01 / THE COLLECTION

One encounter can change everything.

A name, an era, a question. Follow your curiosity.

50 results

01 /

Stoicism121 — 180 CE

Marcus Aurelius

An empire within.

02 /

Socratic questioningc. 469–399 BCE

Socrates

A question can change a life.

03 /

Platonismc. 428/427–348/347 BCE

Plato

Learning to see beyond appearances.

04 /

The Peripatetic tradition384–322 BCE

Aristotle

Understanding the world. Cultivating judgement.

05 /

Confucian tradition551–479 BCE · traditional dates

Confucius

Becoming human, together.

06 /

Rationalism1596–1650

René Descartes

Dare to begin thinking again.

07 /

Rationalism · Naturalism1632–1677

Baruch Spinoza

Understand what determines us.

08 /

Critical philosophy1724–1804

Immanuel Kant

Question the limits of reason.

09 /

Critique of values1844–1900

Friedrich Nietzsche

Dare to question the obvious.

10 /

Existentialism & feminist thought1908–1986

Simone de Beauvoir

Freedom is built with others.

11 /

Epicureanism · the Garden341–270 BCE

Epicurus

Learning to desire what is enough.

12 /

Stoicismc. 4 BCE — 65 CE

Seneca

Practise what you ask of life.

13 /

Stoicismc. 50 — c. 135 CE

Epictetus

Freedom begins in judgment.

14 /

Enlightenment criticism · republicanism1712–1778

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Understanding the dependencies that shape us.

15 /

Empiricism · Mitigated skepticism1711–1776

David Hume

Examine what our habits lead us to believe.

16 /

German idealism1770–1831

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Freedom takes shape in a shared world.

17 /

Idealism and metaphysics of will1788–1860

Arthur Schopenhauer

Understand desire; make room for compassion.

18 /

Critique of political economy1818–1883

Karl Marx

Making the relationships organizing our lives visible.

19 /

Existentialism and the philosophy of praxis1905–1980

Jean-Paul Sartre

Answer for what you make of your situation.

20 /

Political thought, plurality and judgment1906–1975

Hannah Arendt

Make room for a shared world.

21 /

Medieval scholasticism · Theologyc. 1225–1274

Thomas Aquinas

Reason together toward the good.

22 /

Social philosophy · Attention1909–1943

Simone Weil

See those whom force crushes.

23 /

Existential thought · Christianity1813–1855

Søren Kierkegaard

Choose without escaping uncertainty.

24 /

Daoist traditionsDates uncertain · ancient China

Laozi

Act without imposing force.

25 /

Andalusian philosophy · Aristotelianism1126–1198

Averroes

Think with texts and their disagreements.

26 /

Presocratic philosophyc. 540–480 BCE

Heraclitus

Listen for order within change.

27 /

Pythagorean traditionsc. 570–495 BCE

Pythagoras

Seek an ordered, shared life.

28 /

Enlightenment · natural philosophy1706–1749

Émilie du Châtelet

Bring principles and experience into dialogue.

29 /

Archaeology of knowledge · genealogy1926–1984

Michel Foucault

Question the assumptions that govern us.

30 /

Empiricism and political philosophy1632–1704

John Locke

Know the limits of our knowledge and power.

31 /

Roman Epicureanism · didactic poetryc. 99 – c. 55 BCE

Lucretius

Understanding nature to free the mind from fear.

32 /

Early Daoist thoughtc. 369 – c. 286 BCE

Zhuangzi

Wander freely among things as they transform.

33 /

Early Buddhism · the middle wayc. 563 – c. 483 BCE (traditional dates)

Buddha

Understand suffering in order to be free of it.

34 /

Latin patristics · Christian Platonism354–430

Augustine of Hippo

Seek truth by turning inward, then beyond.

35 /

Latin Neoplatonism · Aristotelian logicc. 477 – c. 524

Boethius

Seek, in disgrace, the good that fortune cannot take back.

36 /

Medieval Jewish philosophy · Aristotelianism1138–1204

Maimonides

Understand the Law without betraying reason.

37 /

Early French humanism · moral and political philosophyc. 1364 – c. 1430

Christine de Pizan

Answer the authorities with reason, history and experience.

38 /

Florentine republicanism · political realism1469–1527

Niccolò Machiavelli

See politics as it is, not as it is imagined.

39 /

Renaissance humanism · scepticism1533–1592

Michel de Montaigne

Paint not being, but passage.

40 /

Port-Royal Augustinianism · experimental science1623–1662

Blaise Pascal

Measure reason by what exceeds it.

41 /

Enlightenment · deism · philosophy of toleration1694–1778

Voltaire

Fight fanaticism with reason and irony.

42 /

Radical Enlightenment · feminist philosophy1759–1797

Mary Wollstonecraft

Educate women as rational beings, not as ornaments.

43 /

Utilitarianism · liberalism1806–1873

John Stuart Mill

Protect the freedom to think and live differently.

44 /

American Transcendentalism · natural history1817–1862

Henry David Thoreau

Live deliberately; refuse what conscience condemns.

45 /

Philosophical novel · freedom and faith1821–1881

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Put ideas to the test of human lives.

46 /

Nonviolent Christianity · critique of state and church1828–1910

Leo Tolstoy

Seek a meaning that death cannot undo, and refuse violence.

47 /

Universal humanism · Bengal Renaissance1861–1941

Rabindranath Tagore

Seek the infinite within the finite world.

48 /

Literary modernism · Prague German-language literature1883–1924

Franz Kafka

Telling of a law no one can reach.

49 /

Literary modernism · feminist essay1882–1941

Virginia Woolf

Free thought needs a room, an income and a tradition.

50 /

Logic and language · analytic philosophy1889–1951

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

Fifty starting points, not a ranking. An editorial collection to grow over time.

Portraits: artistic interpretations. See credits.