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.
80 statements.
Qualia, Origin Year1929
Qualia, Concepts
Standing
Concerns Origin Year
Currently States 1929
The term traces to earlier twentieth century philosophical usage; its best known statement is the 1974 paper on bat experience referenced in the description.
Ramanuja, Birth Year1017
Ramanuja, Death Year1137
Seneca, Birth Year-4
Socrates, Birth Year-470
Socrates, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -470
Ancient sources place his birth in 470 or 469 BCE; no contemporary record survives, and the date is reconstructed from later testimony about his age at death in 399 BCE and his recorded military service.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Tao Te Ching, Publication Year-400
Tao Te Ching, Works
Standing
Concerns Publication Year
Currently States -400
Dating estimates for the text's compilation range from the sixth to the fourth century BCE depending on whether a single early author or a later, multi-hand compilation is accepted; see the open question recorded on Laozi.
The Analects, Publication Year-400
The Analects, Works
Standing
Concerns Publication Year
Currently States -400
Compiled in stages by successive generations of disciples over roughly a century after Confucius's death in 479 BCE; no single compilation date is attested, and the text as it now stands is generally dated to the Warring States period.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Bhagavad Gita, Publication Year-200
The Bhagavad Gita, Works
Standing
Concerns Publication Year
Currently States -200
The Gita's date of composition is one of the most contested questions in the field: most scholars place it between roughly 200 BCE and 200 CE, with individual estimates ranging as early as the 5th to 4th century BCE (Kashi Nath Upadhyaya) to the 2nd century BCE (Jeaneane Fowler) to around 150 BCE (Robert N. Minor); traditional Hindu chronology places the underlying Mahabharata war, and so the Gita, far earlier still, around 3100 BCE. The dating depends heavily on the equally uncertain dating of the larger Mahabharata, into which the Gita may have been inserted after the epic's earliest layers. A final form is generally thought reached by the early Gupta period, around the 4th century CE.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Book of Lord Shang, DescriptionA foundational Legalist text traditionally attributed to Shang Yang, setting out the case for agriculture and warfare as the twin foundations of state strength, uniform law applied without exception, and the deliberate weakening of private virtue, learning, and commerce in favor of total loyalty to the ranking system of the state. Most scholars now regard it as a composite work, built up by later Legalist compilers around a core of ideas and possibly some material genuinely traceable to Shang Yang, rather than written by him alone.
The Book of Lord Shang, Works
Standing
Concerns Description
Currently States A foundational Legalist text traditionally attributed to Shang Yang, setting out the case for agriculture and warfare as the twin foundations of state strength, uniform law applied without exception, and the deliberate weakening of private virtue, learning, and commerce in favor of total loyalty to the ranking system of the state. Most scholars now regard it as a composite work, built up by later Legalist compilers around a core of ideas and possibly some material genuinely traceable to Shang Yang, rather than written by him alone.
Authorship is debated among sinologists; treated here as traditionally attributed rather than certainly authored.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Nicomachean Ethics, Publication Year-340
The Nicomachean Ethics, Works
Standing
Concerns Publication Year
Currently States -340
As lecture notes rather than a published text in the modern sense, the Nicomachean Ethics carries no firm date of composition; scholars conventionally place it in Aristotle's second Athenian period, after 335 BCE, with 340 BCE used here as a representative approximation.
Source The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
The Republic, Publication Year-375
The Republic, Works
Standing
Concerns Publication Year
Currently States -375
Plato's dialogues were not dated at the time of writing and carry no publication record; scholars place the Republic's composition in Plato's middle period on stylistic and doctrinal grounds, conventionally around 375 BCE, but no more precise date is independently attested.
Source The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
The Ship of Theseus, Origin Year75
The Ship of Theseus, Concepts
Standing
Concerns Origin Year
Currently States 75
75 CE marks Plutarch's Life of Theseus, the earliest surviving text to record the puzzle; the underlying question of identity through change is older than Plutarch's own account of it, and no earlier attested source names it explicitly.
Source Ship of Theseus (Wikipedia)
Value Theory, Key DebateValue monism versus value pluralism: whether value is reducible to a single master value, such as pleasure or preference satisfaction, or is irreducibly plural, with goods such as friendship, knowledge and beauty each mattering in their own right and not fully substitutable for one another, a dispute sharpened by Isaiah Berlin's defense of pluralism.
Value Theory, Branches of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Key Debate
Currently States Value monism versus value pluralism: whether value is reducible to a single master value, such as pleasure or preference satisfaction, or is irreducibly plural, with goods such as friendship, knowledge and beauty each mattering in their own right and not fully substitutable for one another, a dispute sharpened by Isaiah Berlin's defense of pluralism.
Isaiah Berlin's value pluralism, developed against monist utilitarian and Kantian systems alike, remains the reference point for this dispute.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Vedanta, Start Year-100
Vedanta, Schools of Philosophy
Standing
Concerns Start Year
Currently States -100
Scholars date the Brahma Sutras, which first systematized Vedanta as a school, anywhere from roughly the second century BCE to the early centuries CE; -100 marks the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's own circa first century BCE estimate for Badarayana, not a settled consensus.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Xunzi, Birth Year-310
Xunzi, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -310
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy dates his birth to circa 310 BCE; exact dates are unknown and disputed among scholars, including disagreement over whether he first traveled to the state of Qi at age fifteen or fifty.
Source Xunzi (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Xunzi, Death Year-235
Zeno of Citium, Birth Year-334
Zeno of Citium, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -334
Ancient sources disagree on Zeno's exact birth year; 334 BCE is the commonly cited approximation, reconstructed from Diogenes Laertius' account of his age at death and the dates of his arrival in Athens.
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Zeno of Citium, Death Year-262
Zhuangzi, Birth Year-369
Zhuangzi, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Birth Year
Currently States -369
Traditional dates (roughly 369 to 286 BCE) rest on later biographical accounts rather than contemporary records; scholars treat the precise years as approximate.
Zhuangzi, Death Year-286
Zhuangzi, Philosophers
Standing
Concerns Death Year
Currently States -286
See the birth-year note: known only from later, partly legendary accounts.