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Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Anthony Appiah was born on 8 May 1954 in London, to a Ghanaian father (Joe Appiah, lawyer and politician) and a British mother (Peggy Cripps). He grew up in Kumasi, Ghana, and studied philosophy at Cambridge (BA and PhD). He has taught at Yale, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, and Princeton; he is currently professor at New York University. Appiah is one of the most versatile and influential philosophers in the contemporary anglophone world, with contributions to ethics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, racial theory, and political philosophy. He is one of the thinkers who has most systematically challenged the presuppositions of “racialism” — the belief that human races exist as biological entities endowed with moral and intellectual essences. ...

Kwame Nkrumah Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972) was born in Nkroful, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). He studied in the USA (Lincoln University and University of Pennsylvania) and the United Kingdom (London School of Economics), where he developed his Pan-Africanist ideas in contact with figures such as C.L.R. James and George Padmore. He returned to the Gold Coast in 1947, led the independence movement, and became the first president of Ghana in 1957 — the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in the postwar period. He was deposed in a military coup in 1966 while in Hanoi. He spent the rest of his life in exile in Guinea-Conakry, where he died in 1972. Nkrumah is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern Pan-Africanism and a central figure of the Organisation of African Unity (founded 1963). ...

Laozi (老子) Essential historical note: The existence of Laozi as an individual historical figure is debated among specialists. The historian Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BCE), in the Shiji, records several traditions about Laozi without being able to decide between them — an indication that the uncertainty is ancient. The text attributed to him, the Dàodéjīng (道德經, “Classic of the Way and Virtue”, also called the Laozi), may be a compilation of material from different sources; modern scholarship places the current form of the text in the 4th or 3rd century BCE. The figure of Laozi as an ancient sage who supposedly met Confucius and then left China westward is probably legendary. ...

Léopold Sédar Senghor Léopold Sédar Senghor (9 October 1906, Joal, Senegal — 20 December 2001, Verson, France) was a poet, philosopher of culture, and statesman. The first president of independent Senegal (1960–1980) and the first African elected to the Académie française (1983), he was also, alongside Aimé Césaire and Léon-Gontran Damas, one of the founders of Négritude in 1930s Paris. While Césaire gave the movement its poetic force, Senghor set out to give it a systematic philosophical and aesthetic elaboration, making of it a general theory of the African contribution to human civilization. His work is today the object of both recognition and lively controversy. ...

Leopoldo Zea Born in Mexico City in 1912, Leopoldo Zea was a disciple of José Gaos — the exiled Spanish philosopher who brought the legacy of Ortega y Gasset to Mexico. Zea became the foremost historian of Latin American philosophy and the central figure in a decisive debate: is there a properly Latin American philosophy, or does the region merely repeat European thought? His answer is affirmative and liberating. Inheriting from Ortega the idea that we always think from a circumstance (“I am myself and my circumstance”), Zea argues that the American philosopher must depart from his or her own concrete historical situation — without an inferiority complex and without awaiting European validation. Hence his motto: Latin American philosophy is “philosophy, nothing more” (filosofía sin más), as legitimate as any other, with no need for adjectives that would relegate it to a lesser status. ...

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) Roman poet and philosopher, author of De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), the greatest philosophical poem of Antiquity. He systematized in Latin verse the physics and ethics of Epicurus, becoming the primary source for our knowledge of ancient Epicureanism. He defended atomism as an explanation of the universe, the mortality of the soul, and liberation from the fear of gods and death through rational understanding of nature. ...

Ludwig Feuerbach German philosopher; dissident disciple of Hegel. His materialist and anthropological critique of religion was the fundamental link between Hegelian idealism and Marx’s historical materialism. He inverted Hegel by dissolving theology into anthropology: the real subject of philosophy is not the Spirit, but sensible man. Key Concepts Critique of religion as alienation: God does not create man — man creates God in his own image; religion is the projection of the finest human qualities (love, wisdom, power) onto a fictional being that is separate and superior. Man impoverishes himself in enriching God Anthropology as theology: theology must be dissolved into anthropology; the real subject of religion is man, not God. “Homo homini Deus” — man is the god of man Materialist sensualism: against Hegel’s idealism, reality begins in the sensible, in the corporeal, in the natural; consciousness is a function of matter, not the reverse Intersubjectivity: the “I” exists only in relation to the “thou”; human essence is fundamentally social and dialogical — precursor of personalism and the ethics of recognition Critique of Hegel: Absolute Spirit is mystification — it is real man abstracted and inverted; philosophy must descend from heaven to earth Influenced by Hegel — dialectics (but inverted: matter precedes spirit) Spinoza — monism and immanence Enlightenment sensualism (Condillac, La Mettrie) Influenced Marx — Theses on Feuerbach (1845): Marx surpasses Feuerbach; the critique of religious alienation must become a critique of material alienation Engels — dialectical materialism Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner — Young Hegelians Nineteenth-century humanistic atheism Works The Essence of Christianity (1841); Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843); The Essence of Religion (1845); Lectures on the Essence of Religion (1851). ...

Ludwig Wittgenstein Born in Vienna in 1889, into one of the wealthiest and most cultured families of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ludwig Wittgenstein began by studying aeronautical engineering, but reflection on the foundations of mathematics led him to logic and from there to Cambridge, to study with Bertrand Russell. His biography is as singular as his thought: he fought in the First World War, gave away his inherited fortune, worked as a village schoolteacher, a gardener, and even an architect, before returning to academic philosophy. He is the most influential figure in twentieth-century analytic philosophy — and, very rarely, the author of two distinct and equally decisive philosophies, both centered on language. ...

Machiavelli Born in Florence in 1469, Niccolò Machiavelli lived through the height and the crisis of the Italian Renaissance republics. For fourteen years he served as secretary of the Second Chancery of the Florentine Republic, on diplomatic missions that brought him before kings, popes, and the formidable Cesare Borgia — a direct experience of power that would mark all his thought. When the Medici returned in 1512, he was dismissed, imprisoned, and tortured on suspicion of conspiracy. It was then, in rural exile, that he wrote The Prince (1513). He is regarded as the founder of modern political science. ...

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon — known by the acronym Rambam and, in the Latin West, as Maimonides — was born in Córdoba, in Al-Andalus, around 1138, and is the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. Fleeing Almohad persecution, his family wandered through North Africa before settling in Egypt, where Maimonides became a court physician and the spiritual leader of the Jewish community of Cairo. He was at once a jurist, a Talmudist, a physician, and a philosopher, and died in 1204. ...

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ruled Rome from 161 to 180 CE and is remembered as the last of the “Five Good Emperors” and as the most celebrated example of the ancient ideal of the philosopher-king. Adopted into the line of succession by Antoninus Pius, he received a careful education and turned early to Stoicism, above all through reading Epictetus, to whom he had been introduced by his teacher Junius Rusticus. His reign, far from peaceful, was beset by wars on the Danube frontier, by revolts, and by the devastating Antonine Plague — circumstances in which his philosophy proved less a doctrine than a discipline of inner survival. ...

Marilena Chaui Marilena de Souza Chaui (born 1941 in São Paulo) is one of Brazil’s most influential living philosophers and professor emerita at the University of São Paulo, where she trained and spent her entire teaching career. Her work brings together a deep command of Spinoza’s philosophy and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology with a critical, politically engaged reflection on Brazilian society. A staunch defender of the public university and a leftist intellectual, Chaui has also become a major public figure without ever relinquishing academic rigour. Her textbook Convite à Filosofia (1994) is among the most widely read introductions to philosophy in Brazil, and her reading of Spinoza, consolidated in A Nervura do Real, is an internationally recognised contribution to scholarship on the Dutch philosopher. ...

Mário Ferreira dos Santos Mário Ferreira dos Santos was the most prolific Brazilian philosopher of the 20th century, author of more than fifty works seeking to build a comprehensive philosophical system — known as Concrete Philosophy — synthesising the classical Western tradition (especially Pythagoreanism, Aristotle, and Scholasticism) with original contributions in ontology, mathematics, symbolism, and theory of knowledge. Key Concepts Concrete Philosophy: The name Ferreira dos Santos gave to his systematic project. It stands opposed both to the abstract logicism of the analytic tradition and to existentialist subjectivism. The “concrete” is reality considered in the fullness of its determinations — neither raw empirical data nor pure abstraction, but the dialectical synthesis of both. ...

Marsilio Ficino Italian philosopher and Catholic priest. Leader of the Platonic Academy of Florence under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. He translated the entire works of Plato into Latin for the first time, as well as the Corpus Hermeticum and Plotinus. Key Concepts Christian Neoplatonism: synthesis between Plato, Plotinus and late Neoplatonism with Christianity; human souls participate in the divine One through a hierarchy of being The soul as copula mundi: the human soul occupies the center of the hierarchy of being — between the superior angelic world and the inferior material world; it unites heaven and earth Platonic love (Commentarium in Convivium Platonis, 1469): love is the cosmic force that elevates the soul from sensible beauty to intelligible beauty and to God himself; he coined the expression amor platonicus Platonic theology (Theologia Platonica): the immortality of the soul proven philosophically — his principal philosophical project; demonstrates that Plato and Christianity agree on immortality Natural magic and astrology: the wise magus can attract beneficial astral influences; magic is natural philosophy (not demonological) Prisca theologia (ancient theology): there exists a perennial revelation that runs from Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus to Plato and Christianity — all reveal the same divine truth Influenced by Plato — dialogues (central translator and interpreter) Plotinus — Enneads (translator) Corpus Hermeticum — hermeticism (translated at Medici’s request) Saint Augustine — Christian neoplatonism Influenced Pico della Mirandola — direct disciple Giordano Bruno — magic, infinity and neoplatonism Renaissance humanism throughout Europe Western hermetic and esoteric tradition Works Theologia Platonica (1482); De Vita (1489); Commentarium in Convivium Platonis (1469); translations of Plato, Plotinus and Hermes Trismegistus. ...

Martha Nussbaum American philosopher, professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential contemporary thinkers, she works at the intersection of ethics, political philosophy, law, and literature. Trained in the Aristotelian tradition, she developed with Amartya Sen the capabilities approach as an alternative to utilitarianism and contractualism in theories of justice. She argues that emotions have cognitive content and are essential for ethical judgment. Key Concepts Capabilities approach: justice is not measured by GDP or aggregate utility, but by the real capabilities each person has to be and do — to live, to have health, to think, to participate politically, etc.; a list of 10 central capabilities as a minimum threshold of human dignity The fragility of goodness: the good life depends on external conditions (luck, relationships, body) that escape our control — against Stoic and Platonic self-sufficiency; vulnerability is constitutive of moral excellence Emotions and reason: emotions are not irrational impulses but evaluative judgments (appraisals) — fear, compassion, indignation contain cognitive assessments of what matters; ethics without emotions is blind Cosmopolitan justice: obligations of justice do not stop at national borders — duties to all of humanity, inspired by the Stoics and Kant Humanistic education: the humanities (philosophy, literature, arts) are indispensable for forming democratic citizens capable of empathic imagination and critical thought Animal capabilities: extends the capabilities approach to include the rights of non-human animals Influenced by Aristotle — virtue ethics, phronesis, the good human life John Rawls — justice as fairness (but critiques the limits of contractualism) Amartya Sen — development as freedom; capabilities approach Kant — cosmopolitanism and dignity Stoics — ancient cosmopolitanism Influenced Human development theory (UN Human Development Index) Philosophy of law and human rights Contemporary animal ethics Philosophy of education Works The Fragility of Goodness (1986); The Therapy of Desire (1994); Cultivating Humanity (1997); Women and Human Development (2000); Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001); Frontiers of Justice (2006); Creating Capabilities (2011); The Monarchy of Fear (2018). ...

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger was born in Meßkirch, in southern Germany, in 1889, into a modest Catholic family, and came to philosophy by way of theology. Assistant and later successor to Husserl at Freiburg, he published Being and Time in 1927, the work that established him as one of the most influential — and most controversial — philosophers of the twentieth century. The controversy is inseparable from his biography: in 1933 he assumed the rectorate of Freiburg and joined the Nazi party, a commitment he never publicly renounced and which the Black Notebooks, published decades later, revealed to be shot through with antisemitism. The moral and philosophical weight of this engagement remains an open debate. ...

Martin Luther German Augustinian theologian; initiator of the Protestant Reformation. The 95 Theses (1517) against papal indulgences triggered a rupture that transformed Europe religiously, politically, and intellectually. Key Concepts Justification by faith alone (sola fide): man is not saved by works, merits, or sacraments — only by faith in Christ; against the soteriology of merit in the Catholic Church Sola Scriptura: the Bible is the sole religious authority; tradition and papal decrees have no equivalent authority. He translated the Bible into German — founding modern literary German Priesthood of all believers: all baptized Christians are priests — dissolves the clerical hierarchy as necessary mediation between God and the faithful Two kingdoms (Zwei-Reiche-Lehre): the spiritual kingdom (governed by the Gospel) and the temporal kingdom (governed by law and the sword) — clear separation that influenced political secularization Christian freedom (On the Freedom of a Christian, 1520): “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all things and subject to no one. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all things and subject to everyone” — paradox of inner freedom with service to one’s neighbor Against free will (On the Bondage of the Will, 1525): against Erasmus — human will is enslaved by sin; only irresistible divine grace can liberate; predestination Influenced by Saint Augustine — grace, original sin, predestination Saint Paul — justification by faith (Romans, Galatians) William of Ockham — nominalism and critique of scholastic metaphysics Erasmus — textual humanism (but breaks with him) Influenced Calvin — reformed reformation and absolute predestination Kant — moral autonomy (secularization of Lutheran individual conscience) Kierkegaard — radical and individual faith against the institution Secularization and European political modernity Hegel — Reformation as a moment of Spirit in history Works 95 Theses (1517); On the Freedom of a Christian (1520); On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520); On the Bondage of the Will (1525); Large and Small Catechisms (1529); Bible in German (NT: 1522; complete: 1534). ...

Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate for women’s rights, whose A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is considered one of the founding texts of modern philosophical feminism. A contemporary of the American and French revolutions, Wollstonecraft applied Enlightenment principles of reason and equality to relations between the sexes, challenging the division between public and private spheres that excluded women from full citizenship. Key Concepts Rational Equality (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792): Her central argument — women and men share the same rational nature. If reason is the foundation of dignity and rights, as the Enlightenment thinkers hold, then women have the same entitlement to political and educational rights as men. The exclusion of women from the rational sphere is inconsistent with the very principles of the Enlightenment. ...

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Born in 1908 in France, Maurice Merleau-Ponty trained at the École Normale Supérieure alongside Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, with whom he would found the review Les Temps Modernes before a political break. In 1952 he became the youngest holder of the chair of philosophy at the Collège de France. He died suddenly in 1961, leaving his last work unfinished. He is the great phenomenologist of the body. ...

Max Horkheimer Born in Stuttgart in 1895, Max Horkheimer was the organizing soul of the Frankfurt School: in 1930 he took over the directorship of the Institute for Social Research and gathered around him thinkers such as Adorno, Marcuse, and Walter Benjamin. A Jew and a Marxist, he went into exile in the United States during Nazism and, after the war, returned to Frankfurt, where he served as rector. He died in 1973. ...