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,
#6351
Harold H. Joachim
1868 - 1938 (70 years)
Harold Henry Joachim, FBA was a British idealist philosopher. A disciple of Francis Herbert Bradley, whose posthumous papers he edited, Joachim is now identified with the later days of the British idealist movement. He is generally credited with the definitive formulation of the coherence theory of truth, in his book The Nature of Truth . He was also a scholar of Aristotle and Spinoza.
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Siva Vaidhyanathan
#16879
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Siva Vaidhyanathan is an American cultural historian and media scholar, and the Robertson professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. Vaidhyanathan is a permanent columnist at The Guardian and Slate; he is also a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Slate, and The Baffler. He directs the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia, which produces a television show, a radio program, several podcasts, and the Virginia Quarterly Review.
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Robert Frodeman
#88686
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Robert Frodeman is former Professor and former Chair, Dept of Philosophy and Religion, University of North Texas, previously at the University of Colorado, and Director of UNT's Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity. He publishes in the philosophy of geology, the philosophy of interdisciplinarity, and practical philosophy. Frodeman is now a writer and consultant living in Hoback, Wyoming.
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Ben Witherington III
#15483
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Ben Witherington III is an American Wesleyan-Arminian New Testament scholar. Witherington is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary, a Wesleyan-Holiness seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and an ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church.
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Hugo Moser
#65792
Overall Influence
1924 - 2007 (83 years)
Hugo Wolfgang Moser was a Swiss-born American research scientist and director of the Neurogenetics Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Moser was also University Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University. His research on peroxisomal disorders achieved international recognition.
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Giovanni Gasbarrini
#60453
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Giovanni Gasbarrini is an Italian physician whose work in the field of internal medicine, hepatology and gastroenterology earned him the 2013 lifetime achievement award of the United European Gastroenterology association.
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Ulrich Dirnagl
#101795
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#6358
Thomas F. Gallagher
#101802
Overall Influence
#6359
Robert Arnold Zimmerman
#101813
Overall Influence
#6360
Predrag Finci
#33840
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Predrag Finci is a Bosnian–British philosopher, author, and essayist. Biography Predrag Finci started his career as an actor. In 1968 Finci played the role of Gavrilo Princip in the film Sarajevski atentat directed by Fadil Hadžić. Later he studied philosophy at the University of Sarajevo and at the University of Paris X: Nanterre under Mikel Dufrenne. He was a visiting researcher at the Freiburg University under the supervision of Werner Marx. He completed his MA in 1977 and PhD in philosophy in 1981. He was a professor of aesthetics at the University of Sarajevo until 1993 when, during the Bosnian war, he left Sarajevo for London.
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Clyde Wayne Bardin
#101824
Overall Influence
#6362
Andrew E. Kertesz
#101826
Overall Influence
#6363
Isaac Albalag
1300 - 1300 (0 years)
Isaac Albalag was a Jewish philosopher of the second half of the 13th century. Biography According to Steinschneider , Albalag probably lived in northern Spain or southern France. Graetz makes him a native of southern Spain. His liberal views, especially his interpretations of the Biblical account of the Creation in accordance with the Aristotelian theory of the eternity of the world, stamped him in the eyes of many as a heretic.
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Ljubomir Cuculovski
#82029
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Ljubomir Cuculovski is a Macedonian philosopher and professor in Skopje. He graduated from the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, with a thesis on The Sources of Bergson’s Theory of Knowledge. Then he received his master's title in sociological science in 1982, at the Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research in Skopje, with a thesis on Religion and Morality. He received his PhD in philosophical sciences from the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje in 1992, with a dissertation on Karl Marx: The Origin of Historical M...
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Patrick Grim
#76558
Overall Influence
Patrick Grim is an American philosopher. He has published on epistemic questions in philosophy of religion, as well as topics in philosophy of science, philosophy of logic, computational philosophy, and agent-based modeling. He is author, co-author or editor of seven books in philosophical logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and computational philosophy. He is currently editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly and founding co-editor of over forty volumes of The Philosopher’s Annual, an attempt to collect the ten best philosophy articles of the year. Grim's popular work i...
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Sengaku Mayeda
#45486
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Sengaku Mayeda is a Japanese writer, philosopher and teacher, known for his writings on Indian philosophy and Adi Shankara. He was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his services to the fields of literature and education. He is the fourth Japanese to be honoured with Padma Shri, after Taro Nakayama, Shoji Shiba and Prof. Noboru Karashima. He is also a recipient of the Third Order of Merit with the Middle Cordon of the Rising Sun of the Government of Japan, which he received in 2002.
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Daniel Joseph Clauw
#101890
Overall Influence
#6368
William Turner
1510 - 1568 (58 years)
William Turner was an English divine and reformer, a physician and a natural historian. He has been called "The father of English botany." He studied medicine in Italy, and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gessner. He was an early herbalist and ornithologist, and it is in these fields that the most interest lies today. He is known as being one of the first "parson-naturalists" in England.
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Friedrich Christian Laukhard
1757 - 1822 (65 years)
Friedrich Christian Laukhard was a German novelist, philosopher, historian and theologian. From 1783 to 1794 he volunteered in the Prussian army as a musketeer. During the War of the first coalition his regiment campaigned in Valmy. Laukhard's military diary is of great interest for historical research on the Prussian army and the French revolutionary wars. Due to his licentious and extrovert lifestyle, "Magister Laukhard" soon became a notorious figure.
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Hans Thoma
1839 - 1924 (85 years)
Hans Thoma was a German painter. Biography Hans Thoma was born on 2 October 1839 in Bernau in the Black Forest, Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of painting by a painter of clock faces. He entered the Karlsruhe Academy in 1859, where he studied under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Ludwig des Coudres – the latter of which had a major influence on his career. Thoma also studied under Hans Gude, but rebelled against Gude's realism. He subsequently studied and worked, with but indifferent success, in Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich and Frankfurt, until his reputatio...
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Hayk Gyulikevkhyan
1886 - 1951 (65 years)
Hayk Gyulikevkhyan was an Armenian literary critic and philosopher and Professor of Yerevan State University. He was one of the founders of Soviet Armenian literary criticism. Biography He studied at Leipzig and Zurich universities, then graduated from the department of philosophy of Heidelberg University. Gyulikevkhyan cooperated with Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. For his political activities he was arrested in 1914. In 1920's he became the editor of "Kommunist" newspaper of Yerevan and worked in Alexandropol. Gyulikevkhyan was the pro-rector of Yerevan State University and director of Armenian SSR Marxism–Leninism Institute.
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Dennis George Maki
#101955
Overall Influence
#6373
Franco Burgersdijk
1590 - 1635 (45 years)
Franco Petri Burgersdijk or Franciscus Burgersdicius was a Dutch logician. Life Franco Burgersdijk was born in De Lier, Defland in the year 1590 was a Dutch logician who worked as a professor of logic and moral philosophy and rector at Leiden University. Franco Burgersdijk's teaching helped raise the profile of logic and philosophy in Dutch universities. After growing up on a farm, Burgersdijk attended both the Latin School at Amersfoort and the Delft Gynasium . Shortly after, he decided to study theology at the University of Leiden. His growing interest in debate led him to become a mentee of Gisbertus Voetius, the vice principal of Staten Collegie.
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Clare Beghtol
#80322
Overall Influence
1942 - 2018 (76 years)
Clare Beghtol was an American-born classification theorist. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, she studied English at the University of Chicago and American civilization at Brown University. Beghtol began teaching at what became Concordia University in 1967, then became an editor and writer. Beghtol received a master's degree in library science from the University of Toronto in 1979. She joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and continued working there while earning a doctoral degree. From 1987 to 1992, Beghtol was director of research at Ketchum Canada. She taught at the University of Toronto from 1991 to 2009.
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Marvin Meyer
#17389
Overall Influence
1948 - 2012 (64 years)
Marvin W. Meyer was a scholar of religion and a tenured professor at Chapman University, in Orange, California. He was the Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute. He was also Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. Dr. Meyer authored numerous books and articles on Greco-Roman and Christian religions in antiquity and late antiquity, and on Albert Schweitzer's ethic of reverence for life. He had been interviewed on television programs that aired on ABC, BBC, CNN,...
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Harold Ellis
#73045
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Professor Harold Ellis CBE, Mch, FRCS is an English retired surgeon. He was Emeritus Professor of Surgery in the University of London and most recently a professor in the Department of Anatomy & Human Sciences at the King's College London School of Medicine. He qualified as a doctor from the University of Oxford in July 1948, the same month the National Health Service began. From 1950 to 1951 he undertook national service as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, afterwards continuing his training as a surgical registrar in London, Sheffield and Oxford before taking up a post as senior lecturer in the University of London.
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Sam Houston
1793 - 1863 (70 years)
Samuel Houston was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two individuals to represent Texas in the United States Senate. He also served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas, the only individual to be elected governor of two different states in the United States.
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Piero Anversa
#102049
Overall Influence
#6379
Debito Arudou
#10115
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Debito Arudou is an American-born Japanese writer, blogger, and human rights activist. He was born in the United States and became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 2000. Arudou has since left Japan after living in the country for over 20 years.
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Aristotle of Cyrene
400 BC - 400 BC (0 years)
Aristotle of Cyrene was a Greek philosopher who may have belonged to the Cyrenaic school. He was a native of Cyrene, and a contemporary of Stilpo. He taught Cleitarchus and Simmias of Syracuse before they became pupils of Stilpo. It has generally been assumed that Aristotle was a member of the Cyrenaic school, but this assumption is somewhat doubtful. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he wrote a work on the art of poetry. The only aspect of his philosophical views which is known is a short piece of ethical advice preserved by Aelian: Aristoteles of Cyrene said that you should not accept a favor from anyone.
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Michael Rosenak
#41425
Overall Influence
1932 - 2013 (81 years)
Michael Rosenak was an Israeli philosopher of Jewish education. He was the Mandel Professor of Jewish Education at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Biography Michael Rosenak was born in Germany but he grew up in the United States. He graduated Yeshiva University. He emigrated to Israel in 1958. In the 1960s, he taught a popular course at Hebrew University's program for overseas students, "Basic issues in contemporary Jewish life." He held various positions during his academic life, before becoming a full professor at the Melton Centre, and was also noted for his involvement in hands-on ed...
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Leon van der Torre
#48080
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Leendert van der Torre is a professor of computer science at the University of Luxembourg and head of the Individual and Collective Reasoning group, part of the Computer Science and Communication Research Unit. Leon van der Torre is a prolific researcher in deontic logic and multi-agent systems, a member of the Ethics Advisory Committee of the University of Luxembourg and founder of the CSC Robotic research laboratory. Since March 2016 he is the head of the Computer Science and Communication Research Unit.
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Adam Hochschild
#2900
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian and lecturer. His best-known works include King Leopold's Ghost , To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 , Bury the Chains , The Mirror at Midnight , The Unquiet Ghost , and Spain in Our Hearts . American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis .
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Benjamin L. Ebert
#77666
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Benjamin Levine Ebert is the Chair of Medical Oncology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and the George P. Canellos, MD and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Early life and education Ebert was born in Boston Lying-In Hospital to parents Michael and Ellen Ebert. His father was the Chair of the department of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine while his mother was an artist. Due to his fathers position, Ebert and his family lived in Baltimore, Maryland, and Bethesda, Tennessee. While in Tennessee, Ebert was enrolled at the University School of Nashville where he was ranked nationally in table tennis.
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Patrik Brundin
#102111
Overall Influence
#6386
Sidi Mohamed Barkat
#53167
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Sidi Mohamed Barkat is an Algerian philosopher employed in Paris. He was an associate researcher at the psychology of work and action laboratory at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. After several years of employment by the university, where he was mainly occupied with questions of epistemology in the social sciences, Sidi Mohammed Barkat directed a research programme at the Collège international de philosophie in Paris on the image and condition of "the native Algerian" from 1998 to 2004.
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Peter K. Sorger
#102142
Overall Influence
#6388
Friedrich‐wilhelm Mohr
#102150
Overall Influence
#6389
Hiram C. Jr. Polk
#102160
Overall Influence
#6390
Moncure D. Conway
1832 - 1907 (75 years)
Moncure Daniel Conway was an American abolitionist minister and radical writer. At various times Methodist, Unitarian, and a Freethinker, he descended from patriotic and patrician families of Virginia and Maryland but spent most of the final four decades of his life abroad in England and France, where he wrote biographies of Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Paine and his own autobiography. He led freethinkers in London's South Place Chapel, now Conway Hall.
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Richard Pazdur
#87335
Overall Influence
Richard Pazdur is an American oncologist serving as the founding director of the Oncology Center of Excellence within the Food and Drug Administration. He was appointed to the position in 2005. He was previously the director of the FDA's Office of Hematology Oncology Products from 1999 to 2005.
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James Weldon Johnson
1871 - 1938 (67 years)
James Weldon Johnson was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , where he started working in 1917. In 1920, he was chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer. He served in that position from 1920 to 1930. Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novel, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture. He wrote the...
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Steven Mark Albelda
#102167
Overall Influence
#6394
Vincent Delecroix
#92054
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Vincent Delecroix is a French philosopher and writer. A graduate from the École normale supérieure, and agrégé of philosophy, a specialist of Søren Kierkegaard on whom he did his doctoral thesis, he has taught philosophy of religion at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes as a lecturer. Also a novelist, he received the Prix Valery Larbaud in 2007 for Ce qui est perdu and the Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française after he published Tombeau d'Achille . His literary and philosophical work is attentive to existential acts and experiences, such as love, singing and the sacred.
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Alexander Nevsky
1220 - 1263 (43 years)
Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky was Prince of Novgorod , Grand Prince of Kiev and Grand Prince of Vladimir . Commonly regarded as a key figure in medieval Russian history, Alexander was a grandson of Vsevolod the Big Nest and rose to legendary status on account of his military victories over Swedish invaders. He preserved separate statehood and Orthodoxy, agreeing to pay tribute to the powerful Golden Horde. Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow canonized Alexander Nevsky as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1547.
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Joel S. Migdal
#15818
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Joel S. Migdal is the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies in the University of Washington's Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. He is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics.
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Harry S. Shwachman
#102210
Overall Influence
#6398
Nicolae Bagdasar
1896 - 1971 (75 years)
Nicolae Bagdasar was a Romanian philosopher. Born to a peasant family north of Bârlad, he fought in World War I before attending the University of Bucharest and going on to earn a doctorate in Germany. He entered university teaching at Bucharest in 1928, but did not become a full professor until 1942, when he began teaching the history of philosophy and epistemology at Iași. Rising to Romanian Academy member the following year, he lost this distinction in 1948, under the nascent communist regime, and was removed from teaching in 1949. He spent the remainder of his career in a lower profile, undertaking research in various fields.
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Philip Henry Gosse
1810 - 1888 (78 years)
Philip Henry Gosse , known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology. Gosse created and stocked the first public aquarium at the London Zoo in 1853, and coined the term "aquarium" when he published the first manual, The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea, in 1854. His work was the catalyst for an aquarium craze in early Victorian England.
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Kornelia Polyak
#82055
Overall Influence
Kornelia Polyak is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an internationally recognized breast cancer expert. Polyak earned her MD from Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Medical University in Szeged, Hungary, and her PhD from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences/Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She then did a fellowship in cancer genetics at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center with Bert Vogelstein and Kenneth Kinzler.
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