Jenny Teichmann and Katherine C. Evans, Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide（Blackwell Publishing, 1999）, p. 1: "哲學研究那些終極、抽象和非常基本的問題。這些問題聚焦在存在、知識、道德、理性和人生的意義。"
Anthony Quinton. The ethics of philosophical practice. T. Honderich, ed (編). 牛津哲学指南（The Oxford Companion to Philosophy）. 牛津大學出版社. 1995: 666 [2014-05-02]. ISBN 978-0-19-866132-0. （原始內容存檔於2020-09-24）. 哲學是一種理性的批判性思維，或多或少對自然世界進行系統化（形而上學或存在論），信仰辯護（認識論或知識論），和人生引導（倫理學或價值理論）。上述列表中的三個元素都有一個非哲學的副本，區別在於哲學那理性批判的程序和其系統性。每個人對自己所生活的自然世界都有自己的基本觀念。形而上學替代那些未加辯論的假設歸納出這麼一個作為一個整體理性地組織世界的概念。每個人都在某種情境下會在對他們在做的事並沒有任何理論認識的情況下質疑自己或他人的信仰並伴隨着或多或少的成功。認識論尋求通過辯論來明確正確信仰形成的規則。每個人通過把行為引導到期望的或有價值的目標來支配自己的行為。倫理學或道德哲學在其最包容的意義下旨在闡明在理性的系統化情境下包含的規則或原則。
Smith, Robin. Aristotle’s Logic. Zalta, Edward N. (編). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer 2019. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2019 [2020-04-22]. （原始內容存檔於2020-05-19）.
例如，多作者的牛津西方哲學史把這門學科分為八卷：古典，中世紀，文藝復興，兩卷內容覆蓋了1600–1750年，另兩卷內容覆蓋了1750–1945年，還有一卷內容覆蓋了1945年後的分析哲學。安東尼·肯尼的New History of Western Philosophy分為四卷：古典，中世紀，近代前期（1500–1830年），近代後期（1830年至今）。更專業的劍橋哲學史把話題分為九個時期：前亞里士多德希臘哲學、希臘化時期哲學、後希臘時期和早期中世紀哲學、晚期中世紀、文藝復興、三卷為17–19世紀，最後一卷包含1870–1945年的內容。
西塞羅, 圖斯庫盧姆辯論（英語：Tusculan Disputations）, 5.3.8–9 = 赫拉克利德斯·彭提烏斯（英語：Heraclides Ponticus） fr. 88 Wehrli, 第歐根尼·拉爾修1.12, 8.8, 楊布里科斯VP 58. Burkert attempted to discredit this ancient tradition, but it has been defended by C.J. De Vogel, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism（1966）, pp. 97–102, and C. Riedweg, Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, And Influence（2005）, p. 92.
弗雷德里克·科普斯頓, 哲學史，卷II:從奧古斯丁到司各脫（Burns & Oates, 1950）, p. 1,」中世紀哲學恰當的時間範圍是從八世紀的加洛林文藝復興到十四世紀結束，即使它包括了先驅者奧古斯丁和教父們。「德斯蒙德·保羅·亨利（英語：Desmond Paul Henry）, in Paul Edwards（ed.）, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy（Macmillan, 1967）, vol. 5, pp. 252–257,」從奧古斯丁開始直到十四世紀末的尼克爾·奧里斯姆為止。「David Luscombe, Medieval Thought（牛津大學出版社, 1997），」中世紀哲學的時間從君士坦丁312年皈依起至1520年代的宗教改革為止。「Christopher Hughes, in A.C. Grayling（ed.）, Philosophy 2: Further through the Subject（牛津大學出版社, 1998），包括從奧古斯丁起至奧坎的哲學家。荷黑·格拉西亞（英語：Jorge Gracia），in Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James（eds.）, The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed.（Blackwell, 2003）, p. 620，」標識中世紀哲學為從奧古斯丁至17世紀的約翰·波音索特（英語：John of St. Thomas）。「安東尼·肯尼, A New History of Western Philosophy，卷二II:中世紀哲學（牛津大學出版社, 2005）,」從奧古斯丁開始至1512年的拉特朗會議。「
弗雷德里克·科普斯頓, A History of Philosophy, Volume III: From Ockham to Suarez（The Newman Press, 1953）p. 18: "When one looks at Renaissance philosophy ... one is faced at first sight with a rather bewildering assortment of philosophies."
Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmitt, Renaissance Philosophy（牛津大學出版社, 1992）, p. 4: "one may identify the hallmark of Renaissance philosophy as an accelerated and enlarged interest, stimulated by newly available texts, in primary sources of Greek and Roman thought that were previously unknown or partially known or little read."
Jorge J.E. Gracia in Nicholas Bunnin and E.P. Tsui-James（eds.）, The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed.（Blackwell, 2002）, p. 621: "the humanists ... restored man to the centre of attention and channeled their efforts to the recovery and transmission of classical learning, particularly in the philosophy of Plato."
Copleston, ibid.: "The bulk of Renaissance thinkers, scholars and scientists were, of course, Christians ... but none the less the classical revival ... helped to bring to the fore a conception of autonomous man or an idea of the development of the human personality, which, though generally Christian, was more 'naturalistic' and less ascetic than the mediaeval conception."
Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner（eds.）, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, pp. 61 and 63: "From Petrarch the early humanists learnt their conviction that the revival of humanae literae was only the first step in a greater intellectual renewal" [...] "the very conception of philosophy was changing because its chief object was now man—man was at centre of every inquiry".
"Machiavelli appears as the first modern political thinker" Williams, Garrath. Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [2014-05-06]. （原始內容存檔於2011-07-05）.. "Machiavelli ought not really to be classified as either purely an "ancient" or a "modern," but instead deserves to be located in the interstices between the two." Nederman, Cary. Niccolò Machiavelli. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [2014-05-06]. （原始內容存檔於2013-10-14）.
Donald Rutherford, The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy（Cambridge University Press, 2006）, p. xiii, defines its subject thus: "what has come to be known as "early modern philosophy"—roughly, philosophy spanning the period between the end of the sixteenth century and the end of the eighteenth century, or, in terms of figures, Montaigne through Kant." Steven Nadler, A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy（Blackwell, 2002）, p. 1, likewise identifies its subject as "the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries". Anthony Kenny, The Oxford History of Western Philosophy（Clarendon: Oxford University Press, 1994）, p. 107, introduces "early modern philosophy" as "the writings of the classical philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe".
Steven Nadler, A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, pp. 1–2: "By the seventeenth century [...] it had become more common to find original philosophical minds working outside the strictures of the university—i.e., ecclesiastic—framework. [...] by the end of the eighteenth century, [philosophy] was a secular enterprise."
安東尼·肯尼, A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 3（Oxford University Press, 2006）, p. xii: "To someone approaching the early modern period of philosophy from an ancient and medieval background the most striking feature of the age is the absence of Aristotle from the philosophic scene."
Donald Rutherford, The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy（Cambridge University Press, 2006）, p. 1: "epistemology assumes a new significance in the early modern period as philosophers strive to define the conditions and limits of human knowledge."
Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 211: "The period between Descartes and Hegel was the great age of metaphysical system-building."
Kenny, A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 179–180: "the seventeenth century saw the gradual separation of the old discipline of natural philosophy into the science of physics [...] [b]y the nineteenth century physics was a fully mature empirical science, operating independently of philosophy."
Nadler, A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, pp. 2–3: "Why should the early modern period in philosophy begin with Descartes and Bacon, for example, rather than with Erasmus and Montaigne? [...] Suffice it to say that at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and especially with Bacon and Descartes, certain questions and concerns come to the fore—a variety of issues that motivated the inquiries and debates that would characterize much philosophical thinking for the next two centuries."
Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [2014-05-06]. （原始內容存檔於2011-07-05）.: "Hobbes is the founding father of modern political philosophy. Directly or indirectly, he has set the terms of debate about the fundamentals of political life right into our own times."
Cudd, Ann; Eftekhari, Seena. Contractarianism. Edward N. Zalta (編). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2021. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2021 [2022-06-11]. （原始內容存檔於2023-01-27）.: "Contractarianism [...] stems from the Hobbesian line of social contract thought"
Rutherford, The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, p. 1: "Most often this [period] has been associated with the achievements of a handful of great thinkers: the so-called 'rationalists'（Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz）and 'empiricists'（Locke, Berkeley, Hume）, whose inquiries culminate in Kant's 'Critical philosophy.' These canonical figures have been celebrated for the depth and rigor of their treatments of perennial philosophical questions..."
Nadler, A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, p. 2: "The study of early modern philosophy demands that we pay attention to a wide variety of questions and an expansive pantheon of thinkers: the traditional canonical figures（Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume）, to be sure, but also a large 'supporting cast'..."
Bruce Kuklick, "Seven Thinkers and How They Grew: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz; Locke, Berkeley, Hume; Kant" in Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner（eds.）, Philosophy in History（Cambridge University Press, 1984）, p. 125: "Literary, philosophical, and historical studies often rely on a notion of what is canonical. In American philosophy scholars go from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey; in American literature from James Fenimore Cooper to F. Scott Fitzgerald; in political theory from Plato to Hobbes and Locke [...] The texts or authors who fill in the blanks from A to Z in these, and other intellectual traditions, constitute the canon, and there is an accompanying narrative that links text to text or author to author, a 'history of' American literature, economic thought, and so on. The most conventional of such histories are embodied in university courses and the textbooks that accompany them. This essay examines one such course, the History of Modern Philosophy, and the texts that helped to create it. If a philosopher in the United States were asked why the seven people in my title comprise Modern Philosophy, the initial response would be: they were the best, and there are historical and philosophical connections among them."
Religious thinkers were among those influenced by Kierkegaard. Christian existentialists include Gabriel Marcel, Nicholas Berdyaev, Miguel de Unamuno, and Karl Jaspers（although he preferred to speak of his "philosophical faith"）. The Jewish philosophers Martin Buber and Lev Shestov have also been associated with existentialism.
艾倫·布洛克, R. B. Woodings, and John Cumming, eds. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers, in series, Fontana Original[s]. Hammersmith, Eng.: Fontana Press, 1992, cop. 1983. xxv, 867 p. ISBN 978-0-00-636965-3
艾倫·布洛克, and Oliver Stallybrass, jt. eds. The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. xix, 684 p. N.B.: "First published in England under the title, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought." ISBN 978-0-06-010578-5
Julia, Didier. Dictionnaire de la philosophie. Responsible éditorial, Emmanuel de Waresquiel; secretariat de rédaction, Joelle Narjollet. [Éd. rev.]. Paris: Larousse, 2006. 301, [1] p. + xvi p. of ill. ISBN 978-2-03-583309-9
Reese, W. L.Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion: Eastern and Western Thought. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1980. iv, 644 p. ISBN 978-0-391-00688-1
入門
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Thinking it Through – An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-513458-2
Think: philosophy for everyone （頁面存檔備份，存於互聯網檔案館） Lively and accessible articles written by philosophers pre-eminent in their fields, for a broad audience. Free articles are available online.
Kim, J. and Ernest Sosa, Ed.（1999）. Metaphysics: An Anthology. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies. Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
The Oxford Handbook of Free Will（2004）edited by Robert Kane
Husserl, Edmund and Donn Welton (1999). The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology, Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21273-3
Cottingham, John. Western Philosophy: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2008. Print. Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies.
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