swap_horiz Voltaire Alternatives

1

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher whose 1859 On Liberty defended individual freedom and whose utilitarianism s...

Ethics British Liberty Utilitarianism

9.3 Excellent

2

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher whose 1762 Social Contract argued that legitimate political authority re...

French Education Politics Enlightenment

9.2 Excellent

3

Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne was a French Renaissance essayist whose Essays, first published in 1580, made skeptical self-examina...

French Renaissance Essays Skepticism

9.1 Excellent

4

Soren Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and theologian whose 1843 Either/Or explored choice, anxiety, faith, and the...

Danish Ethics Existentialism Religion

9.1 Excellent

5

Gilles Deleuze

Gilles Deleuze was a French philosopher whose work on difference, desire, and cinema shaped postwar thought, including D...

French Metaphysics Continental Difference

9.1 Excellent

6

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in Algeria in 1930, known for deconstruction and major works such as Of G...

Language French Metaphysics Deconstruction

9.0 Excellent

7

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenologist whose Phenomenology of Perception (1945) emphasized embodiment and li...

Body French Perception Phenomenology

8.8 Great

8

Montesquieu

Montesquieu was a French political philosopher whose 1748 Spirit of the Laws argued for separation of powers and compara...

French Law Politics Enlightenment

8.7 Great

9

Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French philosopher notable for making ethics a first philosophy in Totality and I...

French Ethics Phenomenology Otherness

8.7 Great

10

Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher who co-edited the Encyclopedie from 1751, making it a central project of Enlighte...

French Encyclopedia Materialism Enlightenment

8.6 Great

11

Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson was a French philosopher, known for duration, creative evolution, and receiving the 1927 Nobel Prize in Li...

French Mind Duration Vitalism

8.6 Great

12

Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricoeur was a French philosopher whose hermeneutics linked phenomenology, language, and narrative identity in works...

French Narrative Ethics Hermeneutics

8.4 Great

13

Peter Abelard

Peter Abelard was a 12th-century French scholastic philosopher whose Sic et Non used conflicting authorities to train di...

French Logic Medieval Ethics

8.2 Great

14

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke was an Irish-British statesman and philosopher whose 1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France became a...

Politics Irish Enlightenment Conservatism

8.2 Great

15

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English philosopher and feminist whose 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued for wom...

Feminism English Rights Enlightenment

8.2 Great

16

Simone Weil

Simone Weil was a French philosopher and social critic, notable for writings on attention, affliction, labor, and mystic...

French Politics Ethics Mysticism

8.2 Great

17

Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard was a French philosopher and sociologist noted for theories of simulation and hyperreality, especially...

French Simulation Media Postmodernism

8.0 Great

18

Ludwig Feuerbach

Ludwig Feuerbach was a German philosopher, notable for The Essence of Christianity (1841), which treated theology as a p...

German Humanism Religion Materialism

8.0 Great

19

Nicolas Malebranche

Nicolas Malebranche was a French Oratorian philosopher whose Search After Truth advanced occasionalism and the doctrine...

French Metaphysics Early Modern Occasionalism

7.9 Good

20

Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Marcel was a French existential philosopher and playwright, known for Christian existentialism and the distincti...

French Ethics Existentialism Religion

7.3 Good