This is a list of notable political philosophers, including some who may be better known for their work in other areas of philosophy. The entries are in order by year of birth to show rough direction of influences and of development of
political thought.
Ancient (born before 550 CE)
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Hammurabi (died c. 1750 BCE)
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Confucius
Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...
(551–479 BCE)
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Socrates (470–399 BCE)
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Mozi (470–390 BCE)
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Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...
(427–355 BCE)
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Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
(427–347 BCE)
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Diogenes of Sinope (412–323 BCE)
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Aeschines (389–314 BCE)
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Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
(384–322 BCE)
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Mencius (372–289 BCE)
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Chanakya
Chanakya (ISO 15919, ISO: ', चाणक्य, ), according to legendary narratives preserved in various traditions dating from the 4th to 11th century CE, was a Brahmin who assisted the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya, Chandragup ...
(350–283 BCE)
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Xun Zi (310–237 BCE)
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Han Fei (c. 280–233 BCE)
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Polybius (c.200-118 BCE)
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Cicero (106–43 BCE)
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Pliny the Younger (63–113 CE)
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Saint Augustine (354–430 CE)
Medieval (born between 550 CE and 1450 CE)
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Al-Farabi (870–950)
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Al-Biruni (973–1050)
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Ibn Sina (980–1037)
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Al-Ghazali (1058–1111)
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Averroes (1126–1198)
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Maimonides
Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...
(1135–1204)
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Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1150–1210)
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Thomas Aquinas, OP (1225–1274)
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Giles of Rome, OSA (1243–1316)
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Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyya (; 22 January 1263 – 26 September 1328)Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195125580.001.0001/acref-9780195125580-e-959 was a Sunni Muslim ulama, ...
(1263–1328)
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Marsilius of Padua (1270–1342)
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William of Ockham, OFM (1285–1349)
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Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)
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Christine de Pizan (1363–1434)
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Jean Gerson (1363–1429)
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Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464)
Renaissance and early modern (born between 1450 CE and 1750 CE)
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Thomas Cajetan, OP (1469–1534)
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Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
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Francisco de Vitoria, OP (1483–1546)
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Martin Luther (1483–1546)
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Thomas Muntzer (1490–1525)
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John Calvin (1509–1564)
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Francisco Suárez, SJ (1548–1617)
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Jean Bodin (1530–1596)
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Richard Hooker (1554–1600)
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Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621)
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Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
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Hugo Grotius (1583–1645)
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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...
(1588–1679)
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James Harrington (1611–1677)
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Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704)
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John Locke (1632–1704)
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Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)
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Montesquieu (1689–1755)
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Voltaire (1694–1778)
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Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792)
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Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...
(1706–1790)
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David Hume (1711–1776)
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Frederick the Great (1712–1786)
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...
(1712–1788)
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...
(1724–1804)
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William Blackstone (1723–1780)
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Adam Smith (1723–1790)
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Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January ew Style, NS1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Politician, statesman, journalist, writer, literary critic, philosopher, and parliamentary orator who is regarded as the founder of the Social philosophy, soc ...
(1729–1797)
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Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
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Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...
(1743–1826)
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Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803)
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(1748–1832)
Late modern (born between 1750 CE and 1900 CE)
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James Madison (1751–1836)
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Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821)
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Louis de Bonald (1754–1840)
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William Godwin (1756–1836)
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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
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Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825)
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814)
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Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834)
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Benjamin Constant (1767–1830)
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...
(1770–1831)
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Novalis (1772–1801)
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David Ricardo (1772–1823)
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
(1772–1834)
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Charles Fourier (1772–1837)
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James Mill (1773–1836)
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Adam Müller (1779–1829)
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Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779–1861)
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Félicité de La Mennais (1782–1854)
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Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
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Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
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John Henry Newman (1801–1890)
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Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
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Max Stirner (1806–1856)
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John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865)
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Matteo Liberatore, SJ (1810–1892)
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Montalembert (1810–1870)
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Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
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Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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Karl Marx (1818–1883)
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Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1818–1898)
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Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in '' ...]
(1820–1903)
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Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893)
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Lord Acton (1834–1902)
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Thomas Hill Green (1836–1882)
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William Graham Sumner (1840–1910)
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Namık Kemal (1840–1888)
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Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931)
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Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921)
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...
(1844–1900)
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Georges Sorel (1847–1922)
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Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923)
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Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Marxist theorist and politician. A prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he has been both condemned and praised as a "Revisionism (Marxism), revisi ...
(1850–1932)
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Benjamin Tucker (1854–1939)
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Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929)
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John Dewey (1859–1952)
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Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
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Swami Vivekananda (1863-1903)
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Max Weber
Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
(1864–1920)
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Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925)
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Benedetto Croce (1866–1952)
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Charles Maurras (1868–1952)
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Gandhi (1869–1948)
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Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born Anarchism, anarchist revolutionary, political activist, and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europ ...
(1869–1940)
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Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)
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Rosa Luxemburg (1870–1919)
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
(1872–1970)
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Rudolf Rocker (1873–1958)
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Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950)
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Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944)
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Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924)
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Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938)
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Martin Buber (1878–1965)
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Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
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Oswald Spengler (1880–1936)
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Otto Bauer (1881–1938)
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Jacques Maritain (1882–1973)
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Ivan Ilyin (1883–1954)
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Georg Lukács (1885–1971)
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René Guénon (1886–1951)
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Carl Schmitt (1888–1985)
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Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964)
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B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956)
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Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937)
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Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
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Max Horkheimer (1895–1973)
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Ernst Jünger
Ernst Jünger (; 29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a German author, highly decorated soldier, philosopher, and entomology, entomologist who became publicly known for his World War I memoir ''Storm of Steel''.
The son of a successful busin ...
(1895–1998)
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Julius Evola (1898–1974)
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Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)
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Wilhelm Röpke (1899–1966)
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Leo Strauss (1899–1973)
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Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992)
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Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and set ...
(1900–1980)
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Muhammad Asad (1900–1992)
Born in 20th century
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Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990)
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Eric Voegelin (1901–1985)
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Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
(1902–1994)
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Theodor Adorno (1903–1969)
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Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
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Raymond Aron (1905–1983)
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Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
(1905–1980)
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Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
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Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966)
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Ruhollah Khomeini (1906–1989)
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Simone Weil (1909–1943)
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Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997)
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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999)
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Norberto Bobbio (1909–2004)
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Albert Camus (1913–1960)
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Russell Kirk (1918–1994)
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Louis Althusser (1918–1990)
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Murray Bookchin (1921–2006)
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John Rawls (1921–2002)
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Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (1921–1990)
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Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997)
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Howard Zinn (1922–2010)
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Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)
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Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017)
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Murray Rothbard (1926–1995)
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Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
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Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008)
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Noam Chomsky (1928–)
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Jürgen Habermas (1929–)
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Alasdair MacIntyre (1929–)
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Bernard Williams (1929–2003)
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Félix Guattari (1930–1992)
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Jacques Derrida (1930–2004)
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Richard Rorty (1931–2007)
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Ronald Dworkin (1931–2013)
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Charles Taylor (1931–)
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Guy Debord (1931–1994)
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Harvey Mansfield (1932–)
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Antonio Negri (1933–2023)
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Ali Shariati (1933–1977)
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Fredric Jameson (1934–2024)
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Michael Walzer (1935–)
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Edward Said (1935–2003)
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Thomas Nagel (1937–)
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Robert Nozick (1938–2002)
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Jacques Rancière (1940–)
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Joxe Azurmendi (1941–)
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Robert D. Putnam (1941–)
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Gerald Cohen (1941–2009)
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Étienne Balibar (1942–)
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Roger Scruton (1944–2020)
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Slavoj Žižek (1947–)
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Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Roberto Mangabeira Unger (; ; born 24 March 1947) is a Brazilian philosopher and politician. His work is in the tradition of Western philosophy and classical social theory, and is developed across fields in legal theory, philosophy and religion, ...
(1947–)
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John Gray (1948–)
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Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
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Michael Sandel (1953-)
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Judith Butler (1956–)
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Michael Hardt (1960–)
See also
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Political philosophy
Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...
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Lists of philosophers
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Political Philosophers
Political philosophers