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Confucius at the top is brave I'll say. I agree with Buddha being debatable, imo Buddhism is closer to a religion than to a philososophy, but that's a problem with many Eastern philosophers.

Think his millenia of influence on Chinese as well as broader East Asian culture plus him being arguably #1 most revered philosopher with possible exception of Buddha makes him fairly justified #1.

But his philosophy is almost exclusively abouth ethics, morals, and the like, there's no epistemology or theory of reality, which are important when talking about the history of philosophy and knowledge, and which shape society and the world in less obvious but no less important ways. Some argue that's the REAL philosophy, as "how to live" is also something covered by religion. Not saying any of this disqualifies him as there's MANY others on the list who didn't write about everything, but hey, since it's the top of the list I thought all ideas should be presented.

Regardless, the bigger issue in the list imo would be the "no written/surviving works" thing. I guess you could make two lists, as having such important thinkers in the HMs kinda looks bad.

Fido wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2026 5:05 am . I guess you could make two lists, as having such important thinkers in the HMs kinda looks bad.

Agreed.

Greatest pre-socratics (Greece)

1. Pythagoras (c. 570 - c. 495 BC)
2. Thales (c. 624 - c. 546 BC)
3. Parmenides (born c. 515 BC)
4. Heraclitus (fl. c. 500 BC)
5. Zeno of Elea (c. 490 - 430 BC)
6. Anaximander (c. 610 - c. 546 BC)
7. Anaximenes (c. 586/5 – c. 526/5 BC)
8. Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 BC)
9. Leucippus (fl. c. 5th century BC)
10. Xenophanes (c. 570 - c. 470 BC)