Themes

Questions that philosophers in different traditions and centuries have all worked on. Each theme follows one question through time.

• Faith and reason10 philosophers · 3 traditionsHow do truths claimed from revelation or scripture relate to what reason can find out for itself? Islamic, European and Indian thinkers gave strikingly different answers.

  

  

  

  Augustine, Śaṅkara, al-Ghazali and 7 more
• How to govern10 philosophers · 3 traditionsWho should rule, what makes their power legitimate, and how should a state be run? Answers range from moral example and impartial law to philosopher-rulers and the consent of the governed.

  

  

  

  Confucius, Plato, Mencius and 7 more
• Knowledge and scepticism10 philosophers · 4 traditionsWhat can we know, and how? Thinkers in several traditions have asked which sources of knowledge can be trusted, and whether the sceptic's doubts can ever be answered.

  

  

  

  Plato, Zhuangzi, Nāgārjuna and 7 more
• The good life10 philosophers · 4 traditionsHow should one live, and what makes a human life go well? Traditions have answered with virtue, tranquil pleasure, harmony with nature, or an end to suffering.

  

  

  

  Laozi, Confucius, Socrates and 7 more
• The self10 philosophers · 3 traditionsIs there a lasting self beneath our changing thoughts and bodies, or only a stream of events? Traditions have answered with a soul, a self identical with all reality, or none at all.

  

  

  

  The Buddha, Plato, Śaṅkara and 7 more
• What is ultimately real10 philosophers · 4 traditionsWhat is reality fundamentally made of or grounded in? Answers range from water, forms and the One to brahman, emptiness, the Dao and existence itself.

  

  

  

  Laozi, Plato, Nāgārjuna and 7 more