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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Subject: Philosophy × Era: Contemporary ×

Bernard Narokobi

c. 1943-2010 · Papua New Guinea

Bernard Mullu Narokobi was a Papua New Guinean philosopher, jurist, parliamentarian, and poet, best known for developing the concept of 'the Melanesian Way' as a…

Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Critical thinking Problem solving +1

"We are a nation of villages."

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1953-present · United States

Cornel West is an American philosopher, theologian, and public intellectual. He was born in 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and grew up in a Black Baptist…

Ethical thinking Critical thinking Creative expression Cultural heritage and identity +1

"Justice is what love looks like in public, just like tenderness is what love feels like in private."

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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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1919 - 1999 · Ireland / United Kingdom

Iris Murdoch was an Irish-British philosopher and novelist. She is one of the most important moral philosophers of the 20th century. She was also one…

Ethical thinking Creative expression Critical thinking Emotional intelligence +1

"Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real."

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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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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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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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1902-1994 · Austria / United Kingdom

Karl Popper was an Austrian-British philosopher of science and politics. He was born in 1902 in Vienna into a well-off, secular Jewish family that had…

Scientific thinking Critical thinking Ethical thinking Research skills +1

"A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory…"

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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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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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1919 - 2018 · United Kingdom

Mary Midgley was a British moral philosopher. She is one of the most original ethical thinkers of the 20th century. She is best known for…

Ethical thinking Critical thinking Scientific thinking Creative expression +1

"Philosophy is like plumbing. It is something nobody notices until it goes wrong."

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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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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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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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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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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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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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