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 …
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#6451
Dennis Thomas Mangano
#132006
Overall Influence
#6452
Raimund Margreiter
#132012
Overall Influence
#6453
Monty Krieger
#132028
Overall Influence
#6454
Gilla Kaplan
#132029
Overall Influence
#6455
Glenn Jay Jaffe
#132033
Overall Influence
#6456
Hassan Kobeissi
#70720
Overall Influence
1941 - 2006 (65 years)
Dr. Hassan Kobeissi was a prominent Lebanese writer, thinker and translator. He was born in Zebdine زبدين Lebanon, and is considered an important figure in the Lebanese intellectual circle. He is noted for writing publications such as "Rodinson and the Son of Islam", and for his award-winning translations of many prominent philosophical, sociological and anthropological writings.
Go to Profile#6457
David Himmelstein
#25584
Overall Influence
David U. Himmelstein is an American academic physician specializing in internal medicine. He is a distinguished professor of public health and health policy in the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, an adjunct clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He is the co-founder with Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization advocating for single-payer healthcare in the United States.
Go to Profile#6458
Steven Robert Garfin
#132037
Overall Influence
#6459
Jaume Marrugat
#132045
Overall Influence
#6460
Marshall D. Lindheimer
#132047
Overall Influence
#6461
Harry Dym
#132051
Overall Influence
#6462
Stefan S. Fajans
#132064
Overall Influence
#6463
Murray B. Bornstein
#132077
Overall Influence
#6464
Dr. David B. Sachar
#132100
Overall Influence
#6465
Michael Zank
#107377
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Michael Zank is a German-born American author, specializing in Jewish theology and philosophy. Work and career He studied Christian and Jewish theology in Germany before moving to the United States, after spending a short time in Israel. He received his PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. He now works there as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Religion Department and teaches introductory level courses on the Bible, Moses and Jerusalem as well as advanced courses in the philosophy of religion. He is considered to be a leading expert in German Jewish intellectual history.
Go to Profile#6466
F. Stuart Foster Foster
#132135
Overall Influence
#6467
Nicholas Stephen Bodor
#132142
Overall Influence
#6468
Maurice Dongier
#39974
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
Maurice Dongier was a Canadian neuropsychiatrist at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre in Montreal, Quebec. He is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour as well as a connoisseur of wine and fine cooking. Dongier is a founding member of the Société française de Psycho-oncologie .
Go to Profile#6469
Janet G. Travell
#10002
Overall Influence
1901 - 1997 (96 years)
Janet Graham Travell was an American physician and medical researcher. Early life and education She was born in 1901 to John Willard and Janet Eliza Travell. Heavily influenced by her father's profession of physician, Travell made the decision to pursue a career in the medical field. In June 1929, in New York City, Janet married John William Gordon Powell, who was an investment counselor. They had two daughters—Janet and Virginia. At the age of 95, Travell died of heart failure at her home in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#6470
Biykem Bozkurt
#132153
Overall Influence
#6471
Clinton Jencks
#39744
Overall Influence
1918 - 2005 (87 years)
Clinton Jencks was an American lifelong activist in labor and social justice causes, most famous for union organizing among New Mexico's miners, acting in the 1954 film Salt of the Earth , and enduring years of government prosecution for allegedly falsifying a Taft-Hartley non-communist affidavit.
Go to Profile#6472
John V. Wayland Frangioni
#132159
Overall Influence
#6473
Riccardo Asero
#132172
Overall Influence
#6474
Yvonne Tasker
#31705
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Yvonne Tasker is a British author and professor of media and communication in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. Tasker was previously professor of film studies and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at University of East Anglia.
Go to Profile#6475
Horst Sievert
#132190
Overall Influence
#6476
Lawrence Kramer
#111688
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Lawrence Kramer is an American musicologist and composer. His academic work is closely associated with the humanistic, culturally oriented New Musicology, now more often referred to as cultural or critical musicology. Writing in 2001, Alastair Williams described Kramer as a pioneering figure in the disciplinary change that brought musicology, formerly an outlier, into the broader fold of the humanities.
Go to Profile#6477
Wade G. Regehr
#132208
Overall Influence
#6478
Wendell F. Rosse
#132209
Overall Influence
#6479
R. Robertson Young
#132227
Overall Influence
#6480
Vicente Iii Valero
#132251
Overall Influence
#6481
Gary, J. Kelloff
#132261
Overall Influence
#6482
Asheesh Bedi
#132269
Overall Influence
#6483
Lawrence Haworth
#100313
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Lawrence Lindley "Larry" Haworth is an American-born, Canadiann philosopher. Haworth is the author of several books of political philosophy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario.
Go to Profile#6484
Normann H. Silverman
#132277
Overall Influence
#6485
Jonathon Keats
#56560
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Jonathon Keats is an American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. Keats was born in New York City and studied philosophy at Amherst College. He now lives in San Francisco and Italy.
Go to Profile#6486
Stig Frøland
#89808
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Stig Sophus Frøland is a Norwegian professor of medicine. He was born in Sør-Odal as a brother of Dag Frøland. He took the dr.med. degree in 1973 and specialist qualification in internal medicine in 1980, later also in infectious diseases in 1983. He has served as chief physician at Rikshospitalet from 1986 and professor at the University of Oslo from 1993 to his retirement.
Go to Profile#6487
Ingrid Ursula Scott
#132305
Overall Influence
#6488
Richard H. Quarles
#132309
Overall Influence
#6489
Donald W. Paty
#132310
Overall Influence
#6490
Hans-helmut Kornhuber
#132327
Overall Influence
#6491
Susumu Seino
#132337
Overall Influence
#6492
Saul M. Genuth
#132354
Overall Influence
#6493
Peter H. Sugden
#132362
Overall Influence
#6494
Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz
#75273
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz is a German Catholic philosopher and author. She studies Catholic religious philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries. Biography Education Gerl-Falkovitz studied philosophy, German Studies, and political science at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg from 1965 to 1971; she earned her doctorate from the University of Munich in 1971. In an interview in 2021, she said of this formative period in her life, "The theology of the 1960s, when I was studying in Munich, was not attractive for me: too much historical criticism, also in methodology, too much existentia...
Go to Profile#6495
Sante Tura
#132367
Overall Influence
#6496
Roberto J. Groszmann
#132381
Overall Influence
#6497
Wolfgang Holzgreve
#132385
Overall Influence
#6498
Daniel G. Coit
#132393
Overall Influence
#6499
Charles W. Stratton
#132408
Overall Influence
#6500
Jeffrey Rosenfeld
#68263
Overall Influence
Jeffrey Victor Rosenfeld is an Australian neurosurgeon and professor of medicine. He is a senior neurosurgeon in the Department of Neurosurgery at The Alfred Hospital, and the Emeritus Professor of Surgery at Monash University, as well as being a major general in the Australian Defence Force, where he has served as a general surgeon since 1984. His research has focussed on traumatic brain injury, bionic vision, and medical engineering. He is best known for devising an operation to remove hypothalamic haematomas from children's brains. Since 2021 he has been the Patron of the Australian Fri...
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