School #70
Platonism (Classical)
Plato
Classical Platonism, founded by Plato (c. 428–348 BCE) in the dialogues — above all the 'Republic,' 'Phaedo,' 'Timaeus,' and 'Symposium' — holds that the highest realities are the Forms (eide): eternal, immutable, non-physical archetypes of which all particular things are imperfect copies or participants. The Form of the Good is the supreme principle, the source of being and intelligibility for all other Forms, "beyond being in dignity and power" ('Republic' 509b). The physical world is a realm of becoming, not of being: material things are always changing, never fully real, and knowable only through opinion (doxa) rather than genuine knowledge (episteme). True knowledge is knowledge of the Forms, attained by the soul through dialectical reasoning and philosophical ascent. In the 'Timaeus,' Plato describes a Demiurge (craftsman-god) who fashions the physical cosmos by looking to the eternal Forms as patterns and imposing order on pre-existing chaotic matter (the Receptacle) — creation as organization, not ex nihilo production. The soul is immortal, separable from the body, and capable of apprehending the Forms directly in a disembodied state; incarnation in a body is a fall from which philosophy is the path of return. This is fundamentally distinct from Neoplatonism: Plato’s Forms are independently existing realities, not emanations from a single principle; the Demiurge is a separate agent, not an impersonal overflow; and the relationship between Forms and particulars is one of participation and imitation, not of procession and return.
Worldview
The Platonist adherent inhabits a world that is divided between the eternal realm of the Forms and the shifting, imperfect realm of physical becoming. To hold this ontology is to feel that the visible world is a shadow or copy of a more real, more beautiful, more intelligible reality accessible only to the philosophical intellect. The fundamental orientation is one of intellectual eros: the soul is drawn upward from the particulars of sense experience toward the universal Forms, and ultimately toward the Form of the Good, which is the source of all being and intelligibility. Reality feels layered, with the deepest truths hidden beneath the surface of appearances, and philosophy is experienced as a process of awakening, an ascent from the Cave into the light. The framework classifies this as Cosmic-ordering metaphysical agency: the Form of the Good and the realm of Forms order reality as impersonal eternal principles; even the Demiurge of the Timaeus is a craftsman who looks to the Forms, not a personal covenant-making god. The framework reads this as Reason-grounded moral authority: the ascent of the soul through dialectic toward the Form of the Good is the source of right ordering; the philosopher-ruler is answerable to what reason discloses in the realm of Forms, not to a revealed text or a charismatic experience.
Moral Implications
The ethical framework of Platonism is grounded in the objective reality of the Good as a Form that exists independently of human opinion or convention. Virtue is knowledge: to know the Good is to do it, and moral failure is ultimately a form of ignorance. Justice consists in each part of the soul performing its proper function under the governance of reason, and the just society mirrors this internal order. Responsibility is active and intellectual: the philosopher who has ascended to knowledge of the Forms is obligated to return to the Cave and govern, even at personal cost. The tradition generates a powerful ethic of education as the highest social good, since moral improvement depends on intellectual illumination.
Practical Implications
Practically, Platonism has shaped Western education through its emphasis on mathematics, dialectic, and the liberal arts as instruments of intellectual ascent. It informs attitudes toward art (as imitation of imitation, two steps removed from the Forms), politics (the philosopher-king as the ideal ruler), and science (the conviction that nature is mathematically structured). In the modern world, Platonic realism about mathematical objects continues to influence the philosophy of mathematics, and the Platonic emphasis on objective truth and the reality of values provides a counterweight to relativism and constructivism.
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I. Time
Time is both finite and emergent — in the 'Timaeus,' time is created by the Demiurge as the "moving image of eternity," a feature of the physical cosmos but not of the eternal realm of the Forms. The Forms exist in a timeless eternity that is not extended through succession; physical time is emergent from the Demiurge’s ordering activity. Time is continuous and linear: the celestial motions that measure time are smooth and unbroken. Direction is uni-directional: the physical world proceeds from its creation by the Demiurge toward an open future. Freedom is non-deterministic: the Demiurge acts with purpose and intelligence, and human souls possess rational agency.
Attributes
Extent: Both
Ontological Status: Emergent
Grain: Continuous
Freedom: Non-Deterministic
Traversability: Linear
Dimensionality: One
Direction: Uni-directional
✦
II. Space
Space is finite and emergent — the Receptacle (chora) in the 'Timaeus' is the spatial medium in which the Demiurge imposes form on pre-existing chaos, but it is not an independently existing substance; it is the "nurse of becoming," a barely intelligible matrix that receives the imprint of the Forms. The cosmos is a finite sphere, modeled on the Form of the Living Being. Curvature is curved: the cosmos is spherical, and the celestial bodies move in circular orbits. Locality is local: physical bodies interact through spatial proximity within the ordered cosmos.
Attributes
Extent: Finite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Curvature: Curved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◉
III. Matter
Matter is finite and emergent — the physical world is constituted by the Demiurge’s imposition of mathematical form on the Receptacle. Matter in itself (the Receptacle) is nearly nothing — a formless, characterless medium that acquires its properties only through participation in the Forms. The four elements are constructed from geometric solids (the Platonic solids), making matter ultimately mathematical in character. Matter is conserved: the total material substrate persists, though its forms change. It is local: material objects occupy determinate positions within the spherical cosmos.
Attributes
Extent: Finite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Conservation: Conserved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◎
IV. Observer
The human observer is an immortal soul temporarily incarnated in a mortal body. The soul has existed before its current embodiment and will exist after it — time instance is multiple because the soul passes through successive incarnations and periods of disembodied existence between lives. Space instance is multiple: the soul inhabits the physical world during incarnation and the intelligible realm between lives. Knowledge extent is total in principle: the soul has apprehended the Forms directly in its pre-incarnate state, and learning is recollection (anamnesis) of what the soul already knows. Knowledge retainment is total: genuine knowledge of the Forms, once recovered through dialectic, is permanent and indestructible — it belongs to the immortal rational soul, not to the perishable body. Physicality is both: the soul is embodied during life but is essentially disembodied and achieves its highest state when freed from the body. Agency is active: the philosopher actively pursues wisdom through dialectical questioning and the ascent from the Cave; knowledge is not passively received but actively recovered. Number is plural: there are many individual souls, each capable of independent philosophical ascent, though they apprehend the same objective Forms.
Attributes
Time Instance: Multiple
Space Instance: Multiple
Extent of Knowledge: Total
Retainment of Knowledge: Total
Physicality: Both
Agency: Active
Number: Plural
Metaphysical Agency: Cosmic-ordering
Moral Authority: Reason
Theological Method: N/A
⚡
V. Energy
Energy is infinite and emergent — the Demiurge’s creative activity imparts motion and order to the Receptacle, and this animating power derives ultimately from the World Soul, which the Demiurge fashions as the intermediary between the eternal Forms and the material cosmos. The World Soul is the source of all motion and change in the physical world. Conservation holds: the cosmos, once ordered by the Demiurge, maintains its structure; the World Soul ensures the perpetuation of celestial and terrestrial motion. Dispersibility is irreversible: the physical world moves from less ordered to more ordered states under the Demiurge’s influence, but material things, being imperfect copies of the Forms, tend toward dissolution and must be continually sustained.
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Conservation: Conserved
Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉
VI. Information
Information is substantival and conserved — the Forms are the ultimate informational content of reality: eternal, immutable, independently existing truths that are not constructed by any mind but discovered by it. The Form of the Good is the source of all intelligibility. Information is conserved because the Forms are indestructible and unchanging; they cannot be lost, corrupted, or diminished. Information is discrete because the Forms are distinct, individual, and countable — the Form of Justice, the Form of Beauty, the Form of Equality are separate entities, not a continuum. The framework places this as conserved at both scales: the Forms are eternal informational structures at the cosmic scale, and the rational soul is immortal at the personal-identity scale — its pattern, kindred to the Forms, is not destroyed at the death of the body.
Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival
Cosmic Conservation: Conserved
Personal Conservation: Conserved
Granularity: Discrete
Experiments This School Responds To (9)
Plato's Cave
The founding image: reality is hierarchical; philosophical education is the soul's ascent from shadow to Form.
The Ring of Gyges
The founding challenge to instrumentalism: Socrates' answer (justice is constitutive of soul-health) sets the agenda for two millennia of ethics.
Hilbert's Hotel
Actual infinity is mathematically real; Hilbert's hotel correctly describes its properties. The strangeness reflects our finite intuitions, not a defect in the mathematics.
Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis
A radical extension of Plato: mathematical objects are not just real but the only real objects. The MUH is mathematical realism taken to its ontological …
Russell's Paradox
Platonists retain the reality of mathematical objects but must accept that not every specification picks out an object. The hierarchy of sets is real but …
Cantor's Diagonal Argument
A canonical platonic discovery: the uncountability of the reals is a fact about the mathematical universe, independent of our means of representation.
Kripke's "Plus" vs "Quus"
Functions are abstract objects; we grasp them by acquaintance with mathematical structure, not by surveying finite past use. Quus is a coherent function we simply …
Meno's Slave Boy
The founding text for the doctrine of recollection: the soul knew the Forms before birth and remembers them through dialectic.
Berry's Paradox
Numbers and their properties are independent of how we name them; Berry's paradox is about naming, not about numbers themselves.
Films Reading Through This School (4)
The Matrix
A direct cinematic Plato's Cave: the matrix is the shadow on the wall, the real world is the painful daylight outside. Morpheus is Socrates leading …
2001: A Space Odyssey
The monoliths are Platonic objects: perfectly proportional, ahistorical, embodiments of a higher intelligence that intervenes in the world of becoming.
Pi
Beneath Pythagorean number-mysticism and Lurianic gematria runs a Platonist commitment: the patterns Max chases are real, mind-independent, and prior to any of the things they …
The Truman Show
A modern version of the Cave: Truman is the prisoner who turns toward the light. His exit is the ascent.
Debates Where This School Is Allied (17)
The Russell–Frege Correspondence
Founder of modern logic; recipient of the bad news
Voltaire–Leibniz on Theodicy
Theodicist; philosophical optimist
Anselm and Gaunilo on the Ontological Argument
Augustinian-Platonist theologian
Nietzsche vs Wagner
Composer; theorist of total artwork
Spinoza and Leibniz
Rationalist substance-pluralist
Plato vs Protagoras
Philosophical realist; defender of objective truth and virtue
Aristotle vs Plato on the Forms
Theorist of separate Forms
Mencius vs Xunzi on Human Nature
Confucian theorist of innate goodness
Frege vs Husserl on Psychologism
Anti-psychologist logician
Frege vs Husserl on Psychologism
Recanting psychologist, founder of phenomenology
Newton vs Leibniz on Calculus Priority
German polymath; court librarian at Hanover
Lewis vs Stalnaker on Counterfactuals
Modal realist; analytical philosopher
Heraclitus vs Parmenides
Philosopher of Being; founder of ontology
Plato vs Diogenes
Founder of the Academy; metaphysician of the Forms
Anscombe vs C.S. Lewis at the Socratic Club
Christian apologist; literary scholar
Augustine vs the Manichaeans
Latin Church Father; ex-Manichaean
Plotinus vs the Gnostics
Founder of Neoplatonism
Works that name Platonism (Classical) in their embodiments
Foundational texts that draw on this school, with each work's declared weight.
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The Republic
Plato · c. 380–375 BC
Symposium
Plato · c. 385–380 BC (middle dialogue)
Timaeus (Late)
Plato · c. 360 BC (late dialogue)
Phaedo
Plato · c. 380 BC (middle dialogue)
On the Creation of the World
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20–40 CE
On the Differences between Plato and Aristotle (Late (Pletho was approximately 84; the work is the product of a lifetime of Platonist conviction))
Georgius Gemistus Pletho · c. 1439 (composed in connection with Pletho's attendance at the Council of Florence)
Phaedrus (Late)
Plato · c. 370 BC (late-middle dialogue)
Meno (Early)
Plato · c. 386–380 BC (transitional dialogue)
Apology (Early)
Plato · c. 399–395 BC (shortly after Socrates's death)
Theaetetus (Late)
Plato · c. 369 BC (late dialogue)
Laws (Latest)
Plato · Composed late in life (final years before 347 BC); unrevised at his death
On the Life of Moses
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20–40 CE
Fragments and Testimonia
Speusippus · c. 347–339 BCE
What is Cantor's Continuum Problem? (Middle-to-late)
Kurt Gödel · 1947 (revised and expanded 1964)
Crito (Early)
Plato · c. 399–395 BC (composed shortly after Socrates's death)
Parmenides
Plato · c. 370 BC
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Late (Murdoch's longest and most ambitious philosophical book, published nine years after the Gifford Lectures))
Iris Murdoch · 1992 (Chatto & Windus, based on the 1982 Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh)
Translation of Plato's dialogues (Mature)
Friedrich Schleiermacher · 1804-28 (multi-volume translation with extensive prefaces and notes)
Chronographia
Michael Psellos · c. 1063–1078 (composed in stages)
Platonic Theology (Mature (Ficino's philosophical magnum opus, composed during the height of his work at the Florentine Academy))
Marsilio Ficino · 1469–1474 (completed 1474; published 1482)
Euthyphro (Early)
Plato · c. 399-395 BC
Critias (Late)
Plato · c. 360-347 BC
Statesman (Late)
Plato · c. 360-347 BC
The Sovereignty of Good (Mid (her major philosophical statement, alongside Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals 1992))
Iris Murdoch · 1970 (collecting essays from 1956-67)
Sophist
Plato · c. 360 BC
On Nature (Peri Physeos) (Early)
Parmenides of Elea · c. 475 BCE
Moralia (Ēthika) (Late)
Plutarch of Chaeronea · c. 100 CE
Foundations of a General Theory of Manifolds (Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre) (Mid)
Georg Cantor · 1883
Our Mathematical Universe (Late)
Max Tegmark · 2014
Parallel Lives (Late)
Plutarch (Mestrius Plutarchus) · c. 96-119 CE
De Re Publica (Mid-mature (Cicero's political philosophical synthesis, composed during the breakdown of the late Republic))
Marcus Tullius Cicero · 54-51 BC (composed during a period of political withdrawal from active life)
The Black Prince (Mature)
Iris Murdoch · 1973 (Chatto & Windus); James Tait Black Memorial Prize 1973
Italian Journey (Late-mature retrospective)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1816 (parts I-II) and 1829 (part III); recounting 1786-88 journey
Siris (Late)
George Berkeley · 1744
Der Gedanke (The Thought) (Late)
Gottlob Frege · 1918-19
Memorabilia
Xenophon · c. 370–360 BCE
Aeneid
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) · c. 29–19 BCE (unfinished at Virgil's death)
Arguments and Testimonia (Reconstructed)
Arcesilaus (reconstructed) · c. mid-3rd century BCE (original arguments); testimonia from 1st c. BCE–3rd c. CE
The Spiritual Medicine
Al-Razi (Rhazes) · c. 900–925 CE
Elements
Euclid · c. 300 BCE
The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy (Late)
Hans-Georg Gadamer · 1978
Gravity and Grace (Posthumous (Weil died in 1943 at age 34))
Simone Weil · 1947 (posthumous; assembled from Weil's notebooks by Gustave Thibon)
Long Commentary on De Anima (Late)
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) · c. 1190
Mabādiʾ Ārāʾ Ahl al-Madīna al-Fāḍila (Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City) (Mid)
al-Fārābī (Abū Naṣr) · c. 942
Fī l-Falsafa al-Ūlā (On First Philosophy) (Early)
al-Kindī (Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb) · c. 850
The Emperor's New Mind (Late)
Roger Penrose · 1989
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Late)
Nicolaus Copernicus · 1543 (published; composed 1510-30s)
An Example of a New Type of Cosmological Solution to Einstein's Field Equations (Mature (the Princeton period — Gödel's only published paper in general relativity))
Kurt Gödel · 1949 (Reviews of Modern Physics 21, in the Einstein 70th-birthday Festschrift)
The Bell (Early-mature (Murdoch's fourth novel, the first to establish her mature manner))
Iris Murdoch · 1958 (Chatto & Windus)
The Fragility of Goodness (Mature (the book that established Nussbaum as a major figure))
Martha Nussbaum · 1986 (Cambridge UP; revised 2001 with substantial new preface)
The Discarded Image (Last)
C. S. Lewis · Lectures delivered Oxford 1950s; published posthumously 1964 (Cambridge UP)
The Sea, The Sea (Late-mature)
Iris Murdoch · 1978 (Chatto & Windus); Booker Prize 1978
Plato's Dialectical Ethics (Early)
Hans-Georg Gadamer · 1931
De Institutione Musica (On Music) (Early)
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 500-510
De Institutione Arithmetica (On Arithmetic) (Early)
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 500-510
Fragments (Reconstructed)
Posidonius (reconstructed) · c. 1st century BCE (original works); testimonia from 1st c. BCE–2nd c. CE
Mathematical Commentary on Diophantus
Hypatia of Alexandria · c. 400 CE
Definitions of Philosophy
David the Invincible · c. 5th–6th century (precise date uncertain)
Discourses (Orations)
Dio Chrysostom (Dio of Prusa) · c. 70–115 CE
Elements of Theology
Proclus Lycaeus (Proclus Diadochus) · c. 450–470 CE
Oration on the Dignity of Man (Early (Pico was 23 years old; this was his first major philosophical statement))
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola · 1486 (composed as the opening address for the planned Roman disputation of the 900 Theses; the disputation never took place)
The Consistency of the Axiom of Choice and the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis (Middle)
Kurt Gödel · 1940
Gödel's Ontological Argument (Late (private manuscript))
Kurt Gödel · c. 1941-1970 (manuscript); shown to D. Scott 1970; published posthumously 1995
Sonnets (Career-spanning)
William Shakespeare · c. 1590s–1604; printed 1609
The Consolation of Philosophy
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 524 AD (in prison at Pavia, awaiting execution by Theodoric)
The Foundations of Arithmetic
Gottlob Frege · 1884
The Need for Roots (Posthumous)
Simone Weil · 1943 (written for Free France in London in the months before Weil's death; published posthumously 1949)
Waiting for God (Posthumous)
Simone Weil · 1942 letters to Father Perrin; published posthumously 1950
Repetition (Early-mid (the same explosive 1843 as Either/Or and Fear and Trembling))
Søren Kierkegaard · 1843 (published the same day as Fear and Trembling, under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius)
Adagia (Long (composed across Erasmus's entire mature career))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1500 (1st edition, c. 800 adages); 1536 (final edition, c. 4,151 adages)
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Late (the mature systematic statement of archetypal psychology))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1934-55 (essays composed across two decades); 1959 (compiled as Volume 9, Part 1 of the Collected Works)
Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History (Late)
Jan Patočka · 1975 (Czech samizdat; revised; English 1996)
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Mid)
Bernard Williams · 1985
Intention (Mid)
G.E.M. Anscombe · 1957
Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Early)
Michael J. Sandel · 1982 (2nd edn 1998)
Kitāb al-Najāt (Book of Salvation) (Mid)
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) · c. 1024-27
Summa Logicae (Late)
William of Ockham · c. 1323
The Divine Names (De Divinis Nominibus) (Late)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite · late 5th or early 6th century
Frontiers of Justice (Late)
Martha C. Nussbaum · 2006
On Nature and Purifications (Fragments) (Early)
Empedocles of Acragas · c. 450 BCE
On Nature (Fragments) (Early)
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae · c. 460 BCE
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (Late)
Diogenes Laertius · c. 3rd century CE
Isagoge (Introduction to Aristotle's Categories) (Late)
Porphyry of Tyre · c. 270
On First Principles (Peri Archōn / De Principiis) (Early)
Origen of Alexandria · c. 230
Oration on the Dignity of Man (Oratio de hominis dignitate) (Mid)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola · 1486
Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio) (Late)
Niccolò Machiavelli · 1517 (published 1531)
Utopia (De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia) (Mid)
St. Thomas More · 1516
Natural Goodness (Late)
Philippa Foot · 2001
On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems (Early)
Kurt Gödel · 1931
Astronomia Nova (Mid)
Johannes Kepler · 1609
Translations and commentaries on Aristotle's Categories (Mature (the late translation programme Boethius announced and partly completed before his death))
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 510-23 (the translations and commentary cycle, completed in Boethius's last years before his 524 execution)
Tusculan Disputations (Late (composed in the year of Cicero's daughter's death, in his most intense period of philosophical writing))
Marcus Tullius Cicero · 45 BC (Tusculanae Disputationes; composed at Tusculum after the death of his daughter Tullia)
On Learned Ignorance (Mature (the founding work of Cusa's philosophical career, composed at age 39))
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1440 (composed on the return voyage from the failed Council of Florence union with the Greeks)
On Conjectures (Mature (the systematic epistemological development of the docta-ignorantia framework))
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · c. 1442-43 (composed shortly after De Docta Ignorantia, dedicated to Cardinal Cesarini)
Opus Tripartitum (Late (Eckhart's most ambitious Latin project, undertaken in the years before the 1326 trial))
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1311-26 (planned during Eckhart's second Paris regency, never completed; only fragments survive)
Vom Edlen Menschen (Mature (probably from the Strasbourg years before the trial))
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1308-13 (Strasbourg or Paris period)
Poetics (Mature)
Aristotle · c. 335 BC (composed during Aristotle's Lyceum period; only the book on tragedy and epic survives; the book on comedy is lost)
The Allegory of Love (Mature)
C. S. Lewis · 1936 (Oxford UP); Hawthornden Prize 1936
Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (Early)
Iris Murdoch · 1953 (Bowes & Bowes, Cambridge)
On Truth (Mature)
Anselm of Canterbury · c. 1080-85
Faust II (Last)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1825-31 (completed shortly before Goethe's 1832 death; published posthumously 1832)
The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (Late)
Simone Weil · 1939 (written), 1940-41 (published in Cahiers du Sud)
The Meaning of Love (Late)
Vladimir Solovyov · 1892-94
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Basic Laws of Arithmetic) (Mature)
Gottlob Frege · 1893 (vol. 1), 1903 (vol. 2)
Function and Concept (Mature)
Gottlob Frege · 1891
The Principles of Mathematics (Early)
Bertrand Russell · 1903
Against Celsus
Origen of Alexandria · c. 248 CE
The Consolation of Philosophy
Boethius · 524 CE
Olympian Odes
Pindar · c. 476–452 BCE
Golden Verses and Testimonia
Pythagoras of Samos (attributed and reported) · c. 6th century BCE (Golden Verses probably 5th–3rd century BCE; testimonia various)
Conics
Apollonius of Perga · c. 200 BCE
On Nature (fragments)
Philolaus of Croton · c. 440–400 BCE
Opera and Drama (Early-to-Middle)
Richard Wagner · 1851
Der Ring des Nibelungen (Middle-to-late (career-spanning))
Richard Wagner · 1848–1874 (poem 1848–52; music 1853–74; complete premiere Bayreuth 1876)
Proslogion
Anselm of Canterbury · 1077–78 (Abbey of Bec)
The Enneads
Plotinus (edited by Porphyry c. 301) · Composed c. 254–270 AD; edited by Porphyry c. 301
The Problems of Philosophy (Early)
Bertrand Russell · 1912
On Free Choice of the Will (Early)
Augustine of Hippo · c. 387–395 (Book I in Rome 388; Books II–III at Hippo c. 391–395)
A History of Western Philosophy (Late)
Bertrand Russell · 1945
Divine Comedy: Inferno (Late (Dante's exile years))
Dante Alighieri · c. 1308-1320 (composed during Dante's exile from Florence; completed shortly before his death in 1321)
Monologion (Early (Anselm's first major work, before the Proslogion))
Anselm of Canterbury · c. 1076 (composed at the abbey of Bec; the first major work of mature scholastic theology)
Enchiridion Militis Christiani (Early (Erasmus's first major work))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1503 (with a famous expanded 1518 preface that became a humanist-Reformation manifesto)
Science and the Modern World (Mid (the major statement of philosophical-cultural critique, preceding the technical metaphysics of Process and Reality))
Alfred North Whitehead · 1925 (the Lowell Lectures, Harvard; the proximate prelude to Process and Reality, 1929)
Lectures on Aesthetics (Late (Berlin lectures))
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1820s (delivered as lectures); 1835-38 (compiled and published posthumously by H. G. Hotho)
Scivias (Early (the first of her three major visionary works))
Hildegard of Bingen · 1141-51 (composed in the decade after Hildegard's call to write, ten years after entering the monastic life)
On Christian Doctrine (Mid-late (composed across three decades))
Augustine of Hippo · 397 (Books 1-3.25); 426-27 (Books 3.25-4, completed near the end of Augustine's life)
Philosophical Fragments (Mid (the same productive 1844 as Concept of Anxiety))
Søren Kierkegaard · 1844 (published under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus)
De Brevitate Vitae (Mid)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 49 AD
On the Heavens
Aristotle · c. 350 BC
On Nature (Fragments)
Heraclitus of Ephesus · c. 500 BC (the fragments preserved through later authors' quotations)
Parisian Questions (Mid-late)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1300-1326 (the scholastic-Latin works composed across Eckhart's academic career)
Praise of Folly (Mid (Erasmus's most widely read book))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1509 (composed during a visit to Thomas More); 1511 (first published)
Psychological Types (Mid (the major systematic work after his 1912-13 break with Freud))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1921
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Mid-late (mature systematic statement))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1933 (essay collection, English translation by Cary F. Baynes)
Four Quartets (Late (Eliot's mature Anglo-Catholic period))
Thomas Stearns Eliot · 1936 (Burnt Norton); 1940 (East Coker); 1941 (The Dry Salvages); 1942 (Little Gidding); 1943 (collected publication)
Vita Nuova (Early (Dante's first major work))
Dante Alighieri · c. 1295
Symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum (Mid-late)
Hildegard of Bingen · c. 1150-79
Psychology and Alchemy (Late)
Carl Gustav Jung · 1944
Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Late (the major autobiographical work))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1957-61 (recorded conversations with Aniela Jaffé); published 1962
De Tranquillitate Animi (Mid-late)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 60 AD
De Vita Beata (Mid-late)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 58 AD
Truth and Method (Mid)
Hans-Georg Gadamer · 1960 (German; English 1975, 2nd rev. ed. 1989)
On the Plurality of Worlds (Late (Lewis's mature systematic statement of the modal-realist programme))
David Lewis · 1986
The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics (Late)
Hans Urs von Balthasar · 1961-69 (Vol I-VII; English 1982-91)
Mind and World (Late)
John McDowell · 1994 (1991 John Locke Lectures at Oxford)
Reflections on the Revolution in France (Late)
Edmund Burke · 1790
The Federalist Papers (Mid)
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay · 1787-88 (Independent Journal, New York Packet, Daily Advertiser)
Sources of the Self (Mid)
Charles Taylor · 1989
The Hedgehog and the Fox (Mid)
Isaiah Berlin · 1953
Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa-l-Tanbīhāt (Remarks and Admonitions) (Late)
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) · c. 1030
Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq (The Philosophy of Illumination) (Mid)
Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī · c. 1186
Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (The Mind's Road to God) (Mid)
St. Bonaventure (Giovanni di Fidanza) · 1259
Ordinatio (Late)
John Duns Scotus (the Subtle Doctor) · c. 1300
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (Late)
Nicholas of Cusa (Nikolaus von Kues) · 1440
The Life of Moses (De Vita Moysis) (Late)
St. Gregory of Nyssa · c. 390
Periphyseon (On the Division of Nature) (Mid)
John Scotus Eriugena · c. 867
Discourses (Diatribai) (Mid)
Epictetus (recorded by Arrian) · c. 108 CE
On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei) (Early)
St. Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 318
On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto) (Late)
St. Basil of Caesarea (the Great) · c. 375
Theological Orations (Orations 27-31) (Mid)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian) · 380
Ambigua to John (Ambigua ad Iohannem) (Late)
St. Maximus the Confessor · c. 628-30
Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (De Fide Orthodoxa) (Late)
St. John of Damascus · c. 743
Sic et Non (Yes and No) (Early)
Peter Abelard · c. 1121
Didascalicon (On the Study of Reading) (Early)
Hugh of St Victor · c. 1127
The Prince (Il Principe) (Late)
Niccolò Machiavelli · 1513 (first printed 1532)
Two New Sciences (Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno à Due Nuove Scienze) (Late)
Galileo Galilei · 1638
New Science (Late)
Giambattista Vico · 1725 (1st edn); 1730 (2nd); 1744 (3rd, definitive)
The Spirit of the Laws (De l'esprit des lois) (Late)
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu · 1748
Faust, Part Two (Faust: Der Tragödie zweiter Teil) (Late)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832 (composed 1825-31; published posthumously)
The End of History and the Last Man (Mid)
Francis Fukuyama · 1992
Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (Mid)
Mary Midgley · 1978
The Justification of the Good (Opravdanie dobra) (Late)
Vladimir Solovyov · 1897
Athens and Jerusalem (Athènes et Jérusalem) (Late)
Lev Shestov · 1938
Mere Christianity (Mid)
C.S. Lewis · 1952 (based on BBC radio talks 1941-44)
Paradiso (Divine Comedy, Cantica III) (Late)
Dante Alighieri · c. 1316-21
Paradise Lost (Late)
John Milton · 1667 (1st edn, 10 books); 1674 (2nd edn, 12 books)
An Essay on Man (Late)
Alexander Pope · 1733-34
Begriffsschrift (Early)
Gottlob Frege · 1879
Ulysses (Mid)
James Joyce · 1914-21 (composed); 1922 (published)
The Life of the Mind (Late)
Hannah Arendt · 1977-78 (Vol I Thinking; Vol II Willing; Vol III Judging unfinished at her death)
Principia Ethica (Early)
G.E. Moore · 1903
On Sense and Reference (Mid)
Gottlob Frege · 1892
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (Late)
James Clerk Maxwell · 1873 (2 vols.; 2nd ed. 1881; 3rd ed. 1891)
Oedipus Rex (Early)
Sophocles · c. 429 BCE (first performed at the Dionysia)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Late)
Oscar Wilde · 1890 (Lippincott's); 1891 (revised book)
Foundations of Geometry (Mid)
David Hilbert · 1899 (1st ed.); 1903-1971 (multiple subsequent eds)
Studies in Iconology (Late)
Erwin Panofsky · 1939
The Unreality of Time (Late)
J. M. E. McTaggart · 1908
Past, Present and Future (Late)
Arthur N. Prior · 1967
Upheavals of Thought (Late-mature (Nussbaum's magnum opus, eight years in the writing after the Gifford Lectures))
Martha Nussbaum · 2001 (Cambridge UP; based on the Gifford Lectures, Edinburgh, 1993)
De Officiis (Late (Cicero's last completed philosophical work, written in the months before his proscription and execution))
Marcus Tullius Cicero · 44 BC (composed at Tusculum, October-December 44 BC, in the months between Caesar's assassination and Cicero's own death in December 43 BC)
Disputed Questions on Truth (Early-mature (Aquinas's first major work after the Sentences commentary))
Thomas Aquinas · 1256-59 (Paris, during Aquinas's first regency)
The Vision of God (Mature (one of Cusa's most condensed and beautiful late works))
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1453 (composed for the Benedictine monks of Tegernsee, sent with an icon of an all-seeing face)
Reden der Unterweisung (Early (Eckhart's first major vernacular work, written before the trials of his last decade))
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1294-98 (Eckhart's early period as Prior of Erfurt and Vicar of Thuringia, before the first Paris regency)
Against Praxeas (Late (composed in Tertullian's Montanist period but with orthodox Trinitarian content))
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus · c. 213 (in Tertullian's Montanist period)
al-Kashf ʿan Manāhij al-Adilla (Mature)
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) · c. 1180
The Assayer (Mature (composed during the brief honeymoon between Galileo and the new Pope Urban VIII))
Galileo Galilei · 1623 (Rome: Accademia dei Lincei)
Democracy Matters (Late-mature (the post-9/11 sequel to the 1993 Race Matters))
Cornel West · 2004 (Penguin)
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (Early (Spinoza's first major philosophical project, left incomplete as the Ethics took shape))
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza · c. 1661-62 (unfinished; published posthumously in the Opera Posthuma 1677)
Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (Early (the work that launched Rousseau's career))
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1750 (Discours sur les sciences et les arts, Geneva)
Naturales Quaestiones (Late)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 62-64 CE (composed during Seneca's retirement)
De Otio (Late)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 62 CE (composed at the time of Seneca's retirement from Nero's court)
De Constantia Sapientis (Mid)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 56 CE (early in Seneca's tenure as Nero's advisor)
Rhetoric (Mature)
Aristotle · c. 350-330 BC (composed during Aristotle's mature Lyceum period)
Topics (Mid-mature)
Aristotle · c. 350-340 BC (one of Aristotle's earlier mature logical works)
On Generation and Corruption (Mature)
Aristotle · c. 350 BC (during Aristotle's mature Lyceum period)
The Tempest (Last (probably Shakespeare's last sole-authored play))
William Shakespeare · c. 1610-11 (first performed Whitehall, 1 November 1611)
Representative Men (Mature)
Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1850 (Phillips, Sampson & Co., Boston; based on lectures delivered 1845-46)
Surprised by Joy (Late-mature)
C. S. Lewis · 1955 (Geoffrey Bles, London)
Purgatorio (Mature)
Dante Alighieri · c. 1314-19
De Vulgari Eloquentia (Mid-mature)
Dante Alighieri · c. 1304-05 (two of four planned books)
De Monarchia (Late)
Dante Alighieri · c. 1313-18 (during Dante's exile)
On Free Will (Mature)
Anselm of Canterbury · c. 1080-85
A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime (Late)
John Archibald Wheeler · 1990
The End for Which God Created the World (Late)
Jonathan Edwards · c. 1755 (composed); 1765 (posthumous publication)
The Nature of True Virtue (Late)
Jonathan Edwards · c. 1755 (composed); 1765 (posthumous publication)
De Veritate (On Truth) (Mid)
Anselm of Canterbury · 1080-86
Posthumous Writings (Posthumous)
Gottlob Frege · c. 1879-1925 (composed); 1969 (German collection); 1979 (English)
De Legibus (On the Laws) (Mature)
Marcus Tullius Cicero · c. 52-44 BCE
Essay on Conic Sections (Early)
Blaise Pascal · 1640
The Artwork of the Future (Early)
Richard Wagner · 1849
Letter to a Priest (Final)
Simone Weil · November 1942; published posthumously 1951
On Abstinence from Animal Food
Porphyry · c. 270–280 CE
Against Heresies
Irenaeus of Lyon · c. 180 CE
Hexaemeron (Late)
Basil of Caesarea · c. 370 CE
Stromateis (Miscellanies)
Clement of Alexandria · c. 198–203 CE
The Abolition of Man
C. S. Lewis · 1943 (Riddell Memorial Lectures, Durham, 1942)
The Birth of Tragedy (Early)
Friedrich Nietzsche · 1872 (with "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" preface added 1886)
Categories
Aristotle · c. 350 BC (early in the Aristotelian corpus, opening the Organon)
On Interpretation
Aristotle · c. 350 BC (early in the Organon)
A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (Mid (Northampton pastorate; the major work of evangelical reflection))
Jonathan Edwards · 1746
Adventures of Ideas (Late (Whitehead's last major book))
Alfred North Whitehead · 1933
The Copernican Revolution (Early (Kuhn's first book))
Thomas Kuhn · 1957
Science of Logic (Mid (the central work of the mature Hegelian system))
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1812 (Book I, Being); 1813 (Book II, Essence); 1816 (Book III, Concept); 1832 (Hegel's revised Book I, posthumous)
The Perennial Philosophy (Late (Huxley's mature spiritual-philosophical synthesis))
Aldous Huxley · 1945
The Doors of Perception (Late)
Aldous Huxley · 1954 (essay-length; often published together with the 1956 Heaven and Hell)
The Seven Storey Mountain (Early (Merton's breakthrough book; the spiritual autobiography of his conversion))
Thomas Merton · 1948
Seeds of Contemplation (1949) / New Seeds of Contemplation (Mid-late (Merton's mature contemplative theology))
Thomas Merton · 1961 (expanded revision of Seeds of Contemplation, 1949)
Gitanjali (Mid (the Nobel-winning collection))
Rabindranath Tagore · 1910 (Bengali original); 1912 (Tagore's own English prose translation)
Sadhana: The Realisation of Life (Mid (the major philosophical prose statement))
Rabindranath Tagore · 1913 (the Hibbert Lectures, Harvard; published 1913)
Liber Divinorum Operum (Late (the culmination of her visionary trilogy))
Hildegard of Bingen · 1163-73 (composed in the last decade of Hildegard's life, after the Scivias and the Liber Vitae Meritorum)
Liber Vitae Meritorum (Mid (the middle volume of the visionary trilogy))
Hildegard of Bingen · 1158-63 (the middle work of the visionary trilogy, between Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum)
De Providentia (Late)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 64 AD (late in Seneca's life, shortly before his forced suicide)
Prior and Posterior Analytics
Aristotle · c. 350 BC (the core logical works of the Organon)
Convivio (Mid (early years of exile, preceding the Comedy))
Dante Alighieri · 1304-07 (composed during the early years of Dante's exile from Florence; unfinished — four of fifteen planned books completed)
Vom Abgeschiedenheit (On Detachment) / Counsels on Discernment (Early)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1295-98 (Eckhart's early German-vernacular work, written for the religious community at Erfurt)
Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (Late)
Daisetsu Teitarō Suzuki · 1957
Greek New Testament (Novum Instrumentum) (Mid)
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1516
Eudemian Ethics
Aristotle · c. 350 BC
No Man Is an Island (Mid)
Thomas Merton · 1955
Eros and Civilization (Mid)
Herbert Marcuse · 1955
Bodies That Matter (Early)
Judith Butler · 1993
Modes of Thought (Late)
Alfred North Whitehead · 1938 (Wellesley & University of Chicago lectures, 1937-38)
Foundations of Christian Faith (Late)
Karl Rahner · 1976 (German; English 1978)
A Community of Character (Mid)
Stanley Hauerwas · 1981
Being Given (Late)
Jean-Luc Marion · 1997 (French; English 2002)
Finite and Eternal Being (Late)
Edith Stein (St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross) · 1936 (completed; published posthumously 1950)
Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values (Mid)
Max Scheler · 1913-16 (Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research)
Philosophy (Mid)
Karl Jaspers · 1932 (3 vols; English 1969-71)
Naming and Necessity (Mid)
Saul Kripke · 1972 (Princeton lectures); 1980 (book)
Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Mid)
Robert Nozick · 1974
Spheres of Justice (Mid)
Michael Walzer · 1983
A Secular Age (Late)
Charles Taylor · 2007 (Gifford Lectures 1998-99 at Edinburgh, extensively expanded)
The Concept of the Political (Mid)
Carl Schmitt · 1932 (revised from 1927 essay; English 1976)
Inquiry on the Great Learning (Daxue Wen) (Late)
Wang Yangming · 1527
Zhuzi Yulei (Conversations of Master Zhu, Arranged Topically) (Late)
Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi); compiled by Li Jingde · Conversations 1170-1200; compiled 1270
Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (Bezels of Wisdom) (Late)
Ibn ʿArabī (Muḥyī al-Dīn) · c. 1229
al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations) (Late)
Ibn ʿArabī (Muḥyī al-Dīn) · c. 1202-31
al-Ḥikma al-Mutaʿāliya fī l-Asfār al-ʿAqliyya al-Arbaʿa (Transcendent Wisdom in the Four Intellectual Journeys) (Late)
Mullā Ṣadrā (Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī) · c. 1628
Muqaddimah (Late)
Ibn Khaldūn (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān) · 1377
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Late)
Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792
Enchiridion (Handbook) (Late)
Epictetus (compiled by Arrian) · c. 125 CE
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) (Mid)
Titus Lucretius Carus · c. 55 BCE
Adversus Mathematicos (Against the Mathematicians / Professors) (Late)
Sextus Empiricus · c. 180-200 CE
Hymns of Divine Love (Hymnoi tōn Theiōn Erōtōn) (Late)
St. Symeon the New Theologian · c. 1020
Triads (Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts) (Late)
St. Gregory Palamas · 1338-41
The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (Mid)
Pavel Florensky · 1914
The Dark Night (La Noche Oscura) (Late)
St. John of the Cross (Juan de Yepes Álvarez) · c. 1582-85
The Interior Castle (Castillo Interior) (Late)
St. Teresa of Ávila (Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada) · 1577
Ars Magna (Ars Generalis Ultima) (Late)
Ramon Llull (Raimundus Lullus) · 1305-08 (final form; developed from 1271)
The Mirror of Simple Souls (Le Mirouer des Simples Âmes) (Late)
Marguerite Porete · c. 1295
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (De l'Infinito Universo e Mondi) (Late)
Giordano Bruno · 1584
The Passions of the Soul (Les Passions de l'âme) (Late)
René Descartes · 1649
Biographia Literaria (Mid)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge · 1817
The View from Nowhere (Mid)
Thomas Nagel · 1986
Reasons and Persons (Mid)
Derek Parfit · 1984
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Late)
John Rawls · 2001
Difference and Repetition (Différence et Répétition) (Mid)
Gilles Deleuze · 1968
Speculum of the Other Woman (Speculum, de l'autre femme) (Mid)
Luce Irigaray · 1974
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Late)
Giorgio Agamben · 1995
An Inquiry into the Good (Zen no Kenkyū) (Early)
Nishida Kitarō · 1911
Critique of Cynical Reason (Kritik der zynischen Vernunft) (Mid)
Peter Sloterdijk · 1983
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Mid)
Douglas R. Hofstadter · 1979
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Essai sur la théologie mystique de l'Église d'Orient) (Mid)
Vladimir Lossky · 1944
The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Late)
Muhammad Iqbal · 1930-34
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Mid)
John Henry Newman · 1845 (rev. 1878)
Orthodoxy (Mid)
G.K. Chesterton · 1908
Notes on the State of Virginia (Mid)
Thomas Jefferson · 1781-82 (composed); 1785 (Paris edn); 1787 (London edn)
Common Sense (Mid)
Thomas Paine · 1776 (January)
The World and the Individual (Mid)
Josiah Royce · 1899-1901 (Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen)
Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy (Zhi de zhijue yu Zhongguo zhexue) (Late)
Mou Zongsan · 1971
Don Quixote (El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha) (Late)
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 1605 (Part I); 1615 (Part II)
Gulliver's Travels (Late)
Jonathan Swift · 1726
Ficciones (Mid)
Jorge Luis Borges · 1944
Invisible Cities (Le città invisibili) (Mid)
Italo Calvino · 1972
A Vision (Late)
W.B. Yeats · 1925 (1st edn); 1937 (rev. 2nd edn)
The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages (Mid)
Alfred Tarski · 1933 (Polish); 1935 (German); 1956 (English)
The Sound and the Fury (Mid)
William Faulkner · 1929
Collected Poems (Late)
Wallace Stevens · 1954 (collection of poems 1923-54)
The Fall of Public Man (Mid)
Richard Sennett · 1977
God in Search of Man (Late)
Abraham Joshua Heschel · 1955
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Late)
Jonathan Haidt · 2012
Second Treatise of Government (Late)
John Locke · 1689
The Methods of Ethics (Late)
Henry Sidgwick · 1874 (1st edn); 1907 (7th, definitive)
The Language of Thought (Mid)
Jerry Fodor · 1975
A Mathematical Theory of Communication (Mid)
Claude Shannon · 1948 (Bell System Technical Journal)
The Character of Physical Law (Mid)
Richard Feynman · 1964 (lectures); 1965 (book)
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (Mid)
Friedrich Schiller · 1795 (in Die Horen)
The Oresteia (Early)
Aeschylus · 458 BCE (first performed at the Dionysia)
The Bacchae (Late)
Euripides · c. 405 BCE (posthumous; performed 405)
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Mid)
Noam Chomsky · 1965
On the Providence of God (Late)
Huldrych Zwingli · 1530 (De providentia Dei)
The Divine Relativity (Mid)
Charles Hartshorne · 1948 (Yale Terry Lectures 1947)
Nature (Early)
Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1836
A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (Late)
Pierre-Simon Laplace · 1814 (Essai philosophique sur les probabilités)
A New Kind of Science (Mid)
Stephen Wolfram · 1991-2002 (composed over 11 years); 2002 (published)
The Quadruple Object (Late)
Graham Harman · 2011
The Structure of Objects (Mid)
Kathrin Koslicki · 2008
Things and Their Parts (Mid)
Kit Fine · 1999
Writing the Book of the World (Mid)
Theodore Sider · 2011 (1st ed.); 2014 (paperback)
Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics (Early)
Hugh Everett III · 1957 (Reviews of Modern Physics)
The Structure of the World (Late)
Steven French · 2014
On Evil (Late (Aquinas's mature treatment of evil and the passions, parallel to the Summa))
Thomas Aquinas · 1269-72 (Paris, during Aquinas's second regency, contemporaneous with Summa Theologiae I-II)
Compendium of Theology (Late (begun during the Roman regency, unfinished at Aquinas's death))
Thomas Aquinas · 1265-67 (begun in Rome, broken off after Aquinas's 1273 mystical experience)
Colloquia (Mature (the work that grew through Erasmus's most productive decades and was repeatedly enlarged))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1518 (first edition Familiarium Colloquiorum Formulae); enlarged 1519, 1522, 1524, 1526, 1529, 1533
De Libero Arbitrio (Late (the treatise that publicly broke the Erasmus-Luther alliance, written after seven years of pressure for Erasmus to declare his position))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1524 (De Libero Arbitrio ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΗ sive Collatio, Froben, Basel)
The Dialogue of Divine Providence (Late (composed in Catherine's last two years, in the midst of her efforts to reform the Church and end the Avignon papacy))
Catherine of Siena (Caterina Benincasa) · c. 1377-78 (composed by dictation in ecstatic states; Catherine could read with difficulty and probably could not write)
Against Marcion (Mature (Tertullian's longest and most systematic work))
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus · c. 207-12 (composed in three revisions; the third recension is the surviving text)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh (Mature (one of Tertullian's longest and most carefully argued treatises))
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus · c. 210-12
Al-Hikmat al-Muta'aliya fi'l-Asfar al-'Aqliyya al-Arba'a (Late (the synthesis of his entire mature philosophy))
Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) · composed over Mulla Sadra's mature life, completed c. 1638
Seven Valleys and Four Valleys (Early (composed before the 1863 proclamation))
Bahá'u'lláh (Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʻAlí Núrí) · c. 1856 (Seven Valleys) and c. 1858 (Four Valleys), both Baghdad period
Sidereus Nuncius (Early-mid (the breakthrough that established Galileo's international reputation))
Galileo Galilei · March 1610 (Venice: Tommaso Baglioni)
Short Treatise on God (Early (Spinoza's first systematic presentation of his metaphysics, predating the Ethics))
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza · c. 1660-62 (Dutch manuscript circulated only among Spinoza's closest correspondents during his lifetime; rediscovered 1862)
Principles of Cartesian Philosophy (Early (Spinoza's first published work))
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza · 1663 (Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae Pars I et II, Amsterdam: Rieuwertsz)
Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Last (composed in Rousseau's final two years, after he had retreated from public life))
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1776-78 (unfinished at Rousseau's death; published posthumously 1782)
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Late (Seneca's last completed major work, composed in retirement))
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · 63-65 CE (Seneca's last years, after retirement from Nero's court and before his forced suicide)
De Beneficiis (Mid-mature (composed during Seneca's most influential political-philosophical period))
Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 56-62 CE (Nero's court, before Seneca's retirement)
Historia Animalium (Mature)
Aristotle · c. 343-340 BC (composed during Aristotle's Lesbos period and continued at the Lyceum)
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Sextus Empiricus · c. 200 CE
Personas with Platonism (Classical) as a declared influence
65% Plato
50% Plutarch
40% Socrates
40% Philo of Alexandria
40% Georgius Gemistus Pletho
35% Kurt Gödel
35% Michael Psellos
35% Speusippus
30% Simone Weil
30% Parmenides of Elea
30% Iris Murdoch
30% Marsilio Ficino
25% C. S. Lewis
25% Hypatia of Alexandria
25% Pythagoras of Samos
25% Gottlob Frege
25% Martha Nussbaum
25% Arcesilaus
25% Proclus Lycaeus (Proclus Diadochus)
25% Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
25% Euclid of Alexandria
20% Plotinus
20% Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
20% Saul Kripke
20% Hans-Georg Gadamer
20% Richard Wagner
20% Posidonius
20% Galen
20% Publius Vergilius Maro
20% Carneades
20% Dio Chrysostom (Dio of Prusa)
15% Augustine of Hippo
15% Anselm of Canterbury
15% Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus)
15% Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
15% Yukio Mishima
15% David Lewis
15% Xenophon
15% Athanasius of Alexandria
15% Pindar
15% Al-Farabi
15% David the Invincible
15% Apollonius of Perga
15% Philolaus of Croton
10% Marcus Aurelius
10% Thomas Aquinas
10% Lucius Annaeus Seneca
10% Paul of Tarsus (Saul / Saint Paul)
10% Wole Soyinka
10% Alfred North Whitehead
10% John Scotus Eriugena (Iohannes Scottus Eriugena)
10% Adi Śaṅkara
10% Anaxagoras of Clazomenae
10% Porphyry
10% Clement of Alexandria
10% Irenaeus of Lyon
10% Basil of Caesarea (Basil the Great)
10% Gregory of Nyssa
10% Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
10% Al-Razi (Rhazes)
10% Sir Thomas More
8% Epictetus
8% Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus)
5% Friedrich Schleiermacher
5% Sextus Empiricus
5% Panaetius
5% Archimedes of Syracuse
-20% Protagoras of Abdera
-25% Democritus of Abdera
How Platonism (Classical) resolves each dilemma
56 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 17 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 1 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
Do you really choose?
The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it.
69%
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real.
69%
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible.
69%
How much weight do future people deserve?
Time arises from events or from a deeper substrate — the future is not yet.
31%
Is regret rational?
The past is not a thing now; regret is the present holding what is no longer.
31%
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them?
Past species no longer exist; what we owe is to the present and the future.
31%
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional.
26%
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us.
26%
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on.
26%
Matter · 7 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/208)
Is the world created from nothing?
Creatio ex nihilo is one of the most distinctive Western-theological claims. Whether matter was created from nothing, eternally exists, or is sustained moment-by-moment turns on what kind of thing matter is.
Matter is real but emerges from something deeper — neither bedrock nor created-from-nothing.
On this view, matter is genuinely there, but it isn't the floor of reality. It depends on something more fundamental — dependent origination, mind, divine sustaining act, computational substrate, or the structure of conditions — and is conserved only at its own level of description. …
Roads not taken
Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. (56%) ·
Matter is constituted by relations; the question of 'from what?' presupposes substance. (16%) ·
Matter arises and dissolves through cosmic rounds; neither created from nothing nor eternal. (4%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/208)
Is the physical world fully real?
Realists, idealists, and relationalists divide on whether matter exists mind-independently, derivatively, or as a pattern of relations. The split runs deeper than any single scientific question.
Real but sustained — not mind-independent in the strict realist sense.
On this view, the physical world is real enough — it has its own laws, its own conservation principles, its own resistance to wish — but it is not the floor of being. It is sustained by something else: mind, divine attention, computational substrate, or …
Roads not taken
Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. (56%) ·
Real as relations — neither pure substance nor pure construction. (16%) ·
Real for this cycle — the deepest reality cycles through creation and dissolution. (4%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/208)
Does matter have intrinsic moral standing?
Do rocks, soil, rivers, and stuff in general deserve moral consideration — or only the living, the conscious, the human? The answer turns on what matter is.
Matter is morally considerable derivatively — through what it sustains.
On this view, matter doesn't have standing on its own; it has standing through what it makes possible. Soil matters because it grows food; water matters because it sustains life and mind and practice. Asking whether the rock as such has moral standing slightly misreads …
Roads not taken
Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. (56%) ·
Matter has intrinsic moral standing as part of the relational fabric. (16%) ·
Matter is in flux; standing is impermanent and ritual-mediated. (4%)
4 mainstream positions
What is money?
Money is a real institution with intrinsic features.
55%
What is a nation?
A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character.
55%
What makes someone male or female?
Sex is a real biological kind with given content.
55%
Should we edit the human germline?
Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given.
55%
Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(14/208)
Is reality fundamentally digital?
Pancomputationalism, Planck-scale quanta, simulation theory and Kabbalistic letter-mysticism all say yes — but for very different reasons. The rest of the atlas says no.
Yes — but divinely-discrete: divine letters, momentary cognitions, atomistic theism.
On this view, the world is at bottom discrete, but the units are not bare bits. They are divine names, momentary cognitions, karmic atoms, sacred letters — the elementary acts of a creating or ordering agency. Discreteness is real and fundamental, and so is the …
Roads not taken
No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. (44%) ·
No — continuous fields, classical limits, analog deep structure. (36%) ·
Yes — bits, quanta, computational substrate. (13%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(14/208)
Are there indivisible units of experience?
Whiteheadian actual occasions, Buddhist moments of mind, Kabbalistic letter-cognitions, IIT phi-units — or the unbroken Jamesian stream? The atomism of experience cuts across naturalism and theism alike.
Yes, theistic atomism — actual occasions, divine letters, momentary cognitions.
On this view, the atoms of experience are not bare quanta but agent-laden moments: Whiteheadian actual occasions in which subjectivity and the divine lure meet, Kabbalistic letter-cognitions in which divine names act, Buddhist Abhidharma moments of mind, tantric ksana. The discreteness is real and so …
Roads not taken
No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness. (44%) ·
No — continuous Jamesian stream, phenomenological lived time. (36%) ·
Yes — naturalist quanta of experience. (13%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(14/208)
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Engrams and traces — or continuous re-narration each time you remember? The cognitive-science debate has a theological cousin: divine memory holding each hair, or the ancestors' continuous remembering.
Stored — in divine memory's discrete particulars, or in karmic-record units.
On this view, memory is held in discrete particulars by an agency: the Lord who knows each hair, the karmic ledger that records each act, the angelic scribe who writes each deed, the Kabbalistic letters that spell each soul. Storage is real; the storer is …
Roads not taken
Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed. (44%) ·
Reconstructed — continuous re-narrating, no fixed engrams. (36%) ·
Stored — discrete engrams, traces, weights. (13%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/208)
What makes someone the same person over time?
When dementia hollows out memory, when a coma resolves with no recall, when you imagine being uploaded — the question of whether the surviving person is still you turns on what kind of thing the 'you' was to begin with.
You span moments — identity is a pattern that need not be located at a single now.
On this view, the observer is not bound to a single present. Identity is something that exists across moments — as a pattern, an ancestral line, a trans-temporal structure. Uploading, in this picture, is not a metaphysical impossibility but an engineering question; ancestors are real …
Roads not taken
You are your body — continuity is bodily continuity. (36%) ·
You are a soul — what persists through change is the non-bodily aspect. (30%) ·
There was never a fixed self to either preserve or lose. (14%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/208)
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
Loss of memory, of recognition, of the cognitive patterns that made the person — does this end the person, or merely the person you knew? The answer turns on what makes someone who they are.
The person is the pattern across moments — diminished pattern, diminished person.
On this view, the person is constituted by a pattern extending across moments — memory, narrative, characteristic ways of being. As dementia erodes the pattern, the person is correspondingly diminished. What remains is real but is less than what was; the marriage to the person …
Roads not taken
Same body, same person — even when the cognitive pattern has changed. (36%) ·
The soul persists; the cognitive change is the body's, not the person's. (30%) ·
There was no fixed person to lose; care is owed to whoever is here. (14%)
31 mainstream positions
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
You are the pattern; the pattern survives the substrate change. You arrive.
9%
Are the dead morally present to the living?
Observers span moments; the dead are present in a real (not merely metaphorical) way.
12%
Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom?
An observer can occupy multiple times at once; foreknowledge is not foreordering.
12%
Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless?
Meditation accesses a trans-temporal level the ordinary observer doesn't ordinarily reach.
12%
Does prayer change God's mind?
Prayer participates in a trans-temporal liturgy or communion; the question of 'changing the mind' misses the trans-temporal mode.
12%
What is our place in nature?
Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world.
15%
Should we colonize space?
The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it.
15%
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
What counts as a 'natural' genome is itself a construction.
15%
Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species?
The cosmic-religious order is the moral primary.
16%
Could causation work backwards?
Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural.
68%
Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us?
The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction.
68%
Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it?
The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description.
68%
Is environmental damage ever truly permanent?
Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation.
66%
Can a civilization recover from collapse?
Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial.
66%
Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally?
Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current.
66%
Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed?
Truth is mind-independent, universal, accessible in principle to all.
66%
When does a person begin?
A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence.
55%
What is marriage?
Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make.
55%
Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally?
Moral obligation tracks the relations one is in; distance does matter, structurally.
50%
What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize?
The category does not apply — the school is non-religious.
42%
What happens to "you" when you die?
A soul continues into another mode of being.
38%
Can prayer for someone far away affect them?
Prayer reaches because God or a cosmic ordering acts on the prayed-for.
38%
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence?
What looks like coincidence is providence — there is no such thing as a real coincidence.
38%
Does history have a direction or meaning?
History is not where the deepest truth lives.
36%
Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it?
Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce.
31%
Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge?
Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it.
31%
Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces?
An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing.
31%
How is knowledge of reality produced?
Through a priori reasoning and conceptual demonstration.
24%
Could an AI have a mind that matters?
Yes — mind is a pattern, not a substrate.
9%
Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans?
If the pattern of mind is there, the standing is there — regardless of species.
9%
Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious?
If the pattern is present at sufficient complexity, the experience is present too.
9%
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it.
39%
Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access.
39%
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible.
39%
Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was.
39%
Jump to school (208)
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