Great Thinkers

Meet the great minds whose ideas have shaped the world — philosophers, scientists, artists, leaders, and revolutionaries whose thinking still matters today.

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12 thinkers
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Subject: Philosophy × Era: Contemporary ×
Philosophy
G.E.M. Anscombe
1919-2001 · England (born in Ireland)
Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe was a British philosopher. She was one of the most important philosophers writing in English in the 20th century. She was…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends is always murder."
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Philosophy
Jacques Derrida
1930-2004 · France (born in French Algeria)
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher. He is best known for a way of reading texts called deconstruction. He was born on 15 July 1930…
Critical thinking Creative expression Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"There is nothing outside the text."
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Philosophy
John Dewey
1859-1952 · United States
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educator. He was one of the most important thinkers in the United States during the first half…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Problem solving Creative expression +1
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."
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Philosophy
Judith Butler
1956-present · United States
Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist. They are one of the most influential thinkers in the humanities in recent decades. They were…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Emotional intelligence +1
"Gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts."
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Philosophy
Kwame Gyekye
1939-2019 · Ghana, West Africa
Kwame Gyekye (1939-2019) was a Ghanaian philosopher. He was born in Kumasi, Ghana, and studied philosophy at the University of Ghana and Harvard University. He…
Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Citizenship Relationships and communication +1
"The communal life is not an optional extra for the human individual. It is the context in which the individual…"
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Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1889-1951 · Austria-Hungary / United Kingdom
Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher. Many consider him the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. He was born on 26 April 1889 in Vienna,…
Critical thinking Creative expression Research skills Ethical thinking +1
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
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Philosophy
María Lugones
1944-2020 · Argentina / United States
María Lugones (1944-2020) was an Argentine-American philosopher. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and moved to the United States as a young woman, where…
Cultural heritage and identity Relationships and communication Ethical thinking Citizenship +1
"I am a being in multiple worlds and I travel among them, feeling at ease in some of them, not…"
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Philosophy
Michel Foucault
1926-1984 · France
Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and historian. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. He was born on 15…
Critical thinking Research skills Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"Where there is power, there is resistance."
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Philosophy
Simone de Beauvoir
1908-1986 · France, Western Europe
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French philosopher, novelist, and feminist thinker. She was born in Paris and studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, where she…
Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Critical thinking Relationships and communication +1
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."
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Philosophy
Thomas Kuhn
1922-1996 · United States
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) was an American philosopher and historian of science. He studied physics at Harvard University and then became interested in the history of…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Metacognition +1
"Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none."
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Philosophy
Umberto Eco
1932-2016 · Italy, Southern Europe
Umberto Eco (1932-2016) was an Italian philosopher, semiotician, literary theorist, and novelist. He was born in Alessandria in northern Italy and studied philosophy at the…
Critical literacy Media literacy Storytelling and narrative Critical thinking +1
"A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands.…"
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Philosophy
V. Y. Mudimbe
1941-2025 · Democratic Republic of the Congo (later United States)
Valentin-Yves Mudimbe was a Congolese philosopher, novelist, and linguist. He was one of the most important African thinkers of the late 20th century. He was…
Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills Ethical thinking +1
"There exists an African way of interpreting the world which presents the universe as a totality."
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