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,
#6851
Esteban Domingo
#106953
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#6852
Richard J. Glassock
#106957
Overall Influence
#6853
Édouard Hugon
1867 - 1929 (62 years)
Édouard Hugon , Roman Catholic Priest, French Dominican, Thomistic philosopher and theologian trusted and held in high esteem by the Holy See, from 1909 to 1929 was a professor at the Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, as well as a well-known author of philosophical and theological manuals within the school of traditional Thomism.
Go to Profile#6854
Armand Hatchuel
#51587
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Armand Hatchuel is a French researcher and professor of management science and design theory at the Centre for Management Science, Ecole des Mines de Paris. A pioneer in the study of the cognitive and organizational dynamics at play in innovative enterprises, he is behind the development of several theories aimed at re-establishing management science as a fundamental science of collective action.
Go to Profile#6855
John Wennberg
#23876
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
John E. "Jack" Wennberg is the pioneer and leading researcher of unwarranted variation in the healthcare industry. In four decades of work, Wennberg has documented the geographic variation in the healthcare that patients receive in the United States. In 1988, he founded the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School to address that unwarranted variation in healthcare.
Go to Profile#6856
James R. Andrews
#106994
Overall Influence
#6857
Sherwin B. Nuland
#12371
Overall Influence
1930 - 2014 (84 years)
Sherwin Bernard Nuland was an American surgeon and writer who taught bioethics, history of medicine, and medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, and occasionally bioethics and history of medicine at Yale College. His 1994 book How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter was a New York Times Best Seller and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, as well as being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Go to Profile#6858
Karen Swassjan
#77812
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Karen A. Swassjan , *1948 in Tbilisi, is an Armenian philosopher, literary critic, historian of culture and anthroposophist. He is one of the best known contemporary philosophers in the Russian-speaking world.
Go to Profile#6859
Jordan U. Gutterman
#107019
Overall Influence
#6860
Amanda Anderson
#69215
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Amanda Anderson is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and English and Director of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University. She is a literary scholar and theorist who has written on nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and culture as well as on contemporary debates in literary and cultural theory.
Go to Profile#6861
Andreas G. Tzakis
#107035
Overall Influence
#6862
Monique Desroches
#35501
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Monique Desroches is a Canadian ethnomusicologist from Quebec who specializes in the music of the West Indies and the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. Early life Desroches was born in Grand-Mère in Quebec on March 18, 1948. From 1968 to 1974, Desroches was part of a folk group, "Les Contretemps" who released two LPs and three 45s and toured in Canada, the United States and Japan.
Go to Profile#6863
Elizabeth J. Feinler
#3345
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler is an American information scientist. From 1972 until 1989 she was director of the Network Information Systems Center at the Stanford Research Institute . Her group operated the Network Information Center for the ARPANET as it evolved into the Defense Data Network and the Internet.
Go to Profile#6864
Donald Francis Hoelzl Wallach
#107051
Overall Influence
#6865
Tamara Horowitz
#90399
Overall Influence
1950 - 2000 (50 years)
Tamara Horowitz was an American philosopher who worked on epistemology, feminist philosophy and the philosophy of science. She spent much of her career at the University of Pittsburgh, and was appointed chair of the philosophy department there in September 1999, but died a few months later.
Go to Profile#6866
Menachem Fisch
#60658
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Menachem Fisch is an Israeli philosopher. He is the Joseph and Ceil Mazer Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science, and co-Director of the Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center for the Study of Religious and Interreligious Dynamics at Tel Aviv University. He is also Senior Fellow of the Goethe University's Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Bad Homburg.
Go to Profile#6867
Jacobus Wittichius
1677 - 1739 (62 years)
Jacobus Wittichius was a German-Dutch philosopher, a Cartesian and follower of Burchard de Volder, and holder of controversial views on the nature of God. Life He was the son of Tobias Wittich and nephew of Christophorus Wittichius, and was born in Aachen. He studied under Herman Alexander Roëll, at the University of Franeker.
Go to Profile#6868
Wendy Levinson
#56480
Overall Influence
Wendy Levinson MD is a Canadian physician and academic. She is the Chair of Choosing Wisely Canada, "a campaign to help physicians and patients engage in conversations about unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures". She is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#6869
Robert Glen Hart
#107088
Overall Influence
#6870
Carl Grunfeld
#107092
Overall Influence
#6871
Konstantin Branković
1814 - 1865 (51 years)
Konstantin Branković was a Serbian pedagogue and publicist from the Kingdom of Hungary. He was one of the first six-member tutorial staff at the Lyceum of the Principality of Serbia in Kragujevac before Belgrade became the capital city and a new Lyceum was opened there.
Go to Profile#6872
Martine J. Piccart
#6873
Vincent A. Miller
#107106
Overall Influence
#6874
William Oh
#107109
Overall Influence
#6875
Stewart Sell
#107121
Overall Influence
#6876
Wolfram Sterry
#107122
Overall Influence
#6877
William Beverly White
#107133
Overall Influence
#6878
Hiroshi Nakajima
#16049
Overall Influence
1928 - 2013 (85 years)
Hiroshi Nakajima was a Japanese doctor known chiefly for his tenure as Director-General of the World Health Organization. Early life and education He was born in Chiba, Japan, on 16 May 1928. In 1955 Nakajima received his M.D. from Tokyo Medical University, Japan. He then studied in Paris.
Go to Profile#6879
Elísio de Moura
1877 - 1977 (100 years)
Elísio de Moura Azevedo, was a Portuguese physician, professor, psychiatrist and the first president of the College of Physicians in 1939. Biography Elísio de Moura was notable for teaching and research in psychiatry and neurology. He contributed, in the beginning of the Republic, to keep the faculty of medicine at the University of Coimbra, which was at risk of moving to the new University of Lisbon and University of Porto.
Go to Profile#6880
George F. C. Griss
1898 - 1953 (55 years)
George François Cornelis Griss , usually cited as G. F. C. Griss, was a Dutch mathematician and philosopher, who was occupied with Hegelian idealism and Brouwers intuitionism and stated a negationless mathematics.
Go to Profile#6881
James Lawson
#18208
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
James Morris Lawson Jr. is an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960, and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.
Go to Profile#6882
Agha Hossein Khansari
1637 - 1687 (50 years)
Agha Hossein Khansari , full name Hossein ibn Jamal al-Din Mohammad Khansari , known as Mohaghegh Khansari and also known as "Master of all in all" , who was nicknamed "the disciple of mankind" because of the many masters he acquired knowledge in their presence, was one of the great Iranian jurists of Isfahan jurisprudential school in the 11th century AH, who was also engaged in philosophy and wisdom. He was one of the high level scholars during the reign of Sultan Suleiman of the Safavid dynasty and after the death of Mir Seyyed Mohammad Masoom in 1683, he became the Shaykh al-Islām of Isfahan.
Go to Profile#6883
Kari Juhani Syrjänen
#107211
Overall Influence
#6884
Raymond F. Burk
#107224
Overall Influence
#6885
Andrzej Szczeklik
#20071
Overall Influence
1938 - 2012 (74 years)
Andrzej Szczeklik was a Polish immunologist working at the Jagiellonian University School of Medicine in Kraków. Having received numerous distinctions for his research, Szczeklik was also well known as a writer.
Go to Profile#6886
Ignac Fogelman
#107232
Overall Influence
#6887
Leslie Cannold
#45494
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Leslie Cannold is an Australian philosopher, ethicist, educationalist, writer, activist, and public intellectual. Education and career Born and raised in Armonk and Scarsdale, New York, Leslie Cannold migrated to Melbourne in her early twenties. She began writing for The Age as an opinion and education section columnist while raising young children and completing her graduate degrees.
Go to Profile#6888
Alexander Gordon Bearn
#47730
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
Alexander Gordon Bearn informally Alick Bearn , a physician, scientist and author, was professor at Rockefeller University and Cornell University Medical College. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and had been Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society. He died Friday, May 15, 2009, in Philadelphia. Prior to his death Bearn was working on a family history that followed the Bearn family from Béarn, France to Angus, Scotland and finally to the United States.
Go to Profile#6889
Prasenjit Biswas
#88276
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Prasenjit Biswas is a Professor of philosophy at North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. His research interests reflect an interdisciplinary orientation that includes ethno-philosophy, ethnicity, and indigenous identities. He is a human rights defender who works with Barak Human Right Protection Committee , Silchar. The BHRPC defended human rights of labourers and their families in tea gardens of Barak Valley of Assam, who faced deaths due to starvation in 2011–12. The National Human Rights' Commission of India granted relief and compensation to some of the families who suffered due to starvation deaths.
Go to Profile#6890
Georg Gottlob Richter
1694 - 1773 (79 years)
Georg Gottlob Richter was a professor of medicine, philosophy, and philology. Education Before receiving his MD degree, Richter spent a year in Leiden listening to the lectures of Herman Boerhaave. He then obtained his MD under Johann Ludwig Hannemann at the University of Kiel in 1720.
Go to Profile#6891
Anthony Beavers
#75432
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Anthony Beavers is an American philosopher. he holds the positions of professor of philosophy, director of cognitive science, and director of The Digital Humanities Laboratory at the University of Evansville. Beavers received his MA and BA from Trinity College, Hartford and his PhD from Marquette University. He was the fourth president of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy .
Go to Profile#6892
Rajesh Thakker
#69590
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Rajesh Vasantlal Thakker is May Professor of Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. Thakker is also a Consultant physician at the Churchill Hospital and the John Radcliffe Hospital, Principal investigator at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism and was Chairman of the NIHR/MRC Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Board until Spring 2016.
Go to Profile#6893
Daniel Francis Mcauley
#107304
Overall Influence
#6894
Nir Giladi
#107320
Overall Influence
#6895
Agostino Nifo
1473 - 1538 (65 years)
Agostino Nifo was an Italian philosopher and commentator. Life He was born at Sessa Aurunca near Naples. He proceeded to Padua, where he studied philosophy. He lectured at Padua, Naples, Rome, and Pisa, and won so high a reputation that he was deputed by Leo X to defend the Catholic doctrine of immortality against the attack of Pomponazzi and the Alexandrists. In return for this he was made Count Palatine, with the right to call himself by the name Medici.
Go to Profile#6896
Nikša Gligo
#85939
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Nikša Gligo is a Croatian musicologist and university professor. Gligo's scientific interests include 20th-century music, music terminology, the aesthetics of music, and music semiology. He has been involved with the Music Biennale Zagreb in various capacities from 1973 to 1991 and from 2002 to the present. He served as the art director of the 10th Biennale in 1979. He has been a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2006 and a member of section Musicology & History of Art & Architecture of the Academia Europaea since 2014.
Go to Profile#6897
John Rowe
#101687
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
John Wallis "Jack" Rowe is an American businessman and academic physician, who served as Chairman and CEO of Aetna Inc., a large health insurance company based in Connecticut, titles he retired from in February 2006.
Go to Profile#6898
John Gofman
#15339
Overall Influence
1918 - 2007 (89 years)
John William Gofman was an American scientist and advocate. He was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Gofman pioneered the field of clinical lipidology, and in 2007 was honored by the Journal of Clinical Lipidology with the title of "Father of Clinical Lipidology". With Frank T. Lindgren and other research associates, Gofman discovered and described three major classes of plasma lipoproteins, fat molecules that carry cholesterol in the blood. The team he led at the Donner Laboratory went on to demonstrate the role of lipoproteins in t...
Go to Profile#6899
Sybil Wolfram
#29495
Overall Influence
1931 - 1993 (62 years)
Sybil Wolfram was an English philosopher and writer, of German Jewish origin. She was a Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at Lady Margaret Hall at University of Oxford from 1964 to 1993. Work She published two books, Philosophical Logic: An Introduction and In-laws and Outlaws: Kinship and Marriage in England . She was the translator of Claude Lévi-Strauss's La pensée sauvage , but later disavowed the translation when she discovered the publisher had made changes to the translation that neither she nor Lévi-Strauss had authorized.
Go to Profile#6900
Inge Grundke‐iqbal
#107376
Overall Influence
