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Western Philosophical and Christian Mystical Lineage
From the Pre-Socratics through the 20th Century
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GREEK / CLASSICAL
CHRISTIAN MYSTICAL
MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL
Pre-Socratics
(Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoras)
~600–400 BCE
Plato
~427–347 BCE
Aristotle
~384–322 BCE
The Stoics
~300 BCE–200 CE
Plotinus
(Neoplatonism)
~204–270 CE
Augustine of Hippo
~354–430 CE
Pseudo-Dionysius
(the Areopagite)
~5th–6th c. CE
John Scotus Eriugena
~810–877 CE
Hildegard of Bingen
~1098–1179 CE
Meister Eckhart
~1260–1328 CE
The Cloud of Unknowing
(anonymous)
~1370 CE
Nicholas of Cusa
~1401–1464 CE
Jakob Böhme
~1575–1624 CE
Baruch Spinoza
~1632–1677 CE
Gottfried Leibniz
~1646–1716 CE
Immanuel Kant
~1724–1804 CE
Goethe
~1749–1832 CE
G. W. F. Hegel
~1770–1831 CE
Whitehead
(process philosophy)
~1861–1947 CE
Heidegger
~1889–1976 CE
David Bohm
(implicate order)
~1917–1992 CE
Legend:
Framework engages substantively
Cross-stream influence
Cross-stream arrows: Plato → Augustine (Christian Platonism); Plotinus → Pseudo-Dionysius (Neoplatonist transmission);
Cusa → Spinoza (modern monism); Eckhart → Hegel and Heidegger (German mystical heritage in modern philosophy).
Framework engages most substantively with Plato + Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius + Eckhart + Cusa, and Goethe + Whitehead + Bohm.