PHILOSOPHERS from Belgium

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Belgian Philosophers of all time. This list of famous Belgian Philosophers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Belgian Philosophers.

1. Justus Lipsius (1547 - 1606)

With an HPI of 63.51, Justus Lipsius is the most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages on wikipedia.

Justus Lipsius (Joest Lips or Joost Lips; October 18, 1547 – March 23, 1606) was a Flemish Catholic philologist, philosopher, and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia (On Constancy). His form of Stoicism influenced a number of contemporary thinkers, creating the intellectual movement of Neostoicism. He taught at the universities in Jena, Leiden, and Leuven.

2. Siger of Brabant (1240 - 1284)

With an HPI of 61.36, Siger of Brabant is the 2nd most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Siger of Brabant (Sigerus, Sighier, Sigieri or Sygerius de Brabantia; c. 1240 – before 10 November 1284) was a 13th-century philosopher from the southern Low Countries who was an important proponent of Averroism.

3. Luce Irigaray (1930 - )

With an HPI of 61.01, Luce Irigaray is the 3rd most famous Belgian Philosopher.  Her biography has been translated into 38 different languages.

Luce Irigaray (born 3 May 1930) is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist who examines the uses and misuses of language in relation to women. Irigaray's first and most well known book, published in 1974, was Speculum of the Other Woman (1974), which analyzes the texts of Freud, Hegel, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant through the lens of phallocentrism. Irigaray is the author of works analyzing many thinkers, including This Sex Which Is Not One (1977), which discusses Lacan's work as well as political economy; Elemental Passions (1982) can be read as a response to Merleau‐Ponty's article “The Intertwining—The Chiasm” in The Visible and the Invisible, and in The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger (1999), Irigaray critiques Heidegger's emphasis on the element of earth as the ground of life and speech and his "oblivion" or forgetting of air. Irigaray employs three different modes in her investigations into the nature of gender, language, and identity: the analytic, the essayistic, and the lyrical poetic. As of October 2021, she is active in the Women's Movements in both France and Italy.

4. Chantal Mouffe (1943 - )

With an HPI of 60.33, Chantal Mouffe is the 4th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  Her biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Chantal Mouffe (French: [muf]; born 17 June 1943) is a Belgian political theorist, formerly teaching at University of Westminster. She is best known for her and Ernesto Laclaus contribution to the development of the so-called Essex School of discourse analysis. She is a strong critic of deliberative democracy and advocates a conflict-oriented model of radical democracy.

5. Arnold Geulincx (1624 - 1669)

With an HPI of 54.77, Arnold Geulincx is the 5th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Arnold Geulincx (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɣøːlɪŋks]; 31 January 1624 – November 1669), also known by his pseudonym Philaretus, was a Flemish philosopher, metaphysician, and logician. He was one of the followers of René Descartes who tried to work out more detailed versions of a generally Cartesian philosophy. Samuel Beckett cited Geulincx as a key influence and interlocutor because of Geulincx's emphasis on the powerlessness and ignorance of the human condition.

6. Henry of Ghent (1217 - 1293)

With an HPI of 54.43, Henry of Ghent is the 6th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Henry of Ghent (c. 1217 – 29 June 1293), also known as Henricus de Gandavo and Henricus Gandavensis, was a scholastic philosopher who acquired the nickname of Doctor Solemnis (the "Solemn Doctor").

7. Paul de Man (1919 - 1983)

With an HPI of 52.73, Paul de Man is the 7th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983), born Paul Adolph Michel Deman, was a Belgian-born literary critic and literary theorist. He was known particularly for his importation of German and French philosophical approaches into Anglo-American literary studies and critical theory. Along with Jacques Derrida, he was part of an influential critical movement that went beyond traditional interpretation of literary texts to reflect on the epistemological difficulties inherent in any textual, literary, or critical activity. This approach aroused considerable opposition, which de Man attributed to "resistance" inherent in the difficult enterprise of literary interpretation itself. After his death, de Man became a subject of further controversy when his history of writing pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda for the wartime edition of Le Soir, a major Belgian newspaper during German occupation, came to light.

8. Franciscus Gomarus (1563 - 1641)

With an HPI of 52.15, Franciscus Gomarus is the 8th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Franciscus Gomarus (François Gomaer; 30 January 1563 – 11 January 1641) was a Dutch theologian, a strict Calvinist and an opponent of the teaching of Jacobus Arminius (and his followers), whose theological disputes were addressed at the Synod of Dort (or Dordrecht) (1618–19).

9. Alice von Hildebrand (1923 - 2022)

With an HPI of 49.78, Alice von Hildebrand is the 9th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Alice Marie von Hildebrand, GCSG (née Jourdain; 11 March 1923 – 14 January 2022) was a Belgian-born American Catholic philosopher, theologian, author, and professor. She taught philosophy at Hunter College for 37 years. She was also the second wife of Dietrich von Hildebrand.

10. Michel Weber (1963 - )

With an HPI of 36.71, Michel Weber is the 10th most famous Belgian Philosopher.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Michel Weber (born 1963) is a Belgian philosopher. He is best known as an interpreter and advocate of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, and has come to prominence as the architect and organizer of an overlapping array of international scholarly societies and publication projects devoted to Whitehead and the global relevance of process philosophy. Weber criticizes contemporary academic philosophy for losing touch with its early Greek roots. Philosophy has a practical mission (rooted in Socratic discourse) to restore personal and social well-being, but it cannot do this, he argues, if it renounces its traditional metaphysical obligation (rooted in pre-Socratic speculation) to understand the cosmos. Weber believes that process philosophy is uniquely qualified to fulfill this double function in the post-modern world. Weber was educated in Belgium and the United States. The primary languages of his publications are English and French.