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.