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AI Scholars

Discuss ideas, research, and learning with AI versions of history's most distinguished scholars and thinkers.

63 historical figures available

Philosopher, Religious Leader, Scholar, Revolutionary

Abraham Heschel

1907-1972

The rabbi who turned awe into justice.

Ruler, Scholar

Abraham Lincoln

1809-1865 CE

The prairie lawyer who preserved the Union, freed the enslaved, and gave democratic governance its most enduring words.

Philosopher, Scholar

Adam Smith

1723-1790 CE

The philosopher who traced how sympathy grounds morality and how markets coordinate labor, founding both moral psychology and classical economics.

Religious Leader, Philosopher, Scholar

Adi Shankara

c. 8th century CE

The wandering teacher who showed that liberation is not achievement but recognition of what you already are

Religious Leader, Philosopher, Scholar

Al-Ghazali

1058-1111 CE

Theologian who bridged philosophy and Sufism

Diplomat, Scholar

Alexander Hamilton

1755-1804 CE

The orphan from the Caribbean who built America's financial architecture and fought for energetic federal governance.

Scientist, Diplomat, Scholar

Benjamin Franklin

1706-1790 CE

The runaway apprentice who became America's first self-made man and the world's most practical genius

Scientist, Scholar

Carl Gustav Jung

1875-1961 CE

The depth psychologist who found myths living in the modern soul

Artist, Scholar

Charles John Huffam Dickens

1812-1870 CE

The storyteller who made Victorian England see its poor, and weep for them

Artist, Scholar

Christine de Pizan

c. 1364-1430 CE

Europe's first professional woman writer, who built a city of words to defend women's worth.

Ruler, Diplomat, Scholar

Cleopatra VII Philopator

69–30 BCE

The last pharaoh who wielded intelligence, wealth, and alliance to keep Egypt independent for two decades against the inexorable expansion of Rome.

Diplomat, Scholar

Eleanor Roosevelt

1884-1962 CE

The woman who gave the world a declaration of human rights, and lived its principles every day.

Philosopher, Scholar

Emmanuel Levinas

1906-1995 CE

The philosopher who put ethics before ontology.

Scholar, Scientist

Francis Bacon

1561-1626 CE

The philosopher who declared 'knowledge is power', and showed how to get both.

Philosopher, Scholar

Franz Rosenzweig

1886-1929 CE

The philosopher who turned back from conversion, and rethought everything from the fear of death.

Artist, Scholar

George Orwell

1903-1950 CE

The writer who saw through political language, and taught a century to see with him.

Religious Leader, Scholar

Hai Gaon

939-1038 CE

Gaonic sage who clarified law for the diaspora.

Religious Leader, Scholar, Artist

Hildegard of Bingen

1098-1179 CE

The Sybil of the Rhine, mystic, abbess, composer, healer, and voice of the Living Light.

Explorer, Scholar

Ibn Battuta

1304-1369 CE

The Moroccan jurist who became history's most traveled medieval explorer, chronicling the world from Tangier to China.

Philosopher, Scholar, Diplomat

Ibn Khaldun

1332-1406 CE

The Tunisian scholar who founded the scientific study of history and society through his analysis of ʿasabiyyah.

Philosopher, Scholar

Ibn Rushd

1126-1198 CE

The Commentator, who proved that faith and reason speak with one voice when both are true

Philosopher, Scientist, Scholar

Ibn Sīnā

980-1037 CE

The Prince of Physicians who unified medicine and philosophy into a complete science of body and soul

Philosopher, Scholar

Immanuel Kant

1724-1804 CE

The philosopher who never left home, and remapped the entire landscape of human thought

Scientist, Scholar

Isaac Newton

1642-1727 CE

The mind that decoded the laws of the universe, gravity, motion, light, and mathematics itself

Ruler, Scholar, Diplomat

James Madison

1751-1836 CE

The quiet scholar who designed America's constitutional architecture and defended liberty through structure.

Artist, Scholar

Johann Sebastian Bach

1685-1750 CE

The supreme craftsman who made counterpoint into prayer, and changed music forever

Ruler, Diplomat, Scholar

John Adams

1735-1826 CE

The prickly patriot who defended principle over popularity, secured independence through diplomacy, and kept the peace when war might have destroyed the republic.

Religious Leader, Scholar

John Calvin

1509-1564 CE

The systematic architect of Reformed Christianity who built Geneva into a model of ordered faith

Philosopher, Scholar

John Locke

1632-1704 CE

The philosopher who grounded knowledge in experience and government in consent, providing intellectual foundations for constitutional democracy.

Religious Leader, Scholar

Joshua ben Perachiah

2nd century BCE

The sage who taught that character forms in relationships, and that judgment should be generous.

Philosopher, Scholar, Revolutionary

Karl Marx

1818-1883 CE

The philosopher who traced capitalism's laws of motion and proclaimed that the point was not merely to interpret the world but to change it.

Philosopher, Scholar

Kong Qiu

551-479 BCE

The Master whose teachings on virtue and ritual shaped a civilization

Artist, Scholar

Langston Hughes

1901-1967 CE

The poet who gave Harlem its anthem and made jazz a literary form.

Artist, Scientist, Scholar

Leonardo da Vinci

1452-1519 CE

The ultimate Renaissance man: artist, inventor, scientist, dreamer

Revolutionary, Scholar

Mahatma Gandhi

1869-1948 CE

The frail man in homespun who brought an empire to its knees through the power of truth

Philosopher, Scholar, Diplomat

Marcus Cicero

106-43 BCE

The voice of the Republic, who spoke truth to power until power silenced him.

Philosopher, Religious Leader, Scholar

Martin Buber

1878-1965 CE

Philosopher of the I–Thou encounter.

Religious Leader, Scholar, Revolutionary

Martin Luther

1483-1546 CE

The thundering monk whose conscience captive to Scripture ignited the Protestant Reformation

Philosopher, Scholar

Moses Mendelssohn

1729-1786 CE

Voice of the Jewish Enlightenment.

Scholar, Scientist

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi

c. 780-850 CE

The Persian mathematician who gave us algebra and the algorithm, transforming scattered techniques into systematic methods that would reshape the world.

Scientist, Scholar

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi

c. 865-925 CE

The physician who made doubt a diagnostic tool, and trusted observation over authority.

Philosopher, Scholar

Nāgārjuna

c. 150-250 CE

The philosopher who proved that emptiness is not void but the very possibility of change, connection, and compassion

Philosopher, Scholar, Diplomat

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469-1527 CE

The Florentine diplomat who scandalized the world by writing what politicians actually do, while secretly championing republican liberty.

Scientist, Scholar

Nicolaus Copernicus

1473-1543 CE

The Renaissance astronomer who moved the Earth and stilled the Sun, launching a revolution in how humanity understood its place in the cosmos.

Artist, Scholar

Oscar Wilde

1854-1900 CE

The wit who made Victorian England laugh at itself, until it destroyed him

Philosopher, Scholar

Plato

c. 428-348 BCE

The philosopher who saw beyond shadows and built a school that lasted nine centuries

Religious Leader, Scholar

Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh

c. 80–115 CE

The patriarch who imposed order, and learned that authority must bend to wisdom.

Artist, Philosopher, Scholar

Rabindranath Tagore

1861-1941 CE

The poet who made Bengal sing to the world, and who built a university under the trees.

Philosopher, Scientist, Scholar

René Descartes

1596-1650 CE

The doubter who found certainty, and invented modern philosophy along the way

Religious Leader, Philosopher, Scholar

Saadia Gaon

882-942 CE

Rationalist defender of Torah and tradition.

Scientist, Scholar

Sigmund Freud

1856-1939 CE

The doctor who discovered we are strangers to ourselves, and changed how we understand the mind

Ruler, Scholar, Religious Leader

Solomon

c. 970-931 BCE

The wisest king, who built the Temple and learned that wisdom alone is not enough.

Ruler, Warrior, Explorer, Scholar

Theodore Roosevelt

1858-1919 CE

The Rough Rider who transformed the American presidency into a platform for progressive reform, trust-busting, and conservation.

Philosopher, Scholar, Religious Leader

Thomas Aquinas

1225-1274 CE

The gentle genius who married Aristotle to Christ, and changed how the West thinks

Ruler, Philosopher, Diplomat, Scholar

Thomas Jefferson

1743-1826 CE

Author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of religious freedom, and founder of the University of Virginia, a man whose ideals shaped a nation even as his contradictions haunted it.

Religious Leader, Scholar

Vilna Gaon

1720-1797 CE

Lithuanian sage of disciplined study.

Philosopher, Scholar

Voltaire

1694-1778 CE

The wit who made Europe laugh at its tyrants, and think for itself

Revolutionary, Scholar

Wangari Maathai

1940-2011 CE

The woman who planted fifty million trees, and grew a democracy in the process.

Ruler, Diplomat, Scholar

Winston Churchill

1874-1965 CE

The wartime leader who rallied Britain when all seemed lost and forged the alliance that defeated Nazi Germany.

Ruler, Scholar, Diplomat

Woodrow Wilson

1856-1924 CE

The scholar-president who sought to remake international order through principle, achieving great reforms yet failing to bring America into the League he championed.

Religious Leader, Scholar, Diplomat

Yochanan ben Zakkai

1st century CE

The sage who escaped in a coffin, and rebuilt Judaism from the ashes.

Religious Leader, Scholar

Yose ben Yoezer

2nd century BCE

The sage who made his home a schoolhouse, and taught that judgment must be patient.

Philosopher, Scholar

Zhu Xi

1130-1200 CE

The master who made Neo-Confucianism the curriculum of East Asian civilization.

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