The following timeline was created and designed by Dr.

Jonathan Dolhenty to help students

get a comprehensive picture of the history of philosophy and, in the case of ancient and
medieval philosophy, its relationship to other major events occurring during the same time
period.

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

THE IONIANS
650
Thales (624-546)
B.C.E.
Anaximander (611-547)
Anaximenes (599-524) The Beginning of Western
Philosophy in Ancient Greece
Heraclitus of Ephesus
600 (540-460)
B.C.E.
Pythagoras (570-?)
THE ELEATIC
SCHOOL
The Period
550 of
Xenophanes of Colophon
B.C.E. Naturalism
Parmenides of Elea
(540-?)
Zeno of Elea
THE PLURALISTS The Golden Age of Greece (480-399)
500
B.C.E. Empedocles (490-430) The Persian Wars
Anaxagoras (500-428)
THE ATOMISTS The Peloponnesian War
450
B.C.E. Democritus (460-370)
Leucippus
THE SOPHISTS
400
B.C.E. Protagoras
Gorgias The
350 Socrates (470-399) Metaphysical The Decline and Fall of Greek
B.C.E. Period Freedom (399-322)
Plato (428-347)
The Hellenistic Dispersion (322-146)
Aristotle (384-322)
STOICISM The Ethical
 Zeno (336-264)

EPICUREANISM
Epicurus (342-270)

SKEPTICISM
Pyrrho of Elis (365-275)

ECLECTICISM Period
Antiochus
GREEK SCIENCE

250 Euclid (c. 300)

B.C.E. Archimedes (287-212)
Apollonius (260-200)
Ptolemy
THE JUDAIC-
ALEXANDRIAN
SCHOOL

Philo of Alexandria Greece and Macedonia Become a

50 B.C.E. (30 BCE - 50 CE) Province of Rome (146)
THE NEO-
PYTHAGOREAN The Roman Empire
SCHOOL The (146 BCE - 192 CE)
Religious
Apollonius of Tiana Period Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire (193-305)
THE NEO-PLATONIC
SCHOOL
The Triumph of Christianity (306-
50 C.E. 325)
Ammonius Saccas of
Alexandria (176-242)
to
Plotinus (205-270)
900 C.E. St. Augustine (354-430)
John Scotus Erigena The Period The Dark Ages (566-1095)
(815-877) of Scholastic
Philosophy
1000 C.E. THE MYSTICS

to St. Peter Damian

(1007-1072)
1399 C.E.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
(1091-1153)
 THE DIALECTICIANS

St. Anselm (1033-1109)

Peter Abelard (1079-

1142)

John of Salisbury (1110-

1182)
Albertus Magnus (1193-
1280)

Roger Bacon (1214-1294) The Middle Ages

St. Bonaventure (1221-

1274)

St. Thomas Aquinas

(1225-1274)

John Duns Scotus (1265-

1308)

William of Ockham (?-

1349)
Master Eckhart (1260-
1327)
HUMANISM

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-

1464)
1400 C.E.
Bernardio Telesio (1509- Beginning of The Renaissance (1304-1576)
to 1588) Modern
Humanism The Reformation (1517-1564)
1600 C.E. Giorano Bruno (1548-
1600)

Tommaso Campanella
(1568-1639)
Niccolo Machiavelli
(1469-1527)

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 MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

1600 C.E. to the Present Day
EMPIRICISM RATIONALISM

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Thomas Hobbes (1588- Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677)
1679) Nicholas de Malebranche (1638-1715)
John Locke (1632-1704) Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Gottfried W. von Leibnitz (1646-1716)
George Berkeley (1685-
1753)
David Hume (1711-1776)
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
IDEALISM
Baron de Montesquieu KANTIAN CRITICISM
(1689-1775) Johann Fichte (1762-1814)
Jean Jacques Rousseau Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Friedrich W. von Schelling
(1712-1778) (1775-1854)
Voltaire (1694-1778) Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1768-1834)
POSITIVISM Georg Hegel (1779-1831)
Johann Herbart (1776-1841)
FRENCH UTILITARIANISM Arthur Schopenhauer
August Comte (1798-1857) (1788-1860)
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) Rudolph Herman Lotze
GERMAN James Mill (1773-1836) (1817-1881)
Ludwig Fauerbach (1804-1872) John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Gustav Theodor Fechner
Karl Marx (1818-1883) (1801-1887)
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
GERMAN
PSYCHOLOGISM
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844- CRITICAL IDEALISM
1900)
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-
Wilhelm Windelband (1848- 1920)
1915)
AMERICAN IDEALISM Henrich Richert (1863-1936) THE NEW IDEALISM
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1912)
Josiah Royce (1855-1916) Rudolph Eucken (1846-1926) Thomas Hill Green (1836-
Bordon Parker Bowne 1882)
(1847-1910) Francis Herbert Bradley
PRAGMATICISM EVOLUTIONISM (1846-1924)
Bernard Bosanquet (1848-
Charles Sander Peirce Charles Darwin (1809-1882) 1923)
 Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
(1839-1914)
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)
Benedetto Croce (1866-
1952)
PRAGMATISM
PSYCHOANALYSIS NEO-POSITIVISM
William James (1842-1910)
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Moritz Schlick (1882-1936)
John Dewey (1859-1952)
Ernst Mach (1838-1016)
INTUITIONISM Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970)
EXISTENTIALISM Ludwig Wittgenstein
Henri Bergson (1859-1941) (1889-1951)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) John Wisdom (1904-1993)
Karl Barth (1886-1968) PHENOMENOLOGY Willard Van Orman Quine
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) (1908-2000)
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) Max Black (1909-1988)
Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) Maurice Merleau-Ponty Alfred J. Ayer (1910-1989)
Jean Paul Sartre (1906-1980) (1908-1961)
THE FRANKFURT
NEO-REALISM SCHOOL
PHILOSOPHICAL
HERMENEUTICS Franz Bretano (1838-1917) Herbert Marcuse (1898-
Alexius Meinong (1853-1920) 1979)
Hans-Georg Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) Theodor Adorno (1903-
Gadamer (1900- ) S. Alexander (1859-1938) 1969)
Alfred North Whitehead Erich Fromm (1900-1980)
  (1861-1947) Jurgen Habermas (1929- )
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
NEO-PRAGMATISM George Santayana (1863- CRITICAL
1952) RATIONALISM
Richard Rorty (1931- ) G.E. Moore (1873-1958)
Karl Popper (1902-1994)
CULTURAL THEORY, STRUCTURALISM, OBJECTIVISM
POSTMODERNISM, & DECONSTRUCTIONISM
Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
Nathaniel Branden (1930- )
Gyorgy Lukacs (1885-1971) Claude Levi-Strauss (1908- )
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) Michel Foucault (1926-1984) THE REVIVAL OF
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857- Jacques Derrida (1930- ) CLASSICAL REALISM
1913)
Jacques Maritain (1882-
1973)
Mortimer Adler (1902-
2001)
John Wild (1902-1972)
Jonathan Dolhenty (1938- )