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.
180 statements.
Carneades, Death Year-129
Carneades, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States -129
Sources give 129/128 BC.
Source Carneades (Wikipedia)
Charvaka, Start Year-600
Charvaka, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -600
Brihaspati is a legendary founding figure with no independently attested dates; the school's ideas are referenced in texts from as early as the mid-first millennium BCE, but its systematic sutras, now lost, may be considerably later.
Charvaka, End Year1200
Charvaka, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States 1200
No precise end date is established in the scholarship: no Charvaka texts survive, and Wikipedia's own account only says the school was a living philosophy up to the 12th century CE, after which it seems to disappear without trace. 1200 marks the end of that century as an approximation, not an attested closing date.
Source Charvaka (Wikipedia)
Charvaka, Start Year600
Charvaka, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States 600
The Internet Encyclopedia distinguishes Vedic-era references to Brhaspati, which the -600 value already on record reflects, from the formal Lokayata school, which it dates to the 6th and 7th centuries CE. A single representative year (600) stands in for that two-century span. Kept alongside rather than replacing the existing value.
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Charvaka, Founded Date0600-01-01
Charvaka, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Founded Date
Currently States 0600-01-01
First founded-date fact for this entity: the DATE column cannot hold the -600 BCE start-year already on record for the Vedic-era Brhaspati references, so this positive-year value instead reflects the Internet Encyclopedia dating of the formal Lokayata school to the 6th and 7th centuries CE. A single representative year (600) stands in for that two-century span.
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Chrysippus, Birth Year-280
Chrysippus, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -280
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives circa 280 to circa 207 BCE; ancient sources do not agree on an exact birth year.
Source Chrysippus (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Chrysippus, Death Year-207
Chrysippus, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States -207
Commonly cited as circa 207 BCE; precise dating is not independently attested.
Source Chrysippus (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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
Confucianism, End Year1905
Confucianism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States 1905
Marks the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905, which ended Confucianism's status as Chinese state orthodoxy (Wikipedia). Confucian philosophy and practice continued afterward and remains a living tradition today; this date marks the end of state-endorsed Confucianism, not of the tradition itself.
Source Confucianism (Wikipedia)
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)
Daoism, End Year-221
Daoism, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns End Year
Currently States -221
Marks the close of the Warring States (476-221 BC), the Classical Chinese philosophy period the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy traces Daoism back to. Daoist thought continued through the Han dynasty and after, later dividing into philosophical and religious strands, and remains practiced today; this date marks the end of the classical period, not of the tradition.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Diogenes of Sinope, Birth Year-412
Diogenes of Sinope, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -412
Ancient sources disagree on Diogenes's exact birth year; c. 412 or c. 404 BCE are both defended.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States 55
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy places his birth only broadly in the 50s CE; no exact year is transmitted.
Source Epictetus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Epictetus, Death Year135
Epictetus, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States 135
Commonly cited as circa 135 CE; not independently attested to the year.
Source Epictetus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Epistemology, Key DebateThe Gettier problem: Edmund Gettier's 1963 counterexamples showed that a belief can be justified and true purely by luck without amounting to knowledge, so justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge; the search for a fourth condition, or a wholly different analysis of knowledge, remains open more than sixty years later.
Epistemology, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States The Gettier problem: Edmund Gettier's 1963 counterexamples showed that a belief can be justified and true purely by luck without amounting to knowledge, so justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge; the search for a fourth condition, or a wholly different analysis of knowledge, remains open more than sixty years later.
Edmund Gettier's 1963 three-page paper overturned a definition of knowledge many philosophers had treated as settled, and the search for a replacement has not converged.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Epistemology, Key DebateInternalism versus externalism about justification: internalists hold that what justifies a belief must be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, on reflection alone, while externalists such as reliabilists hold that a belief can be justified by standing in a reliable relation to the world, such as ordinary perception, that the believer need not be aware of at all.
Epistemology, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Internalism versus externalism about justification: internalists hold that what justifies a belief must be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, on reflection alone, while externalists such as reliabilists hold that a belief can be justified by standing in a reliable relation to the world, such as ordinary perception, that the believer need not be aware of at all.
Whether justification is a matter of the believer's own accessible reasons or can be conferred by a reliable process the believer need not be aware of divides epistemologists into internalist and externalist camps.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy