K'ung-fu-tzu, or Confucius, teaches a practical philosophy which will profoundly influence Chinese history

Parmenides is the first pure philosopher, using logic as a philosophical tool in his poem Nature

The Chinese philosophy of alternating opposites is expressed as yin and yang

The Sophists, professional philosophers, travel round Greece educating the sons of the rich

Socrates is now sufficiently prominent to be satirized in Clouds, a comedy by Aristophanes

Daodejing ('The Way and the Power') is the book of Daoism

Socrates, convicted in Athens of impiety, is sentenced to death and drinks the hemlock

Plato establishes a school in Akademeia, a suburb of Athens

Central to Plato's philosophy is the theory that there are higher Forms of reality, of which our senses perceive only a transient shadow

Aristotle, at the age of seventeen, comes to Athens to join Plato's academy

Aristotle tackles wide-ranging subjects on a systematic basis, leaving to his successors an encyclopedia of contemporary thought

Marcus Aurelius is rare among emperors in writing twelve books of philosophical Meditations

Plotinus, moving from Alexandria to Rome, teaches the influential philosophy later known as Neo-Platonism

Prompted by the fall of Rome to the Visigoths, St Augustine undertakes a great work of Christian philosophy, the City of God

Boethius, in prison in Pavia and awaiting execution, writes the Consolation of Philosophy

Justinian closes down the schools of Athens, famous for their tradition of pagan philosophy

Saadiah Gaon writes a seminal work of Jewish philosophy in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions

The Persian scholar Avicenna, author of encyclopedic works on philosophy and medicine, spends the last part of his life in Isfahan

Anselm includes in his Proslogion his famous 'ontological proof' of the existence of God

In Cordoba the Muslim philosopher Averroës writes commentaries on Aristotle that are influential throughout medieval Europe

In Cairo the Jewish philosoper Moses Maimonides writes, in Arabic, a much translated text with the endearing title Guide to the Perplexed

Thomas Aquinas begins the outstanding work of medieval scholasticism, his Summa Theologiae

Duns Scotus, known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce

William of Ockham advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor

In keeping with his personal interest in Plato, Cosimo de' Medici founds a Platonic Academy in Florence