Philosophy Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
81 statements.
A History of Western Philosophy, NotesRead alongside more recent scholarship rather than as a sole authority.
A History of Western Philosophy, Sources
Standing
Concerns Notes
Currently States Read alongside more recent scholarship rather than as a sole authority.
Valued as a readable narrative but scholars regard several of its judgments, especially on Nietzsche and on the Scholastics, as idiosyncratic rather than representative of mainstream historiography.
Source A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
Adi Shankara, Birth Year788
Adi Shankara, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States 788
Scholarly dating of Shankara is genuinely contested: early scholars placed him at 788 to 820 CE, Hajime Nakamura argued for 700 to 750 CE, and Karl Potter suggests the late seventh to early eighth century based on his contemporary Mandanamisra's dating. 788 CE, the traditional dating, is carried here as the commonly cited value.
Source Sankara (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Adi Shankara, Death Year820
Adi Shankara, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States 820
Follows the traditional 788 to 820 CE dating; hagiographies claim he died at thirty two, but these accounts were composed centuries after his death and are not considered reliable history. See the birth-year note for the wider scholarly range.
Source Sankara (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Advaita Vedanta, Start Year800
Advaita Vedanta, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 800
Adi Shankara's traditional dates are given variously as circa 700 to 750 CE by some scholars and 788 to 820 CE by others; 800 marks the general eighth-century CE consensus for when the tradition crystallized around his teaching, not a settled single year.
Source Advaita Vedanta (Wikipedia)
Aesthetics, Key DebateIntentionalism versus anti-intentionalism: whether the artist's intended meaning fixes the correct interpretation of a work, as intentionalists hold, or whether a work's meaning is independent of, and can exceed, what its maker intended, a dispute sharpened by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley's naming of the intentional fallacy.
Aesthetics, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Intentionalism versus anti-intentionalism: whether the artist's intended meaning fixes the correct interpretation of a work, as intentionalists hold, or whether a work's meaning is independent of, and can exceed, what its maker intended, a dispute sharpened by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley's naming of the intentional fallacy.
W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley's essay naming the intentional fallacy did not end the dispute; intentionalist critics continue to defend the author's intended meaning as interpretively decisive.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Al-Farabi, Birth Year872
Al-Farabi, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States 872
Sources place his birth in a narrow range, roughly 870 to 872; no exact date is settled.
Analytic Philosophy, Start Year1900
Analytic Philosophy, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 1900
Candidate starting dates range from Frege's Begriffsschrift (1879) through Moore and Russell's break from British Idealism (about 1898 to 1903) to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1921); 1900 marks the turn-of-the-century period the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy names, not one settled founding moment.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Anarchism, Start Year1840
Anarchism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 1840
1840 marks Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's What Is Property?, in which he became the first person known to call himself an anarchist. William Godwin's 1793 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice is commonly cited as an earlier systematic precursor that did not use the label, and anarchist sentiment has ancient roots older than either; no single founding year commands full agreement.
Source Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Wikipedia)
Badarayana, Birth Year-100
Badarayana, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -100
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's Sankara entry places Badarayana around the first century BCE. Specialist studies of the Brahma Sutras' composition and redaction (see the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's Advaita Vedanta entry, and the wider text-critical literature on the Brahma Sutras) have proposed dates spanning several centuries BCE to several centuries CE; the traditional Hindu account identifies Badarayana with the sage Vyasa, placing him in a legendary rather than documentable timeframe. No death date is transmitted by any source, traditional or scholarly.
Source Sankara (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Chrysippus, Birth Year-280
Chrysippus, Death Year-207
Confucianism, Start Year-500
Confucianism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -500
Confucianism has no single founding date; scholars conventionally date its beginning to Confucius' own teaching career in the sixth century BCE, though it was not systematized into a named tradition until later thinkers such as Mencius.
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Cynicism, Start Year-445
Cynicism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -445
Traditionally traced to Antisthenes (c. 445-365 BCE), a pupil of Socrates; many historians place the school's effective beginning a generation later, with Diogenes of Sinope's adoption of the Cynic way of life in the fourth century BCE.
Source Cynicism, Philosophy (Wikipedia)
Diogenes of Sinope, Birth Year-412
Empedocles, Birth Year-494
Empedocles, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -494
No contemporary record survives; the approximate birth year is reconstructed from Aristotle statement that Empedocles died at sixty, combined with the traditional floruit; the biographical tradition preserved through Diogenes Laertius carries romantic embellishments of uncertain historical value.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Empedocles, Death Year-434
Empedocles, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States -434
Reconstructed the same way as the birth year, from Aristotle age-at-death testimony. The popular ancient story that he died leaping into the volcano at Mount Etna is not historically reliable; he may instead have died in the Peloponnese.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Empedocles, Notable PublicationOn Nature (Peri Physeos) and Purifications (Katharmoi), traditionally read as two separate poems, one cosmological and one on transmigration and ritual purity
Empedocles, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Notable Publication
Currently States On Nature (Peri Physeos) and Purifications (Katharmoi), traditionally read as two separate poems, one cosmological and one on transmigration and ritual purity
Whether Empedocles wrote one unified work or two distinct poems is contested among modern scholars; the 1994 discovery of the Strasbourg papyrus, containing physical fragments previously assigned only to the Purifications, strengthened the case that the two are thematically integrated rather than separate.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Empedocles, Death PlaceUncertain; ancient legend places his death at Mount Etna in Sicily, but this is not considered historically reliable, and he may instead have died in the Peloponnese.
Empedocles, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Place
Currently States Uncertain; ancient legend places his death at Mount Etna in Sicily, but this is not considered historically reliable, and he may instead have died in the Peloponnese.
The popular Etna legend (that he leapt into the volcano) is the same tradition his death-year fact already flags as unreliable; no contemporary record fixes an actual place of death.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Epictetus, Birth Year55
Epictetus, Death Year135