious structures of the human mind — binary, relational, transformational Myth: myths are not chaotic narratives but systems of binary oppositions (raw/cooked, nature/culture, high/low) that resolve existential contradictions in society Mythemes: the minimal units of a myth (analogous to phonemes in linguistics); meaning emerges from relations between mythemes, not from isolated elements The Raw and the Cooked (1964): the cooked is nature transformed by culture — cuisine is a universal symbolic system that encodes the nature/culture distinction Savage mind (La Pensée sauvage, 1962): the thought of “primitive” societies is not inferior — it is a science of the concrete, of the sensible, as rigorous as modern scientific thought Bricolage vs. engineering: the bricoleur uses elements at hand for new purposes; the engineer starts from abstract concepts — myth is a form of intellectual bricolage Kinship and exchange: kinship structures (incest prohibition, exogamy) are the foundation of all society — woman as sign in exchange between groups (later feminist critique) Influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure — structural linguistics Marcel Mauss — anthropology of gift and exchange Marx — deep structures beneath the surface of phenomena Freud — unconscious and structure Influenced Foucault — episteme as unconscious structure Derrida — deconstruction of structuralism Lacan — structuralist psychoanalysis Semiology and communication theory Narratology (Greimas, Genette) Works The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949); Tristes Tropiques (1955); Structural Anthropology (1958); The Savage Mind (1962); Mythologiques (4 vols., 1964–1971). ...

Confucius (Chinese: Kǒngzǐ 孔子, “Master Kong”; Jesuit Latinisation: Confucius) was born in the state of Lu (present-day Shandong province, China) in 551 BCE and died in 479 BCE. He was a teacher, public official, and moral reformer who, after a life of frustrated political efforts, devoted himself to teaching and to the study of the ancient Chinese classics. His thought is known principally through the Lunyu (Analects 論語), a compilation of sayings and dialogues made by his disciples and the later tradition — the historicity of individual passages is a matter of debate among specialists. ...

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett was one of the most influential and provocative philosophers of mind and cognitive science of recent decades. A professor at Tufts University, where he co-directed the Center for Cognitive Studies, he defended throughout his career a thoroughgoing naturalism: mind, consciousness, and free will can be fully integrated into a scientific, Darwinian worldview, leaving no mysterious residue behind. A writer of remarkable clarity and wit, Dennett engaged closely with artificial intelligence, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, and also became a prominent public figure known for his criticism of religion. He died in April 2024. ...

David Chalmers David John Chalmers is one of the most influential philosophers of mind of the past three decades. Born in Sydney, Australia, and trained in mathematics before turning to philosophy, Chalmers became a professor at the University of Arizona and later at New York University (NYU), where he co-directs the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness. His debut book, The Conscious Mind (1996), redefined the terms of the debate on consciousness and placed what he named the “hard problem” at the centre of the philosophical and scientific agenda. ...

David Hume A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711. While still very young he published his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), a work that, in his own words, “fell dead-born from the press” and would be recognized only much later. His reputation as a skeptic in matters of religion cost him the university chairs he sought; he made his living as a librarian, a diplomatic secretary, and above all as a highly successful essayist and historian. A man of serene and amiable temperament — “le bon David” — he died in 1776, facing death with the tranquility of a sage. ...

Democritus Born in Abdera, in Thrace, and active around 430 BCE, Democritus was one of the most erudite minds of antiquity — he traveled widely and wrote on almost everything, though none of his works has reached us. Tradition nicknamed him “the laughing philosopher,” in contrast to the melancholy Heraclitus. Together with his teacher Leucippus, he is the founder of atomism, the first fully materialist and mechanistic philosophy in history. His thesis is as simple as it is audacious: reality reduces to two principles — atoms and the void. Atoms (from the Greek atomon, “indivisible”) are eternal, solid, imperceptible particles that differ only in shape, size, position, and arrangement. The void is the space in which they move. Everything that exists — things, the world, and even the soul (made of finer, subtler atoms) — results from the collisions and combinations of these atoms in eternal motion. In Democritus’s cosmos there is neither purpose nor ordering intelligence: everything is explained mechanically, by necessity. ...

Diogenes of Sinope “Diogenes the dog” (kynikós) — refoundaer and principal figure of Cynicism. He lived in a barrel in Athens, reduced his needs to a minimum, and despised all social convention. He said he sought “an honest man” walking with a lantern lit in broad daylight. When Alexander the Great offered to grant him any desire, he asked only that he step out of his sunlight. He embodied radical anticultural philosophy: virtue requires total self-sufficiency, not abstract philosophy. ...

Dogen Note on romanisation: Japanese names are given in Hepburn romanisation, with the original characters in parentheses on first occurrence. Macrons (ō, ū) indicate long vowels. Dōgen Kigen (道元希玄), also known as Dōgen Zenji (道元禅師, “Zen Master Dōgen”), is the Japanese founder of the Sōtō (曹洞) school of Zen. He took monastic vows in his teens on Mount Hiei, the centre of Tendai Buddhism, and in 1223 sailed to Southern Song China, where he studied with Master Tiantong Rujing (天童如淨) in the Caodong lineage, the Chinese parent of the Japanese Sōtō. He returned to Japan in 1227 bringing, in his own words, “eyes horizontal, nose vertical” — that is, nothing more than the direct experience of practice. In 1244 he founded Eihei-ji (永平寺), still one of the two head temples of Sōtō. ...