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,
#6801
Reginald Hall
#135448
Overall Influence
#6802
Richard A. Berger
#135450
Overall Influence
#6803
Lucienne Chatenoud
#135466
Overall Influence
#6804
Mark E. Feldman
#135467
Overall Influence
#6805
M. Steven Piver
#135480
Overall Influence
#6806
William F. Keane
#135488
Overall Influence
#6807
Leonard D. Kohn
#135493
Overall Influence
#6808
Alfred E. Chang
#135499
Overall Influence
#6809
J. Bryan Dixon
#135518
Overall Influence
#6810
Alexander M. Levine
#135521
Overall Influence
#6811
Cheung Kam Ching
#89766
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Professor "Leo" Cheung Kam Ching is a philosopher in Hong Kong. He is a Professor of the Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong since Jan 2011. He was a Professor of the Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University from 2008–2011, Assistant Professor , Associate Professor and the Head of Department .
Go to Profile#6812
Stefano Cascinu
#135525
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#6813
Barbara Casadei
#75323
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Barbara Casadei is British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford, based in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine. Education Casadei was awarded an academic scholarship to study medicine at the Collegio Nuovo of the University of Pavia, Italy. She graduated cum Laude in 1984 and then went on to a tenure-track training post in the University Department of Medicine in Varese, Italy. She moved to Oxford in 1989 to further her clinical and research training. She was awarded the Joan and Richard Doll Fellowship at Green College, Oxford in 1991, a Doctor ...
Go to Profile#6814
E. Dward Taub
#135529
Overall Influence
#6815
Richard T. Silver
#135539
Overall Influence
#6816
David H. Adams
#135551
Overall Influence
#6817
Hilton c. Whittle
#135564
Overall Influence
#6818
Roberto Leydi
#54884
Overall Influence
1928 - 2003 (75 years)
Roberto Leydi was an Italian ethnomusicologist. He started his career in the field of contemporary music and jazz, and in the 1950s started his research into the social significance of folk and popular music. He published widely, including L'altra musica and I canti popolari italiani, He was known as sponsor and coordinator of numerous projects and festivals to display and preserve Italian music, both traditional and recent. Shortly before his death, he donated his entire private collection to the Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
Go to Profile#6819
Chaim M. Hershko
#135578
Overall Influence
#6820
Eugene P. Dimagno
#135584
Overall Influence
#6821
Gertie F. Marx
#135605
Overall Influence
#6822
Werner G. Reutter
#135616
Overall Influence
#6823
Victor W. Sidel
#28910
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Victor W. Sidel was an American physician and a president of the American Public Health Association. He was a founder and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and later was co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
Go to Profile#6824
Oliver Eickelberg
#135623
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
#6825
David Beaver
#44602
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
David Ian Beaver is a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also directs the cognitive science program and serves as Graduate Studies Advisor of the Human Dimensions of Organizations Master's program. His work concerns the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, including, in particular, research on presupposition, anaphora, topic and focus.
Go to Profile#6826
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
#135642
Overall Influence
#6827
Benjamin G. Druss
#135646
Overall Influence
#6828
Fu‐sheng Wang
#135651
Overall Influence
#6829
Benoît Lacroix
#32136
Overall Influence
1915 - 2016 (101 years)
Benoît Lacroix was a Quebec theologian, philosopher, Dominican priest, professor in medieval studies and historian of the Medieval period, and author of almost 50 works and a great number of articles.
Go to Profile#6830
Michael Israel Shevell
#135671
Overall Influence
#6831
Bhalchandra Pandharinath Bahirat
#110891
Overall Influence
1904 - 1998 (94 years)
Bhalchandra Pandharinath Bahirat was a philosopher and educationist who studied the Marathi literature of Jñāneśvar and other santss of Maharashtra. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Pune University in 1991.
Go to Profile#6832
Juan M. Taveras
#135673
Overall Influence
#6833
Felicity Colman
#41171
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Felicity Colman is a Creative Media Arts theorist. She is Professor of Film and Media Arts. She is the Dean of Research and Knowledge Exchange for the London College of Fashion at University of the Arts London
Go to Profile#6834
Michio Sata
#135684
Overall Influence
#6835
Merton R. Bernfield
#135695
Overall Influence
#6836
Shimon Glick
#31100
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Shimon M. Glick is an American-born Israeli physician. Personal life Glick was born in New Jersey. He and his wife Brenda have six children including Yehuda Glick who is a rabbi and former Knesset member.
Go to Profile#6837
David Enoch
#84312
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
David Enoch is an ethicist and philosopher of law with research interests in moral, political and legal philosophy within the analytic tradition. He is the co-director of the Center for Moral and Political Philosophy and has been the Rodney Blackman Chair in the Philosophy of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 2005. He received his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and Bachelor of Laws degrees from Tel Aviv University in 1993. He then completed his PhD in philosophy at New York University in 2003.
Go to Profile#6838
Stephen M. Tenney
#135708
Overall Influence
#6839
Mitchell W. Krucoff
#135709
Overall Influence
#6840
Stephen Erickson
#114082
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Stephen A. Erickson was an American philosopher. He was an emeritus professor of philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he held the E. Wilson Lyon Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy title. He was known for his lectures in The Great Courses titled "Philosophy as a Guide to Living". He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University. Erickson died of Parkinson's disease on September 20, 2023, at the age of 83.
Go to Profile#6841
Nea L. F. Kassell
#135714
Overall Influence
#6842
Kristen Knutson
#76315
Overall Influence
Kristen Knutson is an associate professor of neurology, working at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. With researchers from the University of Surrey, she studied the mortality rate of half a million people over 6.5 years and concluded that people who self identify as "definite evening type" had a 10 percent higher mortality rate than those who identified as "definite morning type". It was the first study of its type to look into the mortality rate of night owls.
Go to Profile#6843
Luc Djoussé
#135743
Overall Influence
#6844
Leonardo Fogassi
#135752
Overall Influence
#6845
Ray Huang
#7055
Overall Influence
1918 - 2000 (82 years)
Ray Huang was a Chinese-American historian and philosopher who was an officer in the National Revolutionary Army and fought in the Burma Campaign. In 1964, Huang earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan. He worked with Joseph Needham and was a contributor to Needham's Science and Civilisation in China. Huang taught history at universities in the US and the UK, and he is best known in his later years for the idea of macro-history.
Go to Profile#6846
Jim Peacock
#28339
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
William James Peacock, is an Australian molecular biologist who was Chief Scientist of Australia , President of the Australian Academy of Science and Chief of CSIRO Plant Industry . Peacock was born in Leura, New South Wales and educated at the University of Sydney, where he studied botany and zoology and gained a PhD in genetics. He followed this with post-doctoral positions in genetics at the University of Oregon in Eugene and molecular biology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, before returning to Australia to work with the CSIRO.
Go to Profile#6847
Joel Gelfand
#133971
Overall Influence
Joel M. Gelfand is an American dermatologist and epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He currently serves as the James J. Leyden Professor in Clinical Investigation, the Vice Chair of Clinical Research, the director of the Psoriasis and Phototherapy Treatment Center, and the medical director of the Clinical Studies Unit in the Department of Dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies systemic comorbidities of psoriasis and much of his research has centered on the connection between cardiovascular diseas...
Go to Profile#6848
Dong‐wan Kim
#135816
Overall Influence
#6849
Bongani Mayosi
#47409
Overall Influence
1967 - 2018 (51 years)
Bongani Mawethu Mayosi BMedSci, MB ChB, FCP, DPhil, was a South African professor of cardiology He was the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town and an A-rated National Research Foundation researcher. Prior to this, he was head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital. his research interests included rheumatic fever, tuberculous pericarditis and cardiomyopathy. He was a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a former President of the College of Physicians of South Africa and he headed numerous other ...
Go to Profile#6850
Tomasz Guzik
#72673
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Tomasz Jan Guzik is a Polish physician scientist. Since 2012, he has been the Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Glasgow. He is a member of the American Heart Association and scientific societies of Poland, United Kingdom and the United States of America.
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