Curated playlist
Philosophers of culture
- AristotleOnly around a third of Aristotle's original writings survive, and none was meant to be published.
- Jean-Jacques RousseauRousseau refused a king's pension after Louis XV loved his opera. Friends were exasperated by his choice.
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges directed Argentina's National Library while completely blind.
- Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy spent his last hours on a train, preaching non-violence to strangers.
- Karl MarxKarl Marx left an estate valued at just 250 pounds when he died in 1883. He died stateless in London at 64.
- Baruch SpinozaBaruch Spinoza was expelled from his Jewish community at twenty-three, and it still refuses him back.
- John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was reading Greek at age three. His father was deliberately raising a genius.
- Francis BaconFrancis Bacon may have died after stuffing a hen with snow. He wanted to test if cold could preserve meat like salt.
- MenciusMencius said a tyrant king was no longer a ruler at all. The Chinese philosopher put common citizens above rulers.
- Edmund HusserlA Franciscan priest smuggled approximately 40,000 pages of Edmund Husserl's notes out of Nazi Germany.
- AverroesIn 1169, a caliph asked the philosopher Averroes if the heavens had a beginning.
- Mikhail BakuninKarl Marx had the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin expelled from the First International in 1872.
- ConfuciusTold his stables had burned, Confucius asked only, "Was anyone hurt?" He did not ask about the horses.
- Sun TzuDid Sun Tzu, the reputed author of The Art of War, even exist? Scholars have doubted it since the 12th century.
- José Ortega y GassetJosé Ortega y Gasset answered Descartes with "I live therefore I think." He put lived experience before abstract reason.
- Giovanni Pico della MirandolaAt 23, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola offered to pay any scholar's way to Rome to debate his 900 theses.