Historical Periods in
Western Philosophy
I. The Ancient Period
From Way Back -- several hundred years BCE -- till about 300 AD
This period includes:
The Greek philosophers: Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many others. (See Appendix
I).
The Hebrew wisdom writings, including Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes
The Roman philosophers: Seneca, Epicurus, stoics and hedonists, etc.
II. The Medieval Period
From the 300s to late 1400s, AD
It is usually said to include philosophers like Augustine, the desert fathers, Bonventure,
Benedict, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas
III. The Modern Period
From 1500s to late 1700s, AD
This period includes one school of philosophers usually referred to as rationalists ,René
Descartes, Benedictus de Spinosa and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and another school of
philosophers usually referred to as empiricists, including Francis Bacon, John Locke, George
Berkeley and David Hume (See Appendix II)
IV. Contemporary Period
This period, usually said to date from the publication of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason in 1781, includes Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Swedenborg, and countless others.
Appendix I
A few significant dates in classical Greece
People
Socrates (470-399 BC, age 70)
Plato (428-347 BC, age 81. He's 29 when Socrates dies)
Aristotle (384-322 BC, age 62. He's 37 when Plato dies)
Hippocrates (c. 460- ? BC)
Thucydides (460-398 BC, age 62)
Events
490 BC Persian Wars (Athens Won)
470 BC Birth of Socrates (470-399 BC, 70)
431 BC Peloponnesian War begins (431-404). Athens lost. 27 years (Around age 40 or so
Socrates fought in this war)
430 BC Plague kills 1/2 the population, including Pericles. Second year of war
428 BC Birth of Plato (428-347, 81) at Athens. Fourth year of Peloponnesian War
423 BC Aristophanes comedy The Clouds performed (parody of Socrates)
416 BC Agathon presents his first tragedy, gives the party recounted in Plato's Symposium.
415 BC (The Melian Dialog, in Thucydides' History)
411 BC Setting date for The Republic
404 BC End of the Peloponnesian War. Athens surrenders to Sparta. Reign of the "Thirty
Tyrants." Plato is 24
400 BC Thucydides dies
399 BC Socrates' trial and execution for impiety and corrupting the youth.(Socrates is 70 years
old, Plato is 29)
399-387BC Plato writes the Early dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Laches, Charmides,
Ion, Lysis, Protagoras, & Gorgias
387BC Plato's first trip to Syracuse; friendship with Dion, son in law and brother in law of
Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse
386BC Foundation of Plato's Academy at Athens
386-67BC Middle dialogues written: Meno, Cratylus, Euthydemus, Phaedo, Symposium,
Menexenus, Republic, Phaedrus, Parmenides, Theaetetus
384BC Birth of Aristotle (384-322, 62) at Stagirus, in Macedonia
3??BC Plato's second trip to Syracuse, attempt to educate Dionysius II into a Philosopher-king.
Aristotle joins the Academy at age 17. Plato dies 20 years later
366-61BC Sophist, Statesman written
361BC Plato's third trip to Syracuse
360-347BC Late dialogues written: Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws
356BC Birth of Alexander the Great in Pella, Macedonia
347BC Death of Plato in Athens. Aristotle is 37
Appendix II
A Few Significant Dates in
The Modern Period
1517 Luther's Ninety-five theses: Beginning of the Reformation.
1543 Copernicus' The Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies: Beginning of the scientific revolution.
1607 Founding of the first English colony in North America, at Jamestown, Virginia.
1632 Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.
1633 Galileo condemned by the Inquisition.
1637 Descartes' Discourse on Method.
1677 Spinoza's Ethics.
1684 Leibnitz publishes his discovery of the infinitesimal calculus (he made the discovery in
1675; Newton had discovered it nine years earlier, but did not publish).
1687 Newton's Principia: climax of the scientific revolution.
1690 Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
1710 Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge.
1739-40 Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature.
1776 American Declaration of Independence. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
1781 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
1787 U.S. Constitution.
1789 French Revolution begins.
1799 Napoleon comes to power in France.