The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#5051
Stefan Gandler
#55824
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Stefan Gandler is a philosopher and social scientist. He studied at Frankfurt University and has lived in Mexico since 1993 Life Gandler studied Philosophy, Latin American studies, Romance Languages and Literatures and Political science in Frankfurt/Main, among others with Alfred Schmidt, and he was the Chairman of the Frankfurt General Students' Committee in 1989/90.
Go to Profile#5052
Xenarchus of Seleucia
Xenarchus of Seleucia in Cilicia, was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher and grammarian. Xenarchus left home early, and devoted himself to the profession of teaching, first at Alexandria, afterwards at Athens, and last at Rome, where he enjoyed the friendship of Arius, and afterwards of Augustus; and he was still living, in old age and honour, when Strabo wrote. Xenarchus disagreed with Aristotle on many issues. He denied the existence of the aether, composing a treatise entitled Against the Fifth Element. He is also mentioned by Simplicius, by Julian the Apostate, and by Alexander of Aphrodisia...
Go to Profile#5053
Anita Avramides
#82591
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Anita Avramides is a British philosopher whose work focuses on the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of the mind. She is a reader at the University of Oxford, based at St. Hilda's College, where she is Southover Manor Trust Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy. Since 2014, she has served as Vice Chair of the Philosophy Faculty at Oxford.
Go to Profile#5054
Wang Ruoshui
#60454
Overall Influence
1926 - 2002 (76 years)
Wang Ruoshui , was a Chinese journalist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was born in Shanghai, and graduated from Peking University with a degree in philosophy. After working at the People's Daily for over three decades, Wang was expelled from the party in 1987 during the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign, largely due to his long-standing vocal advocacy of Marxist humanism that led to the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1983. After his exile from the party, he went to United States as a visiting scholar to continue his research. Wang was known as a major exponent of Marxist h...
Go to Profile#5055
Arnold Böcklin
1827 - 1901 (74 years)
Arnold Böcklin was a Swiss Symbolist painter. Biography He was born in Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin , was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk trade. His mother, Ursula Lippe, was a native of the same city. Arnold studied at the Düsseldorf academy under Schirmer, and became a friend of Anselm Feuerbach. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Schirmer, who recognized in him a student of exceptional promise, sent him to Antwerp and Brussels, where he copied the works of Flemish and Dutch masters. Böcklin then went to Paris, wo...
Go to Profile#5056
Chris Atton
#37384
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Dr Christopher Frank Atton is the retired Professor of Media and Culture in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University. His work focuses on Alternative Media where his contribution has concentrated on the notion of alternative media not as an essentialised political position but as a set of socio-cultural processes that redraw the boundaries of expert culture and media power. His research interests include popular music, the creative economy, infoshops, and teaching and learning in higher education. Atton has also written on censorship and media ethics.
Go to Profile#5057
Thomas Charles Hope
1766 - 1844 (78 years)
Thomas Charles Hope was a Scottish physician, chemist and lecturer. He proved the existence of the element strontium, and gave his name to Hope's Experiment, which shows that water reaches its maximum density at .
Go to Profile#5058
Martha Klein
#74030
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Martha Klein is a philosopher, specialising in the intersection of the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy, and especially in the question of the freedom of the will. After a period as lecturer in philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford, Klein was elected a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford; she retired in 2006. Her research interests are in free will, moral responsibility and moral psychology.
Go to Profile#5059
Thierry Poynard
#85947
Overall Influence
#5060
Brian O'Shaughnessy
#62464
Overall Influence
1925 - 2010 (85 years)
Brian Joseph O'Shaughnessy was an Australian philosopher of mind, who lived in London and taught at King's College London. He published papers on the nature of physical action and the will, at a time when this was quite unfashionable.
Go to Profile#5061
Onasander
Onasander or Onosander was a Greek philosopher. He was the author of a commentary on the Republic of Plato, which is lost, but we still possess his Strategikos , a short but comprehensive work on the duties of a general. It is dedicated to Quintus Veranius, consul in AD 49, and legate of Britain. It was the chief authority for the military writings of the emperors Maurice and Leo VI, and Maurice of Saxony, who consulted it in a French translation and expressed a high opinion of it.
Go to Profile#5062
Hiroo Ed. Imura
#86008
Overall Influence
#5063
Yuriko Saito
#73566
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Yuriko Saito is a retired Japanese-American philosopher specializing in aesthetics, including wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy of appreciating transience and imperfection. She is a professor emeritus of philosophy at the Rhode Island School of Design .
Go to Profile#5064
Jean Lacoste
#66853
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jean Lacoste is a French-German philosopher, scholar and essayist. He is known for his research on Nietzsche, Goethe, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Cassirer. He is currently a philosophy professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure.
Go to Profile#5065
William J. Jagust
#86059
Overall Influence
#5066
Gabriel Wagner
1660 - 1717 (57 years)
Gabriel Wagner was a radical German philosopher and materialist who wrote under the nom-de-plume Realis de Vienna. A follower of Spinoza and acquaintance of Leibniz, Wagner did not believe that the universe or bible were divine creations, and sought to extricate philosophy and science from the influence of theology. Wagner also held radical political views critical of the nobility and monarchy. After failing to establish lasting careers in cities throughout German-speaking Europe, Wagner died in or shortly after 1717.
Go to Profile#5067
Hedwig Conrad-Martius
1888 - 1966 (78 years)
Hedwig Conrad-Martius was a German phenomenologist who became a Christian mystic. Life and works She initially considered a literary career, but later became interested in philosophy. This started at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She also studied at Göttingen. To celebrate its foundation festival, in 1912 Goettingen University gave a prize to the best original work on a philosophical topic. The names of all competitors were sealed, opened only after declaring a winner. Of about 200 philosophical works, only hers - titled "The Intuitional-Theoretical Principles of Positivism" - was awarded the prize.
Go to Profile#5068
Francisque Bouillier
1813 - 1899 (86 years)
Francisque Bouillier was a French philosopher, born in Lyons. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and in 1839 was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Lyons. From 1849 to 1864 he was dean of the faculty at Lyons and from 1867 to 1870 director of the École Normale Supérieure. His works include:Histoire et critique de la révolution cartésienne Théorie de la raison impersonnelle Du principe vital et de l'âme pensante Du plaisir et de la douleur La vraie conscience Souvenirs d'un vieil universitaire
Go to Profile#5069
Daniela Vallega-Neu
#82187
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Daniela Vallega-Neu is a German philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. She is known for her expertise on hermeneutics, deconstruction and Heidegger's thought. Books Heidegger’s Poietic Writings: From Contributions to Philosophy to The Event, Indiana University Press, 2018The Bodily Dimension in Thinking, SUNY Press, 2005Heidegger’s ‘Contributions to Philosophy.’ An Introduction, Indiana University Press, 2003Die Notwendigkeit der Gründung im Zeitalter der Dekonstruktion: Zur Gründung in Heideggers 'Beiträgen zur Philosophie'; unter Hinzuziehung der Derridaschen ...
Go to Profile#5070
David Magnus
#71241
Overall Influence
David Magnus is the Thomas A. Raffin Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics and professor of pediatrics at Stanford University. He is also the director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and the co-chair of the Ethics Committee at Stanford Hospital.
Go to Profile#5071
Michele Moody-Adams
#75252
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Michele Moody-Adams is an American philosopher and academic administrator. Between July 1, 2009, and September 2011, she served as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education at Columbia University. She was the first woman and first African-American to hold the post. She has since resigned as dean, citing the decreasing autonomy of Columbia College. She remains a faculty member in the department of philosophy. In 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#5072
Roopika Risam
#30022
Overall Influence
Roopika Risam is an associate professor of film and media studies and of comparative literature and faculty in the Digital Humanities and Social Engagement cluster at Dartmouth College. She is a scholar of digital and postcolonial humanities.
Go to Profile#5073
Shahbudin H. Rahimtoola
#86173
Overall Influence
#5074
Patrick O. Brown
#81230
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Patrick O'Reilly Brown is an American scientist and businessman who is the founder of Impossible Foods Inc. and professor emeritus in the department of biochemistry at Stanford University. Brown is co-founder of the Public Library of Science, inventor of the DNA microarray, and a former investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Go to Profile#5075
Myron S. Cohen
#61380
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
For the American comedian and raconteur, see Myron Cohen. Myron Scott Cohen is an American physician-scientist who has made substantial contributions to our understanding of the transmission prevention of transmission of HIV. He is best known as chief architect of HIV Prevention Trials Network 052, a large-scale randomized clinical trial which demonstrated proof-of-concept for “treatment as prevention”: treating an HIV-infected person with antiviral drugs makes them less contagious and prevents transmission to their sexual partners. Cohen is J. Herbert Bate Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Go to Profile#5076
Johannes. Ring
#86206
Overall Influence
#5077
George P. Fletcher
#16937
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
George P. Fletcher is the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University School of Law. Fletcher attended Cornell University from 1956 to 1959, studying mathematics and Russian. He received a B.A. in 1960 from University of California, Berkeley and his J.D. in 1964 from the University of Chicago. He studied at the University of Freiburg from 1964 to 1965 and received a Masters in Comparative Law in 1965 from the University of Chicago. He taught at the law schools of the University of Florida, University of Washington, and Boston College and then UCLA, from 1969 to 1983. Since then ...
Go to Profile#5078
Kenneth G. Shelburne Mann
#86224
Overall Influence
#5079
Théodore Eugène César Ruyssen
1868 - 1967 (99 years)
Théodore Eugène César Ruyssen was a French historian of philosophy and pacifist. Biography Ruyssen was born in Clisson, Loire-Atlantique, France. He was professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Bordeaux, and president of l'Association de la Paix par le Droit from 1896 to 1948.
Go to Profile#5080
James E. Faulconer
#62994
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
James E. Faulconer is an American philosopher, a former Richard L. Evans Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University, the former director of BYU's London Centre, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institution , and a senior research fellow at the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. He previously served as the dean of undergraduate education and the chair of the Philosophy Department at BYU.
Go to Profile#5081
John Lord Cameron
#5082
James G. Herman
#26106
Overall Influence
James Gordon Herman is an American oncologist. Herman studied chemistry at Hope College and earned a medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Duke University in 1992, and a fellowship in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins in 1996. Herman then became associate professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, and later the UPMC Endowed Chair for Lung Cancer Research at the University of Pittsburgh.
Go to Profile#5083
Roque Ferriols
#70620
Overall Influence
1924 - 2021 (97 years)
Roque Angel Jamias Ferriols was a Filipino Jesuit and philosopher known for pioneering the use of Tagalog in philosophizing. Ferriols' efforts are intimately linked to the broader Filipinization movement of the late 1960s to 1970s, a period marked by a shift toward the indigenization of knowledge production. His body of work is also influential to the development of phenomenological thought in the Philippines, in particular, in its interest in philosophizing lived experience.
Go to Profile#5084
Curt D. Furberg
#86328
Overall Influence
#5085
Colin Radford
#69938
Overall Influence
1935 - 2001 (66 years)
Colin John Radford was an English philosopher who worked primarily in aesthetics but had interests in a wide variety of philosophical topics. He is best known for describing the paradox of fiction in the 1975 essay "How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?" and developing the paradox in a number of subsequent essays.
Go to Profile#5086
Ferdinand Eckstein
1790 - 1861 (71 years)
Ferdinand Eckstein , Baron d'Eckstein, was a philosopher and playwright. Biography He was born in Copenhagen as the son of a German Jew who had converted to Lutheran Protestantism. Eckstein converted to Catholicism in Rome in 1807 under the influence of Friedrich Schlegel, and settled in France, after Napoleon's defeat. He worked from 1815 to 1830 as a police-inspector, and was an advocate of religious and civil liberty.
Go to Profile#5087
Masashi Yanagisawa
#31044
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
is a Japanese-American molecular biologist and physician, famous for his discovery of the hormone endothelin and the neuropeptide orexin, the absence of which is the cause of narcolepsy. He is currently the Director of the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine, University of Tsukuba, and an adjunct professor at the Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Go to Profile#5088
Sari Nusseibeh
#15029
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Sari Nusseibeh is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and former president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. Until December 2002, he was the representative of the Palestinian National Authority in that city. In 2008, in an open online poll, Nusseibeh was voted the 24th most influential intellectual in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine and Foreign Policy .
Go to Profile#5089
Abdoldjavad Falaturi
#22718
Overall Influence
1926 - 1996 (70 years)
Abdoldjavad Falaturi was a German scholar of Iranian origin. Education He attended a German-Persian high school in his hometown of Isfahan and took private lessons in Arabic literature and Islamic studies. He carried on his education at Mahad and Tehran. Later, he attended the University of Tehran's Faculty of Theology, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts in philosophy in 1333/1954. While in Germany, Falaturi studied a variety of courses, including philosophy, psychology, comparative religion, Greek, and Latin; he earned his PhD from the University of Bonn in 1962.
Go to Profile#5090
Doreen Massey
#9487
Overall Influence
1944 - 2016 (72 years)
Doreen Barbara Massey was a British social scientist and geographer. She specialized in Marxist geography, feminist geography, and cultural geography, as well as other topics. She was Professor of Geography at the Open University.
Go to Profile#5091
Richard Eastell
#47312
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Richard Eastell MD, FRCP , FRCPath, FMedSci is a British medical doctor and Professor of Bone Metabolism at the University of Sheffield. He was born in Shipley and attended the Salt Grammar School, later graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1977 with an MB ChB and in 1984 with an MD and achieved prominence as an expert in osteoporosis.
Go to Profile#5092
Paco Vidarte
#36758
Overall Influence
1970 - 2008 (38 years)
Francisco "Paco" Javier Vidarte Fernández was a Spanish philosopher, writer and LGBT activist. Biography After studying philosophy at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid/Spain, as well as psychoanalysis at the Universidad Complutense MadridUNED
Go to Profile#5093
Cynthia Nielsen
#83154
Overall Influence
Cynthia R. Nielsen is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. She is known for her expertise in the field of hermeneutics , the philosophy of music, aesthetics, ethics, and social philosophy. Since 2015 she has taught at the University of Dallas. Prior to her appointment at the University of Dallas, she taught at Villanova University as a Catherine of Sienna Fellow in the Ethics Program. Nielsen serves on the executive committee of the North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics.
Go to Profile#5094
Per Ottar Seglen
#86459
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#5095
Fay Bahling Horak
#86463
Overall Influence
#5096
Edward Murray East
1879 - 1938 (59 years)
Edward Murray East was an American plant geneticist, botanist, agronomist and eugenicist. He is known for his experiments that led to the development of hybrid corn and his support of 'forced' elimination of the 'unfit' based on eugenic findings. He worked at the Bussey Institute of Harvard University where he performed a key experiment showing the outcome of crosses between lines that differ in a quantitative trait. He is also known as a critic of consumption and as a pioneer of thinking about environmental limits. While some scholars see his population thinking as nothing more than eugenics...
Go to Profile#5097
Han Ryner
1861 - 1938 (77 years)
Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist. He wrote for publications such as L'Art social, L'Humanité nouvelle, L'Ennemi du Peuple, L'Idée Libre de Lorulot; and L'En dehors and L'Unique of fellow anarchist individualist Émile Armand. His thought is mainly influenced by stoicism and epicureanism.
Go to Profile#5098
Mark Olfson
#86492
Overall Influence
#5099
L. Joseph Melton Melton
#86545
Overall Influence
#5100
Charles E. Mcculloch
#86574
Overall Influence
