| 6th C B.C. | The beginning of Western philosophy with Thales of Miletus. |
| End of 6th C B.C. | Death of Pythagoras. |
| 399 B.C. | Socrates sentenced to death in Athens. |
| c 387 B.C. | Plato founds the Academy in Athens, the first university. |
| 335 B.C. | Aristotle founds the Lyceum in Athens, a rival school to the Academy. |
| 324 A.D. | Emperor Constantine moves capital of Roman Empire to Byzantium. |
| 400 A.D. | St. Augustine writes his Confessions. Philosophy absorbed into Christian theology. |
| 410 A.D. | Sack of Rome by Visigoths heralds opening of Dark Ages. |
| 529 A.D. | Closure of Academy in Athens by Emperor Justinian marks end of Hellenic thought. |
| Mid-13th C | Thomas Aquinas writes his commentaries on Aristotle. Era of Scholasticism. |
| 1453 | Fall of Byzantium to Turks, end of Byzantine Empire. |
| 1492 | Columbus reaches America. Renaissance in Florence and revival of interest in Greek learning. |
| 1543 | Copernicus publishes On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, proving mathematically that the earth revolves around the sun. |
| 1633 | Galileo forced by church to recant heliocentric theory of the universe. |
| 1641 | Descartes publishes his Meditations, the start of modern philosophy. |
| 1677 | Death of Spinoza allows publication of his Ethics. |
| 1687 | Newton publishes Principia, introducing concept of gravity. |
| 1689 | Locke publishes Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Start of empiricism. |
| 1710 | Berkeley publishes Principles of Human Knowledge, advancing empiricism to new extremes. |
| 1716 | Death of Leibniz. |
| 1739–1740 | Hume publishes Treatise of Human Nature, taking empiricism to its logical limits. |
| 1781 | Kant, awakened from his “dogmatic slumbers” by Hume, publishes Critique of Pure Reason. |
| Great era of German metaphysics begins. | |
| 1807 | Hegel publishes The Phenomenology of Mind, high point of German metaphysics. |
| 1818 | Schopenhauer publishes The World as Will and Representation, introducing Indian philosophy into German metaphysics. |
| 1889 | Nietzsche, having declared “God is dead,” succumbs to madness in Turin. |
| 1921 | Wittgenstein publishes Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, claiming the “final solution” to the problems of philosophy. |
| 1920s | Vienna Circle propounds Logical Positivism. |
| 1927 | Heidegger publishes Being and Time, heralding split between analytical and Continental philosophy. |
| 1943 | Sartre publishes Being and Nothingness, advancing |
| Heidegger’s thought and instigating existentialism. | |
| 1953 | Posthumous publication of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. High era of linguistic analysis. |