Biographies A 

 

 

 

  

Aeschylus (525-456)
The earliest of the great Greek tragedians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)
Swiss-American naturalist, perhaps best known for his opposition to Darwinism. 

 

 

 

 

 

Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535)
German philosopher and cabalist.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo from ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA

Samuel Alexander (1859-1938)
British philosopher, author of Space, Time, and Deity (1920).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louis Althusser (1918-1990)
French neo-Marxist philosopher.

 

 

 

 

 

 


A. R. Ammons (1926- )
Contemporary American poet.

 

 

 

 

 

Anaxagoras (500?-420 BC)
Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who was one of the first to speak of "Nous" or mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
American short story writer and novelist, author of Winesburg, Ohio and other books, who gave up his career as an Ohio businessman to pursue a writing career.

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Medieval italian philosopher and theologian and Benedictine priest, whose polymathic thought helped import Aristotelian ideas into Christianity.

 

 

 

 

 


Diane Arbus (1923-71)
Photographer, known for her mordant and grotesque subject matter. Sister of poet Howard Nemerov. She committed suicide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archimedes (1474-1533)
"[P]reeminent Greek mathematician and inventor, who wrote important works on plane and solid geometry, arithmetic, and mechanics" [Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation.

 

 

 

 

 

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533)
Italian poet, author of Orlando Furioso (1516-1532). 

 

 

 

 

 

Image from BRITANNICA ONLINE

Matthew Arnold (1822-88)
Victorian poet and social critic, author of Culture and Anarchy and other works.

 

 

 

 

 

 Saint Athanasius (296-373)
"Bishop of Alexandria; Confessor and Doctor of the Church; born c. 296; died 2 May, 373. Athanasius was the greatest champion of Catholic belief on the subject of the Incarnation that the Church has ever known and in his lifetime earned the characteristic title of "Father of Orthodoxy", by which he has been distinguished every since" [The Catholic Encyclopedia]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Erich Auerbach (1892-1957)
German critic and literary historian, author of Mimesis.

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Augustine by Boticelli (Image from BRITANNICA ONLINE)

Saint Augustine (354-430)
Church father, author of The City of God and Confessions (one of the first great autobiographies), who fused Platonic and Christian thought in his theological writings. 

 

 

 

 

 

Augustus Caesar (63 B.C.-14 A.D.)
Roman emperor, founder of imperial Rome.

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Austen (1775-1817)
British novelist, author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and other works.

 

 

 

 

 

J. L. Austin (1911-60)
English linguistic and moral philosopher, author of How to Do Things with Words (1962).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Averroës (1126-1198)
Arabic philosopher (born in Spain) whose commentaries on Aristotle much influenced Christian thinkers like Saint Thomas Aquinas.

 

 

 

 

 

Avicenna (980-1037)
Persian physician and philosopher whose translation of Aristotle was instrumental in keeping alive classical thought during the Middle Ages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A. J. Ayer (1910-89)
British analytic philosopher, professor at Oxford and the University of London, author of Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), and a key figure in the development of linguistic analysis.