ΦTHALASSAJournal of Philosophy

Who came from whom

Lines of influence

57 connections with a documentary basis behind them: a teacher named in the sources, a book demonstrably worked from, or a position built by rejecting an earlier one. Each thinker appears once, in order of birth, with what reached them and what they went on to reach.

TaughtRead and built onBuilt by rejecting

Select any connection to see the evidence for it. Influence is not agreement, and a missing line is not a claim that no connection existed: only connections that can be pointed at in a text are listed.

  1. Thales

    c. 624–c. 546 BCE

    Milesian school

    Came from

    Nothing earlier recorded.

    Led to

  2. Anaximander

    c. 610–c. 546 BCE

    Milesian school

    Came from

    Led to

  3. Anaximenes

    c. 586–c. 526 BCE

    Milesian school

    Came from

    Led to

  4. Pythagoras

    c. 570–c. 495 BCE

    Pythagoreanism

    Came from

    Nothing earlier recorded.

    Led to

  5. Xenophanes

    c. 570–c. 478 BCE

    Ionian

    Came from

    Led to

  6. Heraclitus

    c. 540–c. 480 BCE

    Ionian

    Came from

    Nothing earlier recorded.

    Led to

  7. Parmenides

    c. 515–after 450 BCE

    Eleatic school

    Came from

    Led to

  8. Socrates

    c. 470–399 BCE

    Classical Greek

    Came from

    Nothing earlier recorded.

    Led to

  9. Democritus

    c. 460–c. 370 BCE

    Atomism

    Came from

    Nothing earlier recorded.

    Led to

  10. Plato

    c. 428–348 BCE

    Platonism

    Came from

    Led to

  11. Diogenes of Sinope

    c. 412/404–323 BCE

    Cynicism

    Came from

    Led to

  12. Aristotle

    384–322 BCE

    Aristotelianism

    Came from

    Led to

  13. Epicurus

    341–270 BCE

    Epicureanism

    Came from

    Led to

  14. Zeno of Citium

    c. 334–262 BCE

    Stoicism

    Came from

    Led to

  15. Seneca

    c. 4 BCE–65 CE

    Stoicism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  16. Epictetus

    c. 50–135 CE

    Stoicism

    Came from

    Led to

  17. Marcus Aurelius

    121–180 CE

    Stoicism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  18. Augustine

    354–430

    Christian Platonism

    Came from

    Led to

  19. Al-Farabi

    c. 870–950

    Islamic philosophy

    Came from

    Led to

  20. Avicenna (Ibn Sina)

    c. 980–1037

    Islamic philosophy

    Came from

    Led to

  21. Averroes (Ibn Rushd)

    1126–1198

    Islamic philosophy

    Came from

    Led to

  22. Thomas Aquinas

    1225–1274

    Scholasticism

    Came from

    Led to

  23. Niccolò Machiavelli

    1469–1527

    Political Realism

    Came from

    Nothing earlier recorded.

    Led to

  24. Thomas Hobbes

    1588–1679

    Social Contract

    Came from

    Led to

  25. René Descartes

    1596–1650

    Rationalism

    Came from

    Led to

  26. Baruch Spinoza

    1632–1677

    Rationalism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  27. John Locke

    1632–1704

    Empiricism

    Came from

    Led to

  28. David Hume

    1711–1776

    Empiricism

    Came from

    Led to

  29. Immanuel Kant

    1724–1804

    Transcendental idealism

    Came from

    Led to

  30. Mary Wollstonecraft

    1759–1797

    Feminism

    Came from

    Led to

  31. G. W. F. Hegel

    1770–1831

    German idealism

    Came from

    Led to

  32. Arthur Schopenhauer

    1788–1860

    Pessimism

    Came from

    Led to

  33. John Stuart Mill

    1806–1873

    Utilitarianism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  34. Søren Kierkegaard

    1813–1855

    Existentialism

    Came from

    Led to

  35. Karl Marx

    1818–1883

    Marxism

    Came from

    Led to

  36. William James

    1842–1910

    Pragmatism

    Came from

    Led to

  37. Friedrich Nietzsche

    1844–1900

    Nihilism

    Came from

    Led to

  38. John Dewey

    1859–1952

    Pragmatism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  39. Ludwig Wittgenstein

    1889–1951

    Analytic philosophy

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  40. Martin Heidegger

    1889–1976

    Phenomenology

    Came from

    Led to

  41. Jean-Paul Sartre

    1905–1980

    Existentialism

    Came from

    Led to

  42. Hannah Arendt

    1906–1975

    Political philosophy

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  43. Simone de Beauvoir

    1908–1986

    Existentialism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

  44. Albert Camus

    1913–1960

    Absurdism

    Came from

    Led to

    Nothing earlier recorded.

For who simply lived at the same time, rather than who read whom, see the timeline.