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).
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#5451
Jacques Genest
#5452
David Satcher
#2592
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
David Satcher, is an American physician, and public health administrator. He was a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as the 10th Assistant Secretary for Health, and the 16th Surgeon General of the United States.
Go to Profile#5453
John Macleod
1876 - 1935 (59 years)
John James Rickard Macleod, , was a Scottish biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism. He is noted for his role in the discovery and isolation of insulin during his tenure as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, for which he and Frederick Banting received the 1923 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. Awarding the prize to Macleod was controversial at the time, because according to Banting's version of events, Macleod's role in the discovery was negligible. It was not until d...
Go to Profile#5454
Clare Palmer
#78013
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Clare Palmer is a British philosopher, theologian and scholar of environmental and religious studies. She is known for her work on environmental and animal ethics. She was appointed as a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University in 2010. She had previously held academic appointments at the Universities of Greenwich, Stirling, and Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and Washington University in St. Louis in the United States, among others.
Go to Profile#5455
René Schérer
#23524
Overall Influence
1922 - 2023 (101 years)
René Schérer was a French philosopher and professor emeritus of the universite de Paris VIII. Biography Schérer was born in Tulle on 25 November 1922. He is the younger brother of filmmaker Éric Rohmer . He was Guy Hocquenghem's teacher and lover, with whom he co-wrote two books. In 2007, then aged 85, he commented on the history of his life and his work in an interview with Geoffroy de Lagasnerie: After all: interviews on an intellectual life, published by Cartouche.
Go to Profile#5456
S. Matthew Liao
#73060
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
S. Matthew Liao is an American philosopher specializing in bioethics and normative ethics. He is internationally known for his work on topics including children’s rights and human rights, novel reproductive technologies, neuroethics, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Liao currently holds the Arthur Zitrin Chair of Bioethics, and is the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Affiliated Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University. He has previously held appointments at Oxford, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and Princeton.
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José Gregorio Hernández
1864 - 1919 (55 years)
José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros OFS was a Venezuelan physician. Born in Isnotú, Trujillo State, he became a highly renowned doctor, more so after his death. He was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2021.
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César Rendueles
#73666
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
César Rendueles is a Spanish sociologist and essayist. Life Although born in Girona, he grew up in Gijon and lives in Madrid. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, was an associate professor at the Carlos III University and visiting professor at the National University of Colombia. He currently teaches sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid. He was a founding member of the cultural intervention group Ladinamo, which edited the magazine of the same name. He directed cultural projects for eight years at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. He often writes on epistemology, political phi...
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Tomáš Halík
#9018
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Tomáš Halík is a Czech Catholic priest, philosopher, and theologian. He is a professor of sociology at the Charles University in Prague, pastor of the Academic Parish by St. Salvator Church in Prague, and president of the Czech Christian Academy.
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Feliks Jaroński
1777 - 1827 (50 years)
Feliks Jaroński was a Polish Catholic priest and philosopher. Life In 1809–18 Jaroński was a professor at Kraków University. A follower of Kantism, he postulated a renewal of philosophy through the rejection of empiricism and a return to metaphysics. He was the first to write a history of Polish logic.
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Denis Buican
#17734
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Denis Buican is a Romanian-French scientist, bilingual writer, biologist, philosopher and a historian of science. He has studied genetics. Background His father Dumitru Peligrad a boyar and philanthropist was placed under house arrest after the invasion of Romania by the Red Army , but he refused to submit to regular police checks. Although belonging to a class deemed "unhealthy" by the then communist regime, the young researcher was a brilliant undergraduate at the University of Bucharest.
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Torben Grodal
#64042
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Torben Grodal is an author and professor emeritus of Film and Media studies at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Grodal was born on 25 January 1943 in Holbæk, Denmark. Career Grodal studied literature at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He was hired as an assistant professor in the Literature Department after he finished his studies. For many years he was a professor of literature at the University of Copenhagen. Grodal became a professor of Film and Media studies after this new department was created at the University of Copenhagen. In 2013 Torben Grodal retired and became a p...
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H. W. B. Joseph
1867 - 1943 (76 years)
Horace William Brindley Joseph, FBA , published as H. W. B. Joseph, was a British philosopher, who spent his academic career as a Fellow and Tutor at New College, Oxford. Biography Early life Horace William Brindley Joseph was born at Chatham, Kent, on 28 September 1867, the eldest surviving son of Alexander Joseph , rector of St John's, Chatham, and Honorary Canon of Rochester Cathedral, and his wife, Janet Eleanor née Acworth , daughter of George Acworth, a solicitor, and cousin of Sir William Acworth. Joseph attended Allhallows School in Honiton and then Winchester College as a scholar . ...
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Émile Saisset
1814 - 1863 (49 years)
Émile Edmond Saisset was a French philosopher. Life Émile Edmond Saisset was born at Montpellier. He studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, and carried on the eclectic tradition of his master along with Ravaisson and Jules Simon. In 1842 he was professor of philosophy at Caen, at the École Normale in Paris. He later moved on to the College de France in 1843. He became a member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques at the Sorbonne in 1862. Saisset, known as "fashionable psychologist", was associated with the Eclectic school of Victor Cousin.
Go to Profile#5465
Jerome Paul Kassirer
#91653
Overall Influence
#5466
John J. McDermott
#54647
Overall Influence
1932 - 2018 (86 years)
John Joseph McDermott was an American philosopher and a professor at Texas A&M University. He was a distinguished professor at Texas A&M since 1981 and held the Melbern G. Glasscock Chair in the Humanities.
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Allegra de Laurentiis
#79344
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Allegra de Laurentiis is a European philosopher, educated at the Universities of Rome, Tübingen and Frankfurt, who has been teaching at American universities since 1987. She is now a Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University. She is known for her works on philosophy of Hegel.
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Michael R. Hayden
#37928
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Michael R. Hayden, is a Killam Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member. Only four such awards have ever been conferred in the Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Hayden is also Canada Research Chair in Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine. Hayden is best known for his research in Huntington disease .
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Merton Sandler,
#91719
Overall Influence
#5470
Lionel Dauriac
1847 - 1923 (76 years)
Lionel Dauriac was a French philosopher and musicologist. Dauriac was born in Brest, the son of an admiral. He was professor of musical aesthetics at the Sorbonne between 1896 and 1903. He died 26 May 1923 in Paris. An internationally minded music critic, he wrote biographies of Gioachino Rossini, Richard Wagner and Giacomo Meyerbeer.
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Michael Berenbaum
#6102
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Michael Berenbaum is an American scholar, professor, rabbi, writer, and filmmaker, who specializes in the study of the Holocaust. He served as deputy director of the President's Commission on the Holocaust , Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , and Director of the USHMM's Holocaust Research Institute .
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Michael Peters
#83828
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael Adrian Peters is a New Zealand education academic. He is currently a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University and Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
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Zygmunt Zawirski
1882 - 1948 (66 years)
Zygmunt Zawirski was a Polish philosopher and logician. His main field of study was philosophy of physics, history of science, multi-valued logic and relation of multi-valued logic to calculus of probability.
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Jan Deckers
#66554
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jan Deckers works in bioethics at Newcastle University. His work revolves mainly around three topics: animal ethics, reproductive ethics and embryo research, and genetics. Animal ethics Deckers has published numerous articles in animal ethics, mainly on the ethical issues associated with the human consumption of animal products. This topic has been approached from various angles, including its connections with the causation of harm to animals, environmental degradation, climate change, and the emergence and spread of zoonoses. Early work also considered the relevance of the philosophy of Alfr...
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Jakob Frohschammer
1821 - 1893 (72 years)
Jakob Frohschammer was a German theologian and philosopher. Biography Frohschammer was born at Illkofen, which is now in the municipality of Barbing, near Regensburg. Destined by his parents for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he studied theology at Munich, but felt an ever-growing attraction to philosophy. Nevertheless, after much hesitation, he took what he himself calls the most mistaken step of his life, and in 1847 entered the priesthood. His keenly logical intellect, and his impatience of authority where it clashed with his own convictions, quite unfitted him for that unquestioning obedience which the Church demanded.
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Werner Hacke
#91771
Overall Influence
#5477
Thomas Rawson Birks
1810 - 1883 (73 years)
Thomas Rawson Birks was an English theologian and controversialist, who figured in the debate to try to resolve theology and science. He rose to be Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His discussions led to much controversy: in one book he proposed that stars cannot have planets as this would reduce the importance of Christ's appearance on this planet.
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Nathan Widder
#65310
Overall Influence
Nathan Widder is an American-born political philosopher whose work engages with the history of Western political thought and philosophy, contemporary Continental philosophy, and feminist political theory.
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James F. Ross
#80374
Overall Influence
1931 - 2010 (79 years)
James Francis Ross was an American philosopher. James Ross, a creative thinker in philosophy of religion, law, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, was a member of the Philosophy Department at the University of Pennsylvania from 1962 until his death. He published widely.
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Igor Douven
#81305
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Igor Douven a philosopher, cognitive psychologist and formal epistemologist, known for coordinating the research group Formal Epistemology: Foundations and Applications at the KU Leuven. In 2010 he became Endowed Chair in philosophy at the University of Groningen. In 2013, he joined the "Probability, Assessment, Reasoning and Inferences Studies" research group at Paris 8 University.
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Harry Slochower
1900 - 1991 (91 years)
Harry Slochower was an Austrian-American scholar, philosopher and psychoanalyst. Biography Slochower was born Hersch Zloczower in Bukowina, formerly part of Austria and now Romania. He arrived in the United States on the S. S. Frankfurt in October 1913, joining his parents who had arrived in February 1911. He grew up in the Bronx and studied philosophy and German at the City College of New York, graduating in 1923. He also studied at the universities of Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg, before receiving his PhD from Columbia for a book on Richard Dehmel. He was made a Guggenheim Fellow in 1929 f...
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Jean-Jacques Pelletier
#56484
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Jean-Jacques Pelletier is a French Canadian philosophy professor and author. Pelletier was a long-time philosophy teacher with the Lévis-Lauzon post-secondary school, but is best known in several media as an author of French-language thrillerss, some of which have an element of fantasy. Many of his works have received critical acclaim, as his short story "La Bouche barbelée" won a CBC/Radio-Canada contest in 1993.
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Isaac Cardoso
1604 - 1683 (79 years)
Isaac Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher, and polemic writer. Life He was born of Marrano parents at Trancoso, near Celorico, in the province of Beira, Portugal in 1603 or 1604 and died at Verona in 1683. He was an older brother of Abraham Miguel Cardoso.
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Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron
#58758
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron is a French Roman Catholic philosopher. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Poitiers and Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He is the author of many books about Bergson and Hegel. He is an expert on spiritualism.
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Claude Emerson Welch
#5486
Lanza del Vasto
1901 - 1981 (80 years)
Lanza del Vasto was an Italian philosopher, poet, artist, Catholic and nonviolent activist. He was born in San Vito dei Normanni, Italy and died in Murcia, Spain. A western disciple of Mohandas K. Gandhi, he worked for inter-religious dialogue, spiritual renewal, ecological activism and nonviolence.
Go to Profile#5487
Kong Yingda
574 - 648 (74 years)
Kong Yingda , courtesy names Chongyuan and Zhongda , was a Chinese philosopher during the Sui and Tang dynasty. An amorous Confucianist, who is considered one of the most influential Confucian scholars in Chinese history. His most important work is the Wujing Zhengyi , which became the standard curriculum for the imperial examinations, and the basis for all future official commentaries of the Five Classics. He was also "skilled at mathematics and the calendar."
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Marc E. Rothenberg
#89367
Overall Influence
Marc E. Rothenberg is an American physician-scientist who has made significant contributions to the fields of allergy, gastroenterology, and immunology. He is currently a Professor of Pediatrics, at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, the Director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology, the Director of the Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic Disorders, and the principal investigator of the Consortium of Eosinophilic Disease Researchers as part of the Rare Disease Clinical Research Network of the National Institute of Health. ...
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John Goligher
#75380
Overall Influence
1922 - 1998 (76 years)
John Cedric Goligher was a British surgeon who specialised in diseases of the rectum and colon and in coloproctology. He was "renowned worldwide" and had "a national and international reputation" He is considered to have been "one of the preeminent clinical investigative surgeons" of his time.
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Alan White
#40651
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Alan White is an American philosopher and Mark Hopkins Professor of Philosophy at Williams College. He was a president of the Metaphysical Society of America . Education and career Alan White received his B.A. from Tulane University in 1972, followed by a M.A. and Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1976 and 1980 respectively under the direction of Stanley H. Rosen and Thomas Seebohm. He then took up visiting professor positions at Davidson College and East Tennessee State University before joining the faculty of The New School for Social Research in 1982 as Assistant Professor of Philosophy.
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Petrus Camper
1722 - 1789 (67 years)
Petrus Camper FRS , was a Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist in the Age of Enlightenment. He was one of the first to take an interest in comparative anatomy, palaeontology, and the facial angle. He was among the first to mark out an "anthropology," which he distinguished from natural history. He studied the orangutan, the Javan rhinoceros, and the skull of a mosasaur, which he believed was a whale.
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Jeffrey M. Isner
#91948
Overall Influence
#5493
Mihai Gheorghiade
#91949
Overall Influence
#5494
Frode Alfson Bjørdal
#71497
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Frode Alfson Bjørdal is philosophy professor emeritus at the University of Oslo, Norway. Education Bjørdal did his undergraduate studies in philosophy, logic, mathematics and economics at the University of Bergen, Norway, and was a DAAD-Stipendiat at the Johan Wolfgang von Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1985/86. He studied philosophy at University of California, Santa Barbara, United States, from 1988 to 1992, and got his PhD from there in 1993.
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Aldo Gargani
#52822
Overall Influence
1933 - 2009 (76 years)
Aldo Giorgio Gargani was an Italian philosopher. He studied philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Oxford University, and Queen's College. He was professor of Aesthetics and History of Philosophy at the University of Pisa.
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Robert C. Bast Jr.
#92001
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Robert Clinton Bast Jr., is an American physician-scientist who is currently Vice President for Translational Research at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Bast is best known for the discovery of CA125, a serum biomarker for ovarian cancer that has contributed to the care of ovarian cancer patients worldwide. His research spans early detection, enhancing chemotherapy and understanding regulation of dormancy and the role of autophagy in breast and ovarian cancer.
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Marietta Stepanyants
#72895
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Marietta Stepanyants is a Russian philosopher, the founder and the Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in “Philosophy in the Dialogue of Cultures” and the Chief Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences. She is an Honored Scholar of the Russian Federation and an active member of the Academy of Humanities since 1995.
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Joe Leigh Simpson
#92042
Overall Influence
#5499
Anselm of Laon
1050 - 1117 (67 years)
Anselm of Laon , properly Ansel , was a French theologian and founder of a school of scholars who helped to pioneer biblical hermeneutics. Biography Born of very humble parents at Laon before the middle of the 11th century, he is said to have studied under Saint Anselm at Bec, though this is almost certainly incorrect. Other potential teachers of Anselm have been identified, including Bruno of Cologne and Manegold of Lautenbach. By around 1080, he had moved back to his place of birth and was teaching at the cathedral school of Laon, with his brother Ralph. Around 1109, he became dean and chancellor of the cathedral, and in 1115 he was one of Laon's two archdeacons.
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Kiarina Kordela
#70150
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
A. Kiarina Kordela Career From 2010 to 2017 Kordela was an Honorary Adjunct Professor at the Writing and Society Research Center, University of Western Sydney, Australia. Her research combines philosophy, political theory, psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory and literature, analysis of culture and ideology, intellectual history, and biopolitics.
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