Beginner’s Guide

This guide walks you through the thread of philosophy from ancient Greece to the twentieth century. The history of philosophy is not a list of terms to memorize but a continuous debate spanning two thousand five hundred years and many civilizations — each philosopher responding to the questions his predecessors left, and leaving new questions for those after.

A Few Things to Know First

Philosophy is not "preaching grand truths" but a method of "questioning to the bottom." When Socrates asked "what is justice" and "what is courage," it was not to reach a standard answer but to force his interlocutor to discover that a concept he thought clear could not stand scrutiny — this habit of "asking anew what seems taken for granted" is the best starting point for understanding what every philosopher is doing.
This site’s relationship graph groups the 63 philosophers into 11 blocks by tradition and era: ancient Greece, the Hellenistic and Roman ethical schools, the Hundred Schools, Buddhist philosophy, medieval scholasticism, Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, the modern dispute of reason and experience, the Enlightenment and German classical philosophy, the revolt of the nineteenth century, twentieth-century analytic philosophy, and twentieth-century continental philosophy — not the only way to classify, but one to help you first see "who is responding to whom."
Many widely circulated philosophical maxims are in fact later summaries or even garbled transmissions — "I love my teacher, but I love truth more" may not be Aristotle’s own words, nor is "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" Voltaire’s own words. This site notes such cases one by one in the "differing versions" column; when you read the words "widely told," it is worth keeping a little wariness.
The teacher–student relations among philosophers often span centuries and were not real face-to-face contact — Zhuangzi never truly studied under Laozi, nor did Nietzsche consult Schopenhauer in person. Such "cross-generational lineage" is shown here with the same teacher–student label, representing an inheritance of thought rather than a real classroom scene; noting the span of time in such relations makes it clearer.

A Few Suggestions

Do not rush to find "who is right." Rationalism vs. empiricism, the goodness vs. the badness of human nature, deontology vs. utilitarianism — these most important divergences in the history of philosophy still have no "standard answer" two thousand years on; the point is not to take a side but to understand what each side is really worried about and what problem it seeks to solve.
Notice that "the same question receives different answers from different civilizations" — the Buddha’s "no-self" and Heraclitus’s "all things flow," Zhuangzi’s "equality of things" and Pyrrho’s skepticism, spanning thousands of kilometers unaware of each other, yet responding to similar puzzles; this cross-civilizational resonance is itself one of the most fascinating parts of philosophy.
For philosophers touching Nazi history (such as Heidegger) and intellectual legacies with contested historical judgment, this site chooses to present the complex parts truthfully, neither avoiding the stain of a person’s historical conduct because his thought is profound, nor writing off the scholarly value of his thought because of a historical stain — the two must be judged separately.

How to Read

To learn "how this debate broke out," look at the timeline

This site’s timeline is organized into 12 stages, from the "pre-Socratics" to "twentieth-century continental philosophy," each with concrete events of intellectual clash, letting you see the main line of "who is refuting whom, and who is inheriting from whom."

To learn "the skeleton of the whole history of philosophy," look at the relationship graph

The graph groups the 63 philosophers into 11 blocks by tradition and era, so you can see at a glance the three generations of Socrates–Plato–Aristotle, the head-on clash of the goodness and badness of human nature, and how Heidegger’s thought flowed at once to Sartre and to Arendt — these links are themselves the best entry into understanding that "philosophy does not happen in isolation."

To learn "where these ideas still work today," look at the modern echoes

From "Pascal’s wager" to modern decision theory, from Epictetus’s "dichotomy of control" to today’s cognitive behavioral therapy, from the "veil of ignorance" to public-policy design — every card on this site specially lists such "modern echoes," helping you see where a debate of two thousand years ago is still at work today.

Going Deeper: Introductions to the History of Philosophy

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western PhilosophyA history of philosophy written by Russell himself from a philosopher’s perspective, sharp in style and clear in view; though some of its scholarly judgments are contested, it is highly readable as an introduction.

Feng Youlan, A Short History of Chinese PhilosophyA systematic tracing of the development of Chinese philosophy from the pre-Qin thinkers to Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, one of the most classic popular introductions to the history of Chinese philosophy.

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist CaféTaking the intellectual clashes of Sartre, Beauvoir, Heidegger, and others as its main line, vividly re-creating the birth scene of twentieth-century existentialist philosophy.

Going Deeper: Primary Texts (best read with an annotated edition)

The Platonic dialogues (Republic, Symposium)One of the most important primary texts of Western philosophy; the dialogue form itself is the best demonstration for understanding the "Socratic method."

The Analects, the Dao De Jing, the ZhuangziThe three most basic primary texts of Chinese philosophy, all short, well suited to repeated reading and reflection against a vernacular translation with notes.

Camus, The Myth of SisyphusShort and beautifully written, one of the most accessible primary texts for entering existentialism and the philosophy of the absurd.

A Timeline of Coordinates

6th–4th Centuries BC: The Axial Age

c. 6th c. BC Thales proposes that "water is the first principle of all things," philosophy is born
c. 551–479 BC Confucius travels among the states
c. 463 BC Socrates is born
c. 427–347 BC the life of Plato
384–322 BC the life of Aristotle

4th Century BC – 3rd Century AD: Hellenistic, Roman, and Buddhist Philosophy

334 BC Zeno founds the Stoic school
334–262 BC the life of Zeno
c. 150–250 Nagarjuna writes the Root Verses
121–180 Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations

5th–13th Centuries: Medieval Scholasticism

354–430 Augustine’s Confessions
980–1037 the life of Ibn Sina
1126–1198 the life of Ibn Rushd
c. 1225–1274 Aquinas’s Summa Theologica
1130–1200 Zhu Xi synthesizes the study of principle

17th–18th Centuries: Reason, Experience, and the Enlightenment

1637 Descartes’s Discourse on the Method published
1651 Hobbes’s Leviathan published
1687 Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy published
1689 Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding published
1762 Rousseau’s Social Contract published
1781 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason published

19th–20th Centuries: Revolt and Reconstruction

1818 Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation published
1848 Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto published
1883 Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra published
1921 Wittgenstein’s Tractatus published
1943 Sartre’s Being and Nothingness published
1971 Rawls’s A Theory of Justice published