Atlas/Network

Philosophers Network

Teachers, rivals, and readers of antiquity in one graph — follow the human ties that carried ideas from Miletus to Rome.

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Pre-Socratics

c. 624–546 BCE
Traditionally the first philosopher, who sought a single natural principle (water) behind all things.
- → Taught: Anaximander
c. 610–546 BCE
Pupil of Thales; proposed the boundless (apeiron) as the origin and drew one of the first world maps.
- ← Taught: Thales
- → Read / studied: Pythagoras
c. 570–495 BCE
Founded a philosophical brotherhood that held number to be the essence of reality.
- ← Read / studied: Anaximander
- → Read / studied: Parmenides
c. 535–475 BCE
Taught that all things flow and that strife is the logos ordering the world.
- ↔ Rivalled: Parmenides
- → Read / studied: Plato
c. 515–450 BCE
Argued that being is one and change an illusion — the great rival of Heraclitus's flux.
- ← Read / studied: Pythagoras
- ↔ Rivalled: Heraclitus
- → Read / studied: Plato
c. 460–370 BCE
Co-founder of atomism, holding that reality is atoms and void — a doctrine Epicurus later inherited.
- → Read / studied: Epicurus

c. 470–399 BCE
Turned philosophy toward ethics and self-examination; taught by question, wrote nothing himself.
- → Taught: Plato
- → Taught: Xenophon
- → Taught: Antisthenes
Philosophy course →
c. 430–354 BCE
Soldier and writer; his Memorabilia preserve a more practical portrait of Socrates than Plato's.
- ← Taught: Socrates
c. 446–366 BCE
Pupil of Socrates who prized virtue and self-sufficiency, seeding the Cynic movement.
- ← Taught: Socrates
- → Taught: Diogenes of Sinope

c. 428–348 BCE
Socrates' student who founded the Academy and gave the West its first complete philosophical system.
- ← Read / studied: Parmenides
- ← Read / studied: Heraclitus
- ← Taught: Socrates
- → Taught: Aristotle
- ↔ Rivalled: Diogenes of Sinope
- → Read / studied: Plotinus
Philosophy course →
384–322 BCE
Studied twenty years in Plato's Academy before founding his own Lyceum and his own system.
- ← Taught: Plato
Logic course →
c. 204–270 CE
Founder of Neoplatonism; read Plato as a mystic of the One, shaping late-antique and medieval thought.
- ← Read / studied: Plato

c. 412–323 BCE
The archetypal Cynic who lived in a jar and mocked convention — Plato's exasperating rival in the agora.
- ← Taught: Antisthenes
- → Read / studied: Zeno of Citium
- ↔ Rivalled: Plato

c. 334–262 BCE
Founded Stoicism on the Painted Porch after studying with the Cynics — virtue as the only good.
- ← Read / studied: Diogenes of Sinope
- → Taught: Chrysippus
- ↔ Rivalled: Epicurus
- → Read / studied: Seneca
Stoicism: complete guide →
c. 279–206 BCE
The 'second founder' of Stoicism, whose logic and systematising made the school intellectually dominant.
- ← Taught: Zeno of Citium
- → Read / studied: Epictetus
c. 4 BCE–65 CE
Roman statesman and dramatist whose Letters made Stoic ethics vivid and personal.
- ← Read / studied: Zeno of Citium
- → Read / studied: Marcus Aurelius
Seneca's Letters →
c. 50–135 CE
Former slave turned teacher; his Discourses centre on the dichotomy of control.
- ← Read / studied: Chrysippus
- → Read / studied: Marcus Aurelius
The dichotomy of control →
121–180 CE
The philosopher-emperor whose Meditations are a private notebook of Stoic practice, shaped by reading Epictetus.
- ← Read / studied: Epictetus
- ← Read / studied: Seneca
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations →

341–270 BCE
Built a philosophy of tranquil pleasure on Democritus's atoms — the great rival school to the Stoa.
- ← Read / studied: Democritus
- ↔ Rivalled: Zeno of Citium
- ↔ Rivalled: Pyrrho

c. 360–270 BCE
Founder of Skepticism; suspended judgement on all things to reach an unshakeable calm.
- ↔ Rivalled: Epicurus

Related encyclopedias

The Atlas is one connected web — continue with a neighbouring encyclopedia.

From the Pre-Socratics to the 20th century — figures, schools, and landmark works on one axis.

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The web of intellectual influence across disciplines.

From the Sophists to the algorithm — how words have moved minds across the ages.