A branching tree of the world's earliest wisdom — cosmology, ethics, metaphysics and law — across seven civilizations, with each thinker's major writings and links to the original texts online.
“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” — and yet here, at the dawn, humankind first asked: What is real? How should I live? What is just?
This tree gathers the major philosophical traditions that arose before 300 BCE. “Philosophy” is taken broadly — not only the systematic argument of the Greeks, but the wisdom literature, cosmologies, ethical and legal reflection, and metaphysical insight that earlier and contemporary civilizations produced. Each entry gives the thinker or text in English and in its own language/script (with romanization), approximate dates, and a 📜 link to an online edition of the original text wherever one survives.
The Axial Age. The philosopher Karl Jaspers named the centuries c. 800–300 BCE the “Achsenzeit” (Axial Age): in this window, and seemingly independently, China, India, Persia, Israel and Greece each gave birth to enduring philosophies and religions. Older still are the wisdom traditions of Mesopotamia and Egypt, whose reflections on justice, mortality and cosmic order (Ma’at) form the deep root of this tree.
MesopotamiaEgyptIsrael / HebrewPersiaIndiaChinaGreece📜 original text · ↗ alternate source · ~300 straddles the boundary
Dates are approximate and, for the most ancient figures, traditional or scholarly reconstructions. Names of works lost in the original (e.g. those of Socrates or the early atomists) link to the ancient sources that preserve their fragments.
🌍 Philosophies of Humankind — before 300 BCE
▶𒀭MesopotamiaSumer · Akkad · Babylonc. 2600 – 500 BCEThe first writing, the first laws, the first poems on death and justice — proto-philosophy in cuneiform.
Sumerian & Akkadian Wisdom𒅗𒅗 nam-ku3-zuInstruction, proverb and lament — reflection on fate, conduct and the gods.
Instructions of Shuruppak𒋗𒆳𒆠 šuruppakc. 2600–2500 BCE
Among the oldest literary texts on Earth: a father’s practical & ethical maxims to his son, anticipating later wisdom books by millennia.
Prophet who reframed religion as a moral struggle between Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and Angra Mainyu — with human will as the deciding force, and history moving toward renewal.
The foundation of Vedānta: Tat tvam asi (“That thou art”), the unity of Ātman and Brahman, karma and rebirth. Principal texts: Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Īśa, Kaṭha, Kena, Muṇḍaka.
24th Tīrthaṅkara of Jainism: radical non-violence (ahiṃsā), many-sidedness of truth (anekāntavāda), and liberation of the soul (jīva) from karmic matter.
The Buddha (Buddhism)सिद्धार्थ गौतम / बुद्धSiddhārtha Gautamac. 563–483 BCE
The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path; impermanence (anicca), non-self (anattā) and dependent origination — a middle way to the cessation of suffering (nibbāna).
Makkhali Gosāla (Ājīvika)मक्खलि गोसालfl. c. 500 BCE
Founder of the Ājīvikas: strict determinism (niyati) — all is fixed by fate, effort changes nothing. Known mainly through rival Buddhist & Jain accounts.
India’s materialist, empiricist school: only perception is valid knowledge; no soul, no afterlife. Its Bārhaspatya-sūtras are lost — preserved only in opponents’ refutations.
Bārhaspatya-sūtras (fragments)survive only in quotation
▶☯️China中國 · Zhōngguóc. 600 – 300 BCEThe “Hundred Schools of Thought” (諸子百家) of the Spring & Autumn and Warring States eras.
Confucianism儒家 RújiāVirtue (rén, 仁), ritual propriety (lǐ, 禮) and the cultivation of the noble person.
Confucius孔子Kǒngzǐ551–479 BCE
China’s most influential teacher: ethics grounded in humaneness (rén), filial duty and the rectification of names; virtue, not force, as the basis of order.
Countered Mencius: human nature is crooked and must be reshaped by ritual and education. A rigorous, naturalistic Confucian (teacher of the Legalists).
Mohism墨家 MòjiāImpartial care, consequentialist utility, anti-war — and early formal logic.
Mozi墨子Mòzǐc. 470–391 BCE
Preached “impartial love” (jiān’ài) and judged actions by benefit to all; opposed aggressive war and lavish ritual. The Mohist Canon pioneered logic & optics.
The Classical TriadΣωκράτης · Πλάτων · ἈριστοτέληςEthics, the theory of Forms, logic and the systematic organization of all knowledge.
SocratesΣωκράτηςSōkrátēs470–399 BCE
Turned philosophy to ethics & self-knowledge through relentless questioning (the elenchus): “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Wrote nothing; known via his pupils.
The most encompassing mind of antiquity: founder of formal logic, biology and systematic ethics. Virtue as the mean; the four causes; the Unmoved Mover.
Cynics, Cyrenaics & the Hellenistic TurnΚυνικοί · ΚυρηναϊκοίThe art of living — and the schools founded right at the 300 BCE boundary.
Diogenes of Sinope (Cynicism)ΔιογένηςDiogénēsc. 412–323 BCE
With Antisthenes, founded Cynicism: virtue is the only good, lived in radical self-sufficiency and shameless freedom from convention (“I am a citizen of the world”).