The bench

Every panel draws three to five of these lenses. Public-domain thinkers speak through their primary texts; copyrighted thinkers through paraphrase and citation.

• AC
  Albert Camus

  Absurdism · French Algeria/France, 1913–1960

• A
  Aristotle

  Aristotelianism / virtue ethics · Ancient Greece, 384–322 BCE

• AH
  Augustine of Hippo

  Christian Platonism · Late antiquity, 354–430 CE

• B
  Buddhist tradition

  Buddhist ethics and psychology · South/East Asia, 5th c. BCE to present

• C
  Christian-Augustinian tradition

  Augustinian Christianity · Late antiquity to present

• C
  Cicero

  Roman eclecticism / natural law · Roman Republic, 106–43 BCE

• E
  Epictetus

  Stoicism · Roman Empire, c. 50–135 CE

• FN
  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Genealogy / perspectivism · Germany, 1844–1900

• FD
  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Orthodox existentialism · Russia, 1821–1881

• GW
  G. W. F. Hegel

  German idealism / dialectics · Germany, 1770–1831

• HA
  Hannah Arendt

  Political theory / phenomenology · Germany/United States, 1906–1975

• IK
  Immanuel Kant

  Deontology / transcendental idealism · Prussia, 1724–1804

• JR
  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Social contract / romanticism · Geneva/France, 1712–1778

• JS
  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Existentialism · France, 1905–1980

• JL
  John Locke

  Liberalism / empiricism · England, 1632–1704

• JR
  John Rawls

  Political liberalism / justice as fairness · United States, 1921–2002

• JS
  John Stuart Mill

  Utilitarianism / liberalism · England, 1806–1873

• JH
  Jürgen Habermas

  Critical theory / discourse ethics · Germany, b. 1929

• KM
  Karl Marx

  Historical materialism · Germany/England, 1818–1883

• LT
  Leo Tolstoy

  Christian anarchism / moral realism · Russia, 1828–1910

• MA
  Marcus Aurelius

  Stoicism · Roman Empire, 121–180 CE

• MF
  Michel Foucault

  Genealogy / power analysis · France, 1926–1984

• P
  Plato

  Platonism · Ancient Greece, c. 428–348 BCE

• P
  Prophetic-Jewish tradition

  Hebrew prophets / rabbinic ethics · Ancient Israel to present

• S
  Seneca

  Stoicism · Roman Empire, c. 4 BCE–65 CE

• SB
  Simone de Beauvoir

  Existentialist feminism · France, 1908–1986

• S
  Sufi tradition

  Islamic mysticism · Islamic world, 8th c. to present

• SK
  Søren Kierkegaard

  Christian existentialism · Denmark, 1813–1855

• TA
  Thomas Aquinas

  Scholasticism / natural law · Medieval Europe, 1225–1274

• TH
  Thomas Hobbes

  Social contract / political realism · England, 1588–1679

• WJ
  William James

  Pragmatism · United States, 1842–1910