Philosopher File

Mencius was a Confucian philosopher who argued for the inherent goodness of human nature, and who insisted that good government is about nourishing this inherent goodness.

Plato is undoubtedly one of the most influential thinkers in all of history. He opened up a series of questions — about philosophy, about knowledge, about truth, about politics and about ethics — that have continued to preoccupy people down to the present-day.

Zeno of Elea was famous for his paradoxes, which have fascinated and preoccupied people for millennia.

The Maya philosophers were preoccupied with time, and with how the ritual ordering of time is a way that human beings participate in the ongoing creation of the world.

Mozi was one of the most influential of all early Chinese philosophers. He proposed a society based on universal love, protected by a system of rewards and punishments.

Democritus and his teacher Leucippus were the first philosophers to propose that all things were made up of the joining-together of imperceptible atoms.

Yang Zhu was an ancient Chinese philosopher who is associated with hedonism, and with the cultivation of bodily pleasure.

The Buddha was a wandering renunciant in Ancient India who kick-started a two and a half thousand-year-old religious and philosophical tradition. But who was he?

Diogenes was the original drop-out philosopher. A fierce critic of the hypocrisy of society, he chose instead to live in accord with nature.

The legendary Chinese philosopher Laozi is associated with the long tradition of Daoism (or Taoism). But his work is famously elliptical and difficult.

What does it mean to be sick or well? What is health? The Greek doctor and philosopher Alcmaeon, who came from the city of Croton, was one of the earliest thinkers to systematically address questions of health and illness.

Questions of time, ritual and identity lie at the heart of Maya philosophical traditions. Find out more in our fascinating interview with Alexus McLeod.