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A reference wiki on the history of philosophy — Western (with planned non-Western expansion), organized into Traditions, Figures, Concepts, and Publications. Reference voice in the style of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Britannica, written so a reader can begin at any page, work backward to dependencies, or forward to derived ideas without prior context.

Every page leads with a definition, cites primary sources by canonical reference (Stephanus for Plato, Bekker for Aristotle, AK for Kant), names contemporary scholars, and grounds claims in specific dates and texts. The wiki is structured to be ingestible by both human readers and large language models: plain headings, lists for grouped items, full proper-noun anchoring, single thesis statement in the first paragraph.

About the wiki

• About the author: Paul Maxwell — Ph.D. in theology, former philosophy lecturer, developer.
• Blog: Working notes and current projects.
• Contact: Reach out.

Traditions — schools and movements

• Platonism: The tradition flowing from Plato's Academy through Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism to Renaissance and modern Platonisms.
• Aristotelianism: Four-cause metaphysics, virtue ethics, and natural philosophy of Aristotle and his commentators through the Arabic-Latin tradition.
• Stoicism: The Hellenistic-Roman school of Zeno, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius; virtue as the only good, passions as judgments, assent as the locus of moral life.
• Neoplatonism: The Plotinian-Proclan tradition; the One, intellect, soul, and procession-and-return.
• Scholasticism: The medieval university tradition of Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham; integration of Aristotle with Christian theology.
• Islamic Philosophy: The tradition of falsafa from al-Kindi through Avicenna, al-Ghazali, and Averroes.
• Christian Theology: The dogmatic-philosophical tradition from the Church Fathers through scholasticism, Reformation, and contemporary theology.
• Rationalism: The early modern tradition of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz; innate ideas and demonstrative metaphysics.
• Empiricism: The British tradition of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume; experience as the source and limit of knowledge.
• German Idealism: The post-Kantian tradition of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; consciousness as the structure of reality.
• Phenomenology: The Husserlian-Heideggerian descriptive analysis of consciousness; the lifeworld.
• Existentialism: The Kierkegaardian-Heideggerian-Sartrean tradition; existence precedes essence, freedom, anxiety.
• Pragmatism: The American tradition of Peirce, James, and Dewey; meaning as practical consequence, inquiry as social.
• Analytic Philosophy: The tradition from Frege, Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein through Quine and Kripke; logical analysis of language and concepts.
• Critical Theory: The Frankfurt School tradition of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Benjamin; immanent critique of late-capitalist society.
• Marxism: The tradition founded by Marx and Engels; historical materialism, class struggle, ideology critique.
• Utilitarianism: The consequentialist tradition of Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick; the greatest-happiness principle.

Figures — philosophers

• Plato: Founder of the Academy; theory of Forms; dialectic.
• Aristotle: The Lyceum; four causes; virtue ethics.
• Augustine: Bishop of Hippo; Confessions, City of God; Christian Platonism.
• Anselm of Canterbury: Originator of the ontological argument.
• Thomas Aquinas: The Common Doctor; Aristotelian-Christian synthesis; the Summa and the Five Ways.
• Duns Scotus: The Subtle Doctor; haecceity and univocity of being.
• William of Ockham: Nominalism; the principle of parsimony.
• Bonaventure: The Seraphic Doctor; Franciscan mystical philosophy.
• Averroes: The Commentator; the Decisive Treatise.
• René Descartes: The Meditations and the cogito; the rationalist program.
• Gottfried Leibniz: Monads; principle of sufficient reason; best of all possible worlds.
• John Locke: The Essay; tabula rasa; political philosophy of consent.
• David Hume: The Treatise and the Enquiries; skepticism about causation; the Dialogues.
• Immanuel Kant: The critical turn; the three Critiques; transcendental idealism; the categorical imperative.
• G. W. F. Hegel: The dialectic; the Phenomenology of Spirit; absolute idealism.
• Friedrich Nietzsche: Genealogy; will to power; Zarathustra; the revaluation of all values.
• Søren Kierkegaard: Father of existentialism; Either/Or, Fear and Trembling; the leap of faith.
• Karl Marx: Historical materialism; Capital; critique of political economy.
• Arthur Schopenhauer: The world as will and representation; pessimism.
• Edmund Husserl: Founder of phenomenology; Logical Investigations; the Crisis.
• Martin Heidegger: Being and Time; the question of being; thrownness and being-toward-death.
• Jean-Paul Sartre: Existential freedom; Being and Nothingness; bad faith.
• Simone de Beauvoir: Existentialist ethics; The Second Sex.
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The phenomenology of perception; embodiment.
• Albert Camus: The absurd; The Myth of Sisyphus; revolt.
• Gottlob Frege: Founder of modern logic; the Begriffsschrift and the Foundations of Arithmetic.
• Bertrand Russell: Logical atomism; Principia Mathematica; the Problems of Philosophy.
• Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations; the early and late phases.
• W. V. O. Quine: "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"; ontological relativity; Word and Object.
• Saul Kripke: Naming and Necessity; modal logic; rigid designation.
• Charles Sanders Peirce: Founder of pragmatism; the pragmatic maxim; semiotics.
• William James: Pragmatism; the will to believe; radical empiricism.
• John Dewey: Instrumentalism; Democracy and Education.
• Theodor Adorno: Dialectic of Enlightenment; negative dialectics; Minima Moralia.
• Max Horkheimer: Traditional and critical theory; the Frankfurt School program.
• Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project; theses on the philosophy of history.
• Herbert Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man; the great refusal.
• Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction; Of Grammatology; différance.

Pillar concepts

• Ontological Argument: The a priori argument from concept to existence; Anselm, Descartes, Plantinga.
• Cosmological Argument: The argument from contingency to a necessary first cause; kalam, Thomistic, and Leibnizian variants.
• Problem of Evil: The argument from evil against theism; logical and evidential forms.
• Natural Theology: The project of arguing for God from publicly available premises.
• Theodicy: The constructive theistic response to the problem of evil; Augustinian, Leibnizian, free-will, soul-making.
• Categorical Imperative: Kant's supreme principle of morality.
• Transcendental Idealism: Kant's framework for the structure of experience.
• Substance: The Aristotelian and post-Aristotelian metaphysical primitive.
• Substance Monism: The Spinozist thesis of a single substance.
• Essence and Existence: The scholastic distinction with roots in Avicenna.
• Natural Law: The tradition of moral law accessible through rational reflection on human nature.
• Doctrine of the Mean: Aristotle's account of virtue as the mean between extremes.
• Telos: The Aristotelian principle of purpose or end.
• Phronesis: Practical wisdom in Aristotelian ethics.
• Form (Idea): The Platonic theory of intelligible reality.
• Apatheia: The Stoic ideal of freedom from disturbing passions.
• Amor Fati: The love of fate; Stoic and Nietzschean recoveries.
• Will to Power: Nietzsche's positive principle.
• Eternal Recurrence: Nietzsche's thought experiment.
• Alienation: The Hegelian-Marxist category.
• Authenticity: The existentialist value; Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre.
• Being-toward-Death: Heidegger's structure of authentic existence.
• Tabula Rasa: The empiricist thesis of the mind as blank slate.
• Principle of Sufficient Reason: The Leibnizian metaphysical principle.
• Trinity: The Christian doctrine and its philosophical treatments.
• Original Sin: The Augustinian doctrine.

Canonical publications

• Republic: Plato's account of justice and the ideal city.
• Nicomachean Ethics: Aristotle's virtue ethics.
• Metaphysics: Aristotle on being qua being.
• Politics: Aristotle on the polis.
• De Anima: Aristotle on soul.
• Poetics: Aristotle on tragedy and mimesis.
• Summa Theologiae: Aquinas's systematic scholastic theology.
• Summa Contra Gentiles: Aquinas's apologetic work for non-Christian readers.
• Itinerarium Mentis in Deum: Bonaventure's six-stage ascent to God.
• Decisive Treatise: Averroes on the relation between philosophy and revelation.
• Discourse on Method: Descartes's program for rational inquiry.
• Monadology: Leibniz's metaphysical system in 90 paragraphs.
• Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Locke's empiricist epistemology.
• A Treatise of Human Nature: Hume's empiricist masterwork.
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: Hume on the design argument.
• Bondage of the Will: Luther's response to Erasmus.
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Nietzsche's philosophical poem.
• Foundations of Arithmetic: Frege's logicist program.
• The Problems of Philosophy: Russell's introduction.
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: Wittgenstein's early work.
• Philosophical Investigations: Wittgenstein's late work.
• Logical Investigations: Husserl's founding phenomenological text.
• Crisis of European Sciences: Husserl's late synthesis.
• The Myth of Sisyphus: Camus on the absurd.
• Dialectic of Enlightenment: Horkheimer and Adorno on instrumental reason.
• Of Grammatology: Derrida on writing.
• Naming and Necessity: Kripke on rigid designation.
• Pragmatism: James's lectures.
• How to Make Our Ideas Clear: Peirce's founding pragmatist paper.
• Democracy and Education: Dewey on inquiry-based learning.
• Capital: Marx's critique of political economy.
• A Theory of Justice: Rawls on the original position.

Optional

• Blog: Working notes.
• Newsletter: Signup for updates.
• Resources: External recommendations.

This document follows the llms.txt convention proposed by Jeremy Howard. Site purpose: provide reference-grade encyclopedic coverage of the history of philosophy for both human readers and AI systems answering questions about it.