A list of some famous thinkers of the past, and the great thinkers of today. These are people who offered some new ideas and thought to help improve the situation of the world. These thinkers come from a range of different areas from science and philosophy to human rights and politics.
Great thinkers of the Classical period
Pythagoras (c. 570 BC – 495 BC) Greek philosopher, spiritual leader and mathematician. Pythagoras was credited by Plato with many key ideas in maths, science, ethics and philosophy. As well as being credited with mathematical theorems, Pythagoras was a religious leader of a secret mystical school.
Aristotle
Euclid (300BC) Greek mathematician. Euclid is often referred to as the ‘father of modern geometry.’ His book ‘Elements’ provided the basis of mathematics into the Twentieth Century.
Al -Khwarizmi (780 – 850) Persian Mathematician. Al Khwarizmi produced a comprehensive guide to the ‘Arabic numbers’ using the ten digits we use today. He also developed algebra, a new branch of mathematics.
Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes was an early exponent of rationalism and reason, laying an important framework for the European enlightenment. His use of logic and reason to address questions relating to religion were groundbreaking. He also made significant discoveries in maths and calculus.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Jewish-Dutch philosopher. Spinoza was an influential rationalist, who saw an underlying unity in the universe. He was critical of religious scriptures and promoted a view that the Divine was in all, and the Universe was ordered – despite its apparent contradictions.
John Locke (1632 – 1704) English political philosopher, Locke was a leading philosopher and political theorist, who had a profound impact on liberal political thought, around the time of the American and French revolutions. He is credited with ideas, such as the social contract – the idea government needs to be with the consent of the governed. Locke also argued for liberty, religious tolerance and rights to life and property.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American politician and scientist. Benjamin Franklin played a key role in promoting the idea of a United States. Franklin, a noted polymath, was an epitome of the ‘American Dream’ – rising from humble beginnings to a Founding Father of the Nation. He left a lasting legacy on American society.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) Rousseau was a Swiss-born French philosopher. He expanded on Hobbes notion of a social contract to state it should be more egalitarian. He was an influence behind changes in French society which culminated in the French Revolution. He was critical of some aspects of formal religion but believed in the inherent divinity of man’s soul. Rousseau sought to prevent the corruption of this natural man, through better civil government and promotion of virtue.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish social philosopher and pioneer of classical economics. He his best known for his work ‘The Wealth of Nations‘ (1776) which laid down a framework for the basis of free market economics. His work still plays an influential role in modern economics.
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) German philosopher. Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ sought to unite reason with experience and move philosophy on from the debate between rationalists and empiricists. Kant’s philosophy was influential on future German idealists and philosophers, such as Shelling and Schopenhauer.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) American Founding Father and the author of The Declaration of Independence (1776) In this declaration, Jefferson laid out the fundamental principles of America, calling for equality and liberty. He also founded the University of Virginia and passed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President from 1861-1865. He led the US during the American civil war – fighting to maintain the union of American states. Lincoln led the north to victory and at the same time helping to end slavery. His speeches, such as the Gettysburg Address, have become key elements of what constitutes modern America.
Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850) American women’s rights advocate. Her book Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845) was influential in changing perceptions about men and women and was one of the most important early feminist works. She argued for equality and also for women to become more self-independent.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist and leading figure in the early women’s rights movement. Stanton was a key figure in helping create the early women’s suffrage movements in the US. She was the principal author of ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ which was distributed at the first women’s rights convention in 1848.
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) Susan Anthony campaigned against slavery and for the promotion of women’s and workers rights. She began campaigning within the temperance movement, and this convinced her of the necessity for women to have the vote.
Great thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Alan Turing (1912 – 1954) – Computer scientist and code breaker. Turing had one of the greatest minds of the Twentieth Century. He helped crack the German Enigma code and became a leading developer in the emerging world of computer science.
Great thinkers of today
A selection of great thinkers of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century. More to come.
Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964) American conservationist. Rachel Carson was a pioneering environmentalist. Her work, Silent Spring (1962) highlighted the dangers of unregulated pesticide use. It played an important role in advancing the global environmental movement.
E.F. Schumacher (1911 – 1977) British economist. His work ‘Small is Beautiful’ a study of economics as if people mattered (1973) was influential in rethinking attitudes to economics and society. Schumacher was critical of materialist scientism and advocated giving greater importance to environment and decentralisation.
James Lovelock (1911 – 1977) English environmentalist. Lovelock is an independent scientist who proposed the Gaia theory that the world, humans and the environment are all interconnected. He made frequent warnings about the dangers of damaging the environment.
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931 – ) Russian President during the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev initiated a policy of Glasnost and Perestroika. These policies of reform and openness led to the ending of Communist party rule in the Soviet Union, and the fall of the Berlin wall. In a short space of time, Eastern European countries attained freedom and democracy, allowing Eastern Europe to become part of the European Union.
Ken Wilber (1949) American writer and philosopher. He has worked on an ‘Integral Theory’ drawing on ideas from a disparate background from Eastern to Western philosophy to include a more holistic view of life. He has sought to draw on ideas beyond the ‘hard sciences’ of five senses, such as mysticism.
Note: this list is not comprehensive of all the great thinkers. More will be added in due course.
Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan “Great Thinkers”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net, 11th April 2012. Last updated 11 March 2018.
Great Thinkers A-Z
Great Thinkers A-Z at Amazon
Related pages
9 Comments
Martin Luther King Jr.
Max plank should be their
.
Shivaji maharaj …….
socrates is a missing hero
Jesus,mohamed ali,mahatma gandhi,nelson mandera and are the modern Geniuses
I would have included Rousseau and Tocqueville and excluded Paul Krugman.
Perhaps Kierkegaard should be in there too..
These guys were truly hero
I REALLY APPRECIATE THE WORKS OF GREAT THINKERS SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CONTRIBUTED A LOT TO CHANGE THE UNIVERSE AND TO HAVE BASIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE GENERATION OF OUR TIME IF NOT THEM WE COULD NOT FIND WHERE TO START IN ALL DISCIPLINES THEREFORE ” WE HAVE TO TIME TIME BEFORE TIME TIME US THROUGH CURIOSITY” THAT IS MY PHILOSOPHY.THANKYOU