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Criteria: These Western philosophers are ranked according to their influence, reputation and body of philosophical work. A selected philosophical work is listed for each philosopher when applicable.

1. Plato (c. 428 - 348 BC) - The Republic
2. Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) - Nicomachean Ethics
3. Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) - Critique of Pure Reason
4. Socrates (c. 470 - 399 BC)
5. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274) - Summa Theologica
6. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
7. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) - Meditations on First Philosophy
8. Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) - Phenomenology of Spirit
9. St. Augustine (354 - 430) - Confessions
10. Karl Marx (1813 - 1883) - The Communist Manifesto
11. David Hume (1711 - 1776) - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
12. John Locke (1632- 1704) - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
13. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951) - Philosophical Investigations
14. Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) - Being and Time
15. Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855) - Fear and Trembling
16. John-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) - The Social Contract
17. Gottfried Leibniz (1646 - 1716) - Monadology
18. Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677) - Ethics
19. Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) - The Problems of Philosophy
20. Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) - Leviathan
21. John Rawls (1921 - 2002) - A Theory of Justice
22. John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) - On Liberty
23. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) - Essays: First Series
24. Gottlob Frege (1848 - 1925) - The Foundations of Arithmetic
25. Avicenna (c. 980 - 1037) - The Book of Healing
26. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) - The Prince
27. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) - The World as Will and Representation
28. Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) - Novum Organum
29. Karl Popper (1902 - 1994) - The Logic of Scientific Discovery
30. George Berkeley (1685 - 1753) - A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
31. William James (1842 - 1910) - The Principles of Psychology
32. Plotinus (c. 204/5 - 270) - The Enneads
33. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) - Being and Nothingness
34. Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) - The Second Sex
35. Epicurus (341 - 270 BC) - Letter to Menoeceus
36. Voltaire (1694 - 1778) - Philosophical Letters
37. Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975) - The Human Condition
38. Albert Camus (1913 - 1960) - The Myth of Sisyphus
39. Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) Discipline and Punish
40. Noam Chomsky (1928 - ) - Syntactic Structures
41. Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) - Walden
42. Pythagoras (c. 570 - c. 495 BC)
43. Thales (c. 624 - c. 546 BC)
44. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109) - Proslogion
45. Duns Scotus (c. 1265/66 - 1308) - Ordinatio
46. William Ockham (c. 1287 - 1347) - Summa Logicae
47. Gilles Deleuze (1925 - 1995) - Difference and Repetition
48. Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) - The Theory of Moral Sentiments
49. Auguste Comte (1797 - 1857) - Course of Positive Philosophy
50. Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947) - Process and Reality

Elizabeth Anscombe (1919 - 2001) - Philosophical Investigations
Pierre Bayle (1647 - 1706) - Historical and Critical Dictionary
Boethius (с. 480 - 524) - On the Consolation of Philosophy
Giordano Bruno (1548 - 1600) - De umbris idearum
Cicero (106 - 43 BC) - De Oratore
R.G. Collingwood (1889 - 1943) - The Idea of History
John Dewey (1859 - 1952) - Art as Experience
Erasmus (c. 1466 - 1536) - The Praise of Folly
al-Farabi (c. 870 - c. 950) - Kitab al-Musiqi al-Kabir
Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969) - Philosophy
Emmanuel Levinas (1906 - 1995) - Totality and Infinity
Montesquieu (1689 - 1755) - The Spirit of Law
G.E. Moore (1873 - 1958) - Principia Ethica
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 - 1914) - Illustrations of the Logic of Science
Henri de Saint-Simon (1760 - 1825) - Nouveau Christianisme

I'm gonna be the one to address the elephant in the room and ask whether Socrates should be on here.

Also, I think Hume seems low and should be around #8, but that's mostly just based on my gut feeling.

Do you consider Marcus Aurelius to be eligible?

ManPerson wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:24 pm Do you consider Marcus Aurelius to be eligible?

Sure, why not?

ManPerson wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:21 pm I'm gonna be the one to address the elephant in the room and ask whether Socrates should be on here.

If we do remove him, should Thales & Pythagoras be relegated to honorable mentions as well?

ManPerson wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:23 pm Also, I think Hume seems low and should be around #8, but that's mostly just based on my gut feeling.

Guess I can see that.

Tim wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:54 pm

ManPerson wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:21 pm I'm gonna be the one to address the elephant in the room and ask whether Socrates should be on here.

If we do remove him, should Thales & Pythagoras be relegated to honorable mentions as well?

I'm assuming you're going to put Socrates in the hms too?

If so, then I think that makes sense.

Tim wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:34 pm

ManPerson wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2026 4:24 pm Do you consider Marcus Aurelius to be eligible?

Sure, why not?

He probably wouldn't, but that's probably not a good standard to decide who should be on the list.

I agree with putting them on the HMs because if not I can't see Pythagoras that low.

This may be of interest: https://beckchris.com/people/the-greate ... me-ranked/

And the discussion on the old forum: https://web.archive.org/web/20240515170 ... =59&t=1617

Plotinus and Avicenna seem far too low. If we were talking about the most influential philosophers they would be top 10, at least.