Map of Philosophy
Every marker is a real academy, place of exile, or site of awakening, from Miletus to Cambridge, from Bodh Gaya to Freiburg. Tap a marker for the story, tap the legend to filter by tradition.
☜ Tap a marker and its story appears here.
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Chinese Philosophy
Indian & Buddhist Philosophy
Medieval Scholasticism
Modern & Contemporary Philosophy
The map covers the Horn of Africa to East Asia; coastline data from Natural Earth. Coordinates use standard identifications from the history of philosophy; the places of activity of some modern and contemporary philosophers (such as in the United States) fall outside the map’s range and are not plotted, which does not mean they are unimportant.
Places on this map
Miletus
The hometown of Thales and his student Anaximander, where ancient Greek philosophy first tried to explain the universe by causes in nature itself, and "philosophy" was thereby born.
Connected figures: Thales · Anaximander
Croton
Where Pythagoras founded a secret brotherhood and systematically studied number theory and musical harmonic ratios, the conviction that "all is number" taking root here.
Connected figures: Pythagoras
Athens
Here Socrates questioned in the streets and met a composed death; Plato founded the Academy; Aristotle founded the Lyceum; Zeno lectured at the painted colonnade; Epicurus taught the moderation of desire in his garden; Diogenes carried a lantern in search of an honest man — Athens is the most densely peopled stage of all ancient Greek philosophy.
Connected figures: Socrates · Plato · Aristotle · Diotima · Zeno · Epicurus · Diogenes
Citium
The hometown of Zeno, founder of the Stoic school, who in his youth was a merchant here, until a shipwreck by chance led him onto the road of philosophy.
Connected figures: Zeno
Nicopolis
Where the freed slave Epictetus opened a philosophical school in his later years, teaching his students the practical wisdom of the "dichotomy of control."
Connected figures: Epictetus
Qufu
The birthplace and place of teaching of Confucius; the Temple, Mansion, and Cemetery of Confucius are still the most important memorial sites of Confucian culture.
Connected figures: Confucius
The Old State of Zou
The birthplace of Mencius, only some tens of li from Confucius’s home at Qufu, where the thought of the Confucian "Second Sage" took root.
Connected figures: Mencius
The Hangu Pass
Where, by legend, Laozi traveling west left the five thousand words of the Dao De Jing at the request of the pass warden Yin Xi, and Daoist thought was thereby set down in writing for later ages.
Connected figures: Laozi
Lanling
Where Xunzi in his later years served as magistrate, wrote and taught, and was at last buried; his two students Han Feizi and Li Si thereafter became, respectively, key figures of Legalist theory and of the Qin dynasty’s legalist practice.
Bodh Gaya
Where Siddhartha sat in meditation beneath the Bodhi tree for forty-nine days and at last awakened to the "Four Noble Truths" and "dependent origination," and Buddhist philosophy was thereby born.
Connected figures: The Buddha
Nagarjunakonda
Where Nagarjuna preached and taught in his later years, systematically developing the Buddha’s thought of dependent origination and writing the Root Verses, carrying Mahayana Madhyamaka philosophy to its peak.
Connected figures: Nagarjuna
Hippo
Where Augustine served as bishop and completed the Confessions and The City of God, fusing Neoplatonism and Christian theology into one.
Connected figures: Augustine
Pavia
Where Boethius, imprisoned by political frame-up, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy and was then executed — yet the work became one of the most widely transmitted philosophical texts of the entire Middle Ages.
Connected figures: Boethius
Bukhara
The birthplace and early place of study of Ibn Sina, where he laid a deep foundation in philosophy and medicine before writing the Canon of Medicine and the Book of Healing.
Connected figures: Ibn Sina
Córdoba
The common birthplace of Ibn Rushd and Maimonides; in the Islamic golden age this Andalusian capital was one of the most important centers of learning and philosophy in Europe.
Connected figures: Ibn Rushd · Maimonides
Cairo
Where Maimonides settled after fleeing persecution, completing the Guide for the Perplexed amid his duties as court physician to the sultan, and living out his later years.
Connected figures: Maimonides
Tus
The birthplace of al-Ghazali, who, after a profound spiritual crisis in his later years, resigned his teaching post and at last returned to his hometown to devote himself to Sufi practice and writing.
Connected figures: Al-Ghazali
Naples
Where Aquinas studied in his early years and, in his later years, taught and wrote at a nearby monastery; the writing of the Summa Theologica is deeply bound to this region.
Connected figures: Thomas Aquinas
Florence
Where Machiavelli once held high diplomatic office in the Florentine republic, and, later fallen from favor and retired to the countryside, wrote The Prince.
Connected figures: Machiavelli
Amsterdam
Where Spinoza, expelled from the Jewish community for his heretical thought, thereafter lived by grinding lenses and devoted himself to writing the Ethics.
Connected figures: Spinoza
London
Where Locke, Hobbes, Mill, Bentham, and Russell all lived and wrote; Bentham’s "auto-icon" is still displayed at University College London.
Connected figures: Locke · Hobbes · Mill · Bentham · Russell
Königsberg
The hometown Kant never left in all his life, where he built his far-reaching system of critical philosophy; legend says the locals set their clocks by his fixed hour of walking each day.
Connected figures: Kant
Berlin
Where Hegel taught at the University of Berlin in his later years and his prestige reached its peak, and where the young Marx also studied, deeply steeped in Hegelian philosophy.
Geneva
Rousseau’s birthplace; his late thought deeply shaped the ideological foundation of the French Revolution, and the opening line of The Social Contract, "man is born free," is still widely quoted today.
Connected figures: Rousseau
Edinburgh
The birthplace and lifelong home of Hume; the most important skeptical philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment matured precisely in this city.
Connected figures: Hume
Copenhagen
The hometown Kierkegaard almost never left in all his life, where he repeatedly published works under pseudonyms exploring the individual’s real existential anxiety and choice of faith.
Connected figures: Kierkegaard
Cambridge
Where Wittgenstein studied under Russell and later had the famous "poker" clash with Popper — one of the most important intellectual wellsprings of twentieth-century analytic philosophy.
Connected figures: Wittgenstein · Russell · Popper
Vienna
Popper’s birthplace, and the core stronghold of the logical-positivist "Vienna Circle" of the early twentieth century, which profoundly shaped the later direction of Anglo-American analytic philosophy.
Connected figures: Popper
Freiburg
Where Heidegger taught for life and wrote Being and Time, and where in 1933, during his brief tenure as rector of the university, he delivered an inaugural address publicly supporting the Nazi regime.
Connected figures: Heidegger
Paris
Where Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus debated existentialism in the cafés, and where Foucault and Derrida too completed their most radical critical reflections on the Western rationalist tradition.
Connected figures: Sartre · Beauvoir · Camus · Foucault · Derrida