1 ARISTOTLE His 'ladder of life' is the basis of some religions and he had something to say on almost every topic imaginable.
2 PLATO Founded the Western world's first school of higher education and Western philosophy can be traced to him.
3 PAUL OF TARSUS Many experts call Paul, not Jesus, the founder of Christianity.
4 RENE DESCARTES 'The Father of Modern Philosophy' created analytical geometry, based on his Cartesian coordinate system.
5 CONFUCIUS He wrote that the best government rules through 'rites' and the people's natural morality, rather than by bribery and coercion.
6 THOMAS AQUINAS The man who supposedly proved the existence of God by arguing that the Universe had to have been created by something.
7 AVICENNA The first to describe the five classical senses of taste, touch, vision, hearing and smell.
8 ZENO OF CITIUM Founded the school of Stoicism, based on the idea that anything which causes us to suffer in life is an error in our judgment.
9 EPICURUS Advocated the principle of refusing belief in anything that is not tangible.
10 JOHN LOCKE The 'father of Liberalism' because of his principles of humanism and individual freedom.
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