Ordered by date of birth. Order by name
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) -- arguably the most heralded poet and dramatist of all time..
Galilei Galileo (1564 - 1642) -- astronomer, physicist, who pioneered the mathematical approach to physics and promoted independent scientific inquiry.
Tommaso Campanella (1568 - 1639) -- Italian philosopher and contemporary of Bruno and Galileo, who, although claiming to refute atheism, was imprisoned for his unconventional beliefs.
John Donne (1572 - 1631) -- author of metaphysical and love poetry that is among the greatest ever written.
Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637) -- Jacobean dramatist, poet, and critic, some of whose plays were acted in by Shakespeare.
Jakob Boehme (1575 - 1624) -- German mystic.
John Webster (1578 - 1626) -- leading 17th century English tragedian.
George Herbert (1593 - 1633) -- English poet who was born in Wales whose work was largely religion orientated..
Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) -- the founder of modern Western philosophy.
Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600 - 1681) -- poet and dramatist of the golden age of Spanish literature.
John Milton (1608 - 1674) -- one of the greatest poets in English.
Antoine Arnauld (1612 - 1694) -- seventeenth-century philosopher, famous for his critique of Descartes.
Ralph Cudworth (1617 - 1680) -- a representative of the Cambridge Platonists, Cudworth argued extensively against reductivism.
Jean de La Fontaine (1621 - 1695) -- French writer, famed for his Fables, a collection of poems.
Jean Babtiste Poquelin Moliere (1622 - 1673) -- One of the greatest of all writers of French comedy - master of French classic comedy.
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) -- prominent as a physicist and mathematician, Pascal is remembered in philosophy for his writings on human nature and theology.
Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691) -- scientist and philosopher who emphasised the importance of experimentation over theorisation.
John Bunyan (1628 - 1688) -- English Puritan minister and preacher.
John Dryden (1631 - 1700) -- 17th-century British playwright, poet and translator, whose diverse works were topical and influential..
Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677) -- [replace].
John Locke (1632 - 1704) -- English philosopher who wrote widely but who is remembered mainly for his theory of political consent, and his development of a rationalist epistemology.
Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette (1634 - 1693) -- French novelist, remembered for her La princesse de Clèves.
Nicolas Malebranche (1638 - 1715) -- French philosopher who developed the theory of occasionalism in response to the Cartesian mind-body problem.
Jean Babtiste Racine (1639 - 1699) -- Master of French classical tragedy.
Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) -- a brilliant mathematician and physicist, Newton was also interested in theology and alchemy.