• Honoré de Balzac
    • ac  ( May 20 , 1799 - August 18 , 1850 ) OnMay 20, 1799, author Honoré de Balzac was born in Tours, France.  He studied at the Collège de Vendôme and the Sorbonne.  Despite being called the Ch...
    • Ho Chi Minh
    • nh ( May 19 , 1890 - September 3 , 1969 ) originally Nguyen Sinh Cung; pseudomyms: Van Ba, Nguyen Tat Thanh, Nguyen Ai Quic, Linh, Ly Thuy, Wang, Duong, Nguyen Lai, Nam Son, Tau Chin He received the name Nguyễ...
    • Fahrenheit, Gabriel Daniel
    • el BornMay 14,1686DiedSeptember 16,1736 Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit was an inventor. His area of science was physics. He is considered important because he invented a good working thermometer. Without his invention we ...
    • Cyrus Hall McCormick
    • ck Born Feb 15 1809 Died May 13 1884 Born in Rock bridge County, Virginia, Cyrus McCormick derived his interest in invention from his father Robert, a Virginia landowner who patented several improved farming implement...
    • Thomas Reid
    • id (4/26/1710- 10/7/1796) Scottish philosopher who developed "common-sense" philosophy in reaction against the skepticism of Hume in his An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1...
    • Ludwig Wittgenstein
    • in (4/26/1889-4/29/1951) Ludwig Wittgenstein was born on April 26th 1889 in Vienna. His Jewish grandparents of his father's side had, after they had converted from Judaism to Protestantism, moved from Saxony in Germany ...
    • Mary Wollstonecraft
    • tBorn: 4/27/1759 Died: 9/10/1797 Mary Wollstonecraft, the daughter of a handkerchief weaver, was born in Spitalfields, London in 1759. The family moved a great deal during Mary's childhood and she lived for periods at ...
    • Jules Henri Poincaré
    • ré Born: 29 April 1854 in Nancy,Lorraine, France Died:17 July 1912 in Paris,France French mathematician who did important work in many different branches of mathematics. However, he did not stay in any one field long e...
    • Peter Abelard
    • ard (1079- 4/21/1142) Calledperipateticus palatinus ("our imperial paladin") by John of Salisbury (1115-1180), Abelard was born at Le Palais, near Nantes. Abelard studied thequadrivium, probably under Thierry ...
    • Max Weber
    • er ( 4 /21/1864- 6/14/1920) Max Weber is best known as one of the leading scholars and founders of modern sociology , but Weber also accomplished much economic work in the style of the "youngest" German H...
    • Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann
    • nn (24.08.1775 -23.04.1839 ) Doctor, philosopher Born: 24.08.1775 in Münster (canton of Lucern) Died: 23.04.1839 in Aarau Doctorate: 1796 in Würzburg (medicine) University lecturer: 1797 ...
    • Julius Caesar Scaliger
    • Julius Caesar Scaliger ( 1484 - 1558 ), humanist scholar. So distinguished by his learning and talents that, according to A de Thou , no one of the ancients could be placed above him and th...
    • George Hermes
    • philosopher and theologian, b. at Dreierwalde nearTheine (Westphalia),22 April, 1775; d. at Bonn on the Rhine,26 May 1831. After completing his course in the gymnasium, or high ...
    • Thomas Hobbes
    • bes (4/5/1588- 12/4/1679) Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a great English political philosopher, most famous for his bookLeviathan. In this book, he described human nature and the necessity of governments and societies....
    • Moses Maimonides
    • des ( 3/30/1135- 12/13/1204) Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) was born inCordoba, Spain, as the first son of Rabbi Maimon ben Joseph, a highly respected, eighth-generationdayyan -- a judge of the rabbinical court. His mothe...
    • Isaac Newton
    • ton (1/4/1643- 3/31/1727) Newton was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth , a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire . His father had died three months before Newton's birth, and two years later his mother went to live ...
    • Edmund Husserl
    • erl ( 4/8/1859- 4/27/1938)  Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), originator of the phenomenological movement. Pupil of Franz Brentano. Husserl Influenced Martin Heidegger , Jean-Paul Sartre , and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, amo...
    • Edward Caird
    • ird (3/23/1835- 11/1/1908) Scottish philosopher of the latter half of the nineteenth century, Edward Caird was one of the key figures of the idealist movement that dominated British philosophy from 1870 until the mi...
    • Marcus Aurelius
    • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the Emperor of Rome from 161 until his death. Born Marcus Annius Verus, he was adopted by the emperor Antoninus Pius in 138, and married his daughter Annia Galeria...
    • Hans-Georg Gadamer
    • mer ( 2/11/1900-3/14/2002) Hans-Georg Gadamer, born Feb. 11, 1900 in Marburg, Germany, is best known for his important contribution to hermeneutics through his major work,Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method). His s...
    • Albert Einstein
    • ein (3/14/1879- 4/18/1955) Around 1886 Albert Einstein began his school career in Munich. As well as his violin lessons, which he had from age six to age thirteen, he also had religious education at home where he w...
    • Michel de Montaigne
    • ) 1224- 3/7/1274) Born to an aristocratic family living in Roccasecca, Italy, Thomas Aquinas joined the Dominican order while studying philosophy and theology at Naples. Later he pursued additional studies in Pari...
    • Rudolph Otto
    • to (9/25/1869- 3/6/1937) Rudolf Otto was born on September 25, 1869, in the town of Peine in the Prussian province of Hannover. His father owned a malt factory there. In 1882 the family moved to Hildesheim, and his f...
    • Michel de Montaigne
    • gne ( 2/28/1533- 9/13/1592) Writer, b. at the château of Montaigne, in Périgord, France, on28 Feb., 1533; d. there,13 Sept., 1592. His great-grandfather had been a Bordeaux merchant of wines, salt fish, etc., and it ...
    • Karl Jaspers
    • rs (2/23/1883- 2/26/1969) Karl Jaspers (pronounced “Yaspers”) was born23 February 1883 in Oldenburg to Carl William and Henriette Jaspers, a respected family within the community. Carl was a lawyer, the local sheriff ...
    • Giordano Bruno
    • no (1548 -2/17/1600) G/iordano Bruno's father, Giovanni Bruno, was a professional soldier who married Fraulissa Savolino. They baptised their son Filippo Bruno but later Filippo was called "Il Nolano" afte...
    • Galileo Galilei
    • ei ( 2/15/1564- 1/8/1642) Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo Galilei, known usually as just Galileo, taught first in his native city, and then in Padua. FromPadua he went to Florence, called there by Cosimo II, who nomin...
    • Arthur Schopenhauer
    • er (2/22/1788-9/21/1860) Arthur Schopenhauer is frequently referred to as a pessimist who inaugurated an emphasis on the will in modern philosophy. His early education was in France and England; he entered the Un...
    • Paul Ricoeur
    • ur Born: 2/27/1913 Born in Valence, Paul Ricoeur taught at Strasbourg and at the Sorbonne before guiding the new University of Nanterre in the difficult moment that 1969 was. After retirement, he taught in America, p...
    • Martin Luther
    • er (11/10/1483-- 2/18/1546) Martin Luther was born in Eisleben (only in german) in 1483, the son of a mining family of rural origin. He attended the Latin School in Mansfeld from 1488 onwards, continuing his schooling...
    • Alfred North Whitehead
    • ad (2/15/1861- 12/30/1947) Alfred North Whitehead's father, also named Alfred Whitehead, was an Anglican clergyman from Ramsgate. He is said to have been an upright man with countless friends and Alfred North White...
    • Sir Thomas More
    • re ( February 7 , 1478 - July 6 , 1535 ) Thomas More studied at Canterbury Hall,Oxford, and read law at the Inns of Court, being called to the bar in 1501. Thomas was happiest in the bosom of his family--three generati...
    • Rene Descartes
    • es (3/31/1596- 2/11/1650) "Cogito Ergo Sum". ("I think, therefore I am.") René Descartes was born on March 31st, 1596 in the town of La Haye in the south of France, the son of  Joachim Desc...
    • Immanuel Kant
    • nt (4/22/1724- 2/12/1804) Kant is most famous for his view—called transcendental idealism —that we bring innate forms and concepts to the raw experience of the world, which otherwise would be completely unknowable....
    • Giulio Cesare Vanini
    • ni (Died:2/9/1619) 1. Dates Born: Taurisano,Lecce (Southern Italy), c. 1585 Died: Toulouse, France,9 February 1619 Dateinfo: Birth Uncertain Lifespan: 34 2. Father Occupation: Government Official Vanini was the so...
    • Kenzaburo Oe
    • o Oe  (Janvier 31, 1935- )  Kenzaburo Oe was born in 1935, in a village hemmed in by the forests of Shikoku, one of the four main islands of Japan. His family had lived in the village tradition for several hu...
    • Joseph Priestley
    • ey (3/13/1733- 2/6/1804) The English Presbyterian minister and chemist, was born, a cloth-dresser's son, at Fieldhead in Birstall Parish,Leeds. At the grammar school he entered in 1745, Priestley learned Latin, Gree...
    • Imre Lakatos
    • os ( 11/9/1922- 2/2/1974) Imre Lakatos was a philosopher of mathematics . He was born Imre Lipschitz in Hungary . He received a degree in mathematics, physics , and philosophy from the University of Debrece...
    • Hugo von Hofmannsthal
    • hal pseudonym Loris February 1 , 1874 - July 15 , 1929 Hugo von Hofmannsthal , was an Austrian librettist , poet , dramatist , narrator, and essayist.Hofmannsthal was born in Vienna , the son of a bank ma...
    • Arnold Geulincx
    • cx (1/31/1624- 1669) GEULINCX, ARNOLD (1624-1669), Belgian philosopher, was born at Antwerp on the 31st of January 1624. He studied philosophy and medicine at theUniversity of Louvain, where he remained as a lecturer for ...
    • Bertrand Russell
    • Russell (5/18/1872- 2/2/1970) Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970), the third Earl Russell, was a philosopher and influential logician, an important political liberal, activist and a popularizer of philosophy...
    • William Somerset Maugham
    • ham ( January 25 , 1874 - December 16 , 1965 ) William Somerset Maugham was a British writer of novels, short stories, and plays. He was orphaned as a child and raised by an uncle. He studied medicine and practiced as ...
    • Romain Rolland (1866-1944)
    • 44) (January 29, 1866-1944) Romain Rolland was born on January 29, 1866, in the district of Nièvre. He studied literature, music, and philosophy, and in 1895 he published two doctoral theses:Les Origines du théâtre lyr...
    • José Mart
    • rtí ( January 28 , 1853 – May 19 , 1895 ) José Julian Martí y Perez was a leader of the Cuban independence movement as well as an esteemed poet , writer and journalist . He is considered by many to be...
    • Johann Gottlieb Fichte
    • te (5/19/1762- 1/27/1814) Johann Gottlieb Fichte has significant importance as one of the progenitors of German idealism and as a follower of Kant . Fichte believed that Kant was mistaken to argue for the exi...
    • Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling
    • ing  (1/27/1775-8/20/1854) Friedrich Schelling was born in 1775 at Leonberg, a small town of Wurttemberg. At the age of sixteen he entered the theological seminary atTubingen, where he studied theology, philos...
    • Francis Herbert Bradley
    • ey 1/30/1846- 9/18/1924) Bradley was born on 30th January, 1846 in Clapham (then in the county of Surrey, since absorbed into a much expanded London). He was the fourth child and eldest surviving son of Charles Bradle...
    • Emanuel von Swedenborg
    • org ( January 29 , 1688 - March 29 , 1772 ) Emanuel Swedenborg was born Emanuel Swedberg (or Svedberg) in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 29th, 1688 (Julian calendar). He was the third of the nine children of Jesper S...
    • Anton (Pavlovich) Chekhov
    • hov January 29 , 1860 - July 14 / 15 , 1904 Russian playwright, one of the great masters of modern short story. In his work Chekhov combined the dispassionate attitude of a scientist and a doctor with the sensitivi...
    • Stendhal
    • al (January 23, 1783 - March 23, 1842) Marie-Henri Beyle , better known as Stendhal , was a 19th century French writer . Born in Grenoble , France , he had a miserable childhood in stifling provincial France but b...