Nothing in life can be treated in isolation. Behind every idea, person, discovery, invention, or project is a hidden network of conditions that gave rise to it. This is never truer than in academia. As Isaac Newton famously said, we are all just “standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Philosophy is the same. Almost all its notable thinkers read, debated, and bounced ideas around with their contemporaries. Aristotle was a response to (and taught by) Plato, Chinese legalism was a critique of Confucianism, David Hume and Adam Smith were close friends, Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau constantly attacked each other, and Thomas Hobbes was in regular correspondence with René Descartes.

So, it is hard to answer the question: who was the most original philosopher?…