Philosophy · Curated list
Anarchism, Taoism, Confucianism and 27 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.
Most written-about first. Each description summarises the school or movement's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.
1
Political philosophy and movement
A political philosophy and movement of the far left that aims to abolish every institution that maintains authority, hierarchy or coercion, chiefly organised religion, capitalism and the state. It proposes to replace these hierarchies with stateless societies of horizontal networks of voluntary associations, working on reciprocity and free association.
Wikidata · Photo: Pittigrilli, CC BY-SA 4.0
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2
Religious and philosophical tradition
Also written Daoism, a religious and philosophical tradition native to China that stresses living in harmony with the Tao. The word has many meanings and readings in Chinese philosophy, and is translated as 'way', 'road', 'path' or 'technique'; in the Taoist sense it is usually understood as a mysterious process of transformation that underlies reality.
Wikidata · Photo: Lai Chuen Siu, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Chinese ethical and philosophical system
Also called Ruism or Ru classicism, a system of thought and conduct from ancient China, described variously as a tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a theory of government or a way of life. Founded by Confucius in the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought, it joins philosophy, ethics and social governance, centred on virtue, social harmony and duty to family.
Wikidata · Photo: Zhangzhugang, CC BY-SA 3.0
Philosophical view that matter is the fundamental substance of nature
A form of monism in philosophy and metaphysics which holds that matter is the basic substance of nature, so that everything, mind and consciousness included, comes from material interactions and depends on physical processes, among them those of the human nervous system and brain. It stands against monistic idealism, which takes consciousness as basic, and is related to physicalism, the view that everything that exists is at bottom physical, and to naturalism, the view that only natural forces and laws act in the universe.
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Philosophy dealing with absurdity of existence
A family of philosophical views and inquiry into the individual's struggle to live authentically although existence seems absurd or beyond understanding. Examining value, purpose and meaning, existentialist thinking often uses ideas such as freedom, courage, angst and existential crisis.
Wikidata · Photo: Kierkegaard.jpg : Neils Christian Kierkegaard Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky 1876.jpg : unknown…, Public domain
Ancient philosophy
A movement in philosophy that is also a practical guide to how to live, putting weight on moral improvement and self-discipline every day. It arose in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece and carried on well into the Roman Imperial period. Its ancient followers held that the universe runs by reason, or logos, and gave a single account of the world built on ideals of rational discourse, on a monistic physics and on a naturalistic ethics.
8
Rejection of certain ideas about reality
A family of philosophical views denying that any objectively meaningful purpose exists, or moral value, truth, knowledge or related ideas. Nihilist views appear in several branches of philosophy, among them metaphysics, epistemology, value theory and ethics.
Wikidata · Photo: Paul Merwart, Public domain
Epistemological view centered on reason
The epistemological view in philosophy that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge", or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often set against other possible sources of knowledge such as sense experience, tradition or faith. More formally, it is defined as a theory or methodology "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".
Philosophical tradition
A philosophical tradition that sees thought and language as tools for predicting, solving problems and acting, not as ways of describing, representing or mirroring reality. Pragmatists argue that most philosophical subjects, such as the nature of science, belief, meaning, concepts, language and knowledge, are best understood through their practical uses and successes.
11
Empiricist philosophical theory
A school of philosophy holding that real knowledge is of two kinds only: true by definition, or positive, meaning a posteriori facts that reason and logic draw from sense experience. Other ways of knowing, such as religious faith, introspection or intuition, it rejects or treats as meaningless.
Wikidata · Photo: Johan Hendrik Hoffmeister, Public domain
Philosophical method and schools of philosophy
A philosophical study and movement mostly associated with the early 20th century, which tries to investigate objectively what subjective, conscious experience is. It seeks to describe the universal features of consciousness without assumptions about the outside world, describing phenomena as they appear and exploring the meaning and significance of lived experience.
13
Ancient school of philosophy
A school of ancient Greek philosophy that began in the Classical period and continued into the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Cynics held that people are reasoning animals, and that life's purpose, and the road to happiness, is to attain virtue in accord with nature, obeying one's own natural reason by living simply and without shame, free of social constraints.
Wikidata · Photo: LuciusCommons, Public domain
20th-century tradition of Western philosophy
A broad school, or style, of contemporary Western philosophy, especially philosophy in English, that puts weight on the natural sciences, mathematics, formal logic, rigorous argument, clear writing and analysis. It is also marked by the linguistic turn, a concern with meaning and language.
15
Greek philosophers active before and during the time of Socrates
Also called early Greek philosophy, the ancient Greek philosophy that came before Socrates. Its philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, in where the universe began and what it is made of, but their inquiries also covered how the natural world works, and human society, ethics and religion.
Wikidata · Photo: BryanEnders, CC BY-SA 3.0
One of the six orthodox traditions of Hindu philosophy
Also called Uttara Mīmāṃsā, one of Hindu philosophy's six orthodox (āstika) schools, and a school of textual interpretation. Its name means 'conclusion of the Vedas', and it takes in the ideas that grew out of, or aligned with and reread, the speculations and enumerations in the Upanishads, concentrating in varying degrees on liberation, knowledge and devotion.
17
Platonic philosophical system
A version of Platonic philosophy that arose in the 3rd century AD against a background of Hellenistic religion and philosophy. The name refers less to a distinct body of ideas grounded in one kind of Platonism than to a line of Platonic thinkers, most of them from one particular period of antiquity.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
18
Marxist philosophy of nature and science
A philosophy of nature and of science that grew, late in the 19th century, out of what Friedrich Engels wrote. Combining Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's dialectic with philosophical materialism, it holds that the world is material, that every phenomenon results from matter in motion, and that the world evolves through a dialectical process driven by internal contradiction.
Wikidata · Photo: Omar kandil, CC BY-SA 3.0
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Philosophical system
Less often called Epicurism, a school of philosophy founded in 307 BCE on the teachings of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus, a materialist and atomist, followed in the footsteps of Democritus.
Wikidata · Photo: Interstate295revisited at English Wikipedia, Public domain
Artistic and architectural philosophy originating in Russia
An art movement of the early twentieth century, founded in 1915 by Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin. Austere and abstract, constructivist art set out to reflect urban space and modern industrial society.
Philosophical doctrine on the subjugation of all events to fate
A belief and philosophical doctrine that treats the whole universe as a deterministic system and holds that every event, action and behaviour is subject to fate or destiny; it usually goes with an attitude of resignation towards future events, seen as unavoidable and beyond human control.
25
Spiritual and pseudoscientific philosophy
A spiritual new religious movement that the esotericist Rudolf Steiner started early in the 20th century. It holds that there is an objective spiritual world, comprehensible to the intellect and open to human experience, and its followers seek spiritual discovery through a way of thinking independent of the senses.
Wikidata · Photo: Edith Maryon, Public domain
26
Hindu tradition of textual interpretation
A Hindu tradition of Vedanta, the Brahmanical tradition of philosophy and textual interpretation, and a monastic tradition nominally linked to the Daśanāmi Sampradaya and spread by the Smarta tradition. Its central teaching is that jivatman, the individual self that experiences, is in the end pure awareness, wrongly identified with the body, its senses and constructs of thought, and not different from Ātman/Brahman or sat, the highest Self or Real.
Wikidata · Photo: en:User:Bowenpan, CC BY-SA 3.0
27
Political school of thought
A school of anarchist thought calling for a form of communism in which society is organised through horizontal networks of voluntary associations. It demands the abolition of hierarchies and of private property, while keeping personal property and collectively owned goods, items and services.
Wikidata · Photo: Garry Knight, CC BY 2.0
28
Philosophy based on the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus
Also called Hermetism, a religious and philosophical tradition rooted in teachings credited to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic figure mixing the Egyptian god Thoth with the Greek god Hermes. The teachings are set out in the various writings credited to Hermes, which were produced over many centuries and can differ greatly in content and scope.
Wikidata · Photo: Jean-Louis Durant (1654-1718), Public domain
Ancient school of political philosophy
An intellectual, political and philosophical orientation that began in China's Warring States period. Though varied, in general the Legalists viewed most people, or at any rate the elite, as fundamentally self-interested, and stressed regulations, administrative methods and equality under the law.
Every Wikidata item that is a school of thought or a philosophical movement, and whose one-line description on Wikidata mentions philosophy — which leaves out the religious and political movements filed in the same classes, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it — Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 30 are shown.
Wikidata files these under this list's query, but they are not what the list is about:
Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.
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