Historical Migration and Geographic Clustering of Prominent Western Philosophers

This article examines the 146 most important Western Philosophers in the last 2,250 years, as identified by Murray ( 2003 ), in terms of providing new statistical evidence on their birth location and patterns of migration. The article starts by overviewing the reasons why philosophers would want to migrate and work in clusters. The data illustrate the tendencies for eminent philosophers to cluster in certain cities for the three most important epochs for Western philosophers, namely Ancient Greece, the Scholastic period and the Post-Scientific period. While this has been known in a general sense for a long time, no formal statistical evidence of this nature has been provided before. The article concludes by linking the evidence presented back to the a priori explanations for such clustering. The historical information under examination has been compiled using two online sources: the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (SEP) and the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (IEP).