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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.

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#6951

Athenodorus Cananites

Athenodorus Cananites

100 BC - 100 BC (0 years)

Athenodorus Cananites was a Stoic philosopher. Life Athenodorus was born in Canana, near Tarsus ; his father was Sandon. He was a student of Posidonius of Rhodes, and the teacher of Octavian at Apollonia. He was a personal friend of Strabo, from whom we derive some knowledge of his life.

#6952

Bastiaan C. Van Fraassen

#107923

Overall Influence

#6953

Fernand Brunner

#78628

Overall Influence

1920 - 1991 (71 years)

Fernand Brunner was a Swiss philosopher. After studying in Lausanne and in Paris, became a professor at the University of Neuchâtel. He united philosophical introspection with the study of the History of Philosophy in a personalized manner. He was interested in ancient history, the Middle Ages, the Modern era, traditional Arab and Jewish philosophies, as well as ideas from India, studying the differences between philosophy and tradition. Among Western traditions, he was particularly interested in the platonic and neoplatonic traditions, in Meister Eckhart, in Solomon Ibn Gabirol, and in Lei...

#6954

Troyen Anthony Brennan

#107936

Overall Influence

#6955

Joseph Dancis

#94400

Overall Influence

1916 - 2010 (94 years)

Joseph Dancis was an American pediatrician at Bellevue Hospital in New York City known for his research contributions to neonatology and placentology. He received the John Howland Award in 1988. Early life Dancis was born on March 19, 1916, in Brooklyn and was raised in the Bronx. He attended Columbia College from 1931 to 1934 and received an M.D. from Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 1938. After graduating, he returned to New York City to complete a rotating internship and a residency in pediatrics at Queens General Hospital. He served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1945 and was stationed in Hawaii.

#6956

John Hunter

1728 - 1793 (65 years)

John Hunter was a British surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine. He was a teacher of, and collaborator with, Edward Jenner, pioneer of the smallpox vaccine. He paid for the stolen body of Charles Byrne, and proceeded to study and exhibit it against the deceased's explicit wishes. His wife, Anne Hunter , was a poet, some of whose poems were set to music by Joseph Haydn.

#6957

Arnór Hannibalsson

#96731

Overall Influence

1934 - 2012 (78 years)

Arnór Hannibalsson was an Icelandic philosopher, historian, and translator. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland. He completed a master's degree in philosophy at the University of Moscow and a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

#6958

Eric W. Fonkalsrud

#107986

Overall Influence

#6959

Cyril Clarke

#15776

Overall Influence

1907 - 2000 (93 years)

Sir Cyril Astley Clarke, KBE, FRCP, FRCOG, FRC Path, FRS was a British physician, geneticist and lepidopterist. He was honoured for his pioneering work on prevention of Rh disease of the newborn, and also for his work on the genetics of the Lepidoptera .

#6960

Eric Paul Krenning

#107991

Overall Influence

#6961

Hasna Begum

#77877

Overall Influence

1935 - 2020 (85 years)

Hasna Begum was a Bangladeshi philosopher and feminist, and a professor of philosophy at the University of Dhaka until her retirement in December 2000. Education and career She earned her BA and MA from the University of Dhaka and her PhD in moral philosophy from Monash University, where she was the first doctoral advisee of Australian philosopher Peter Singer. The title of her doctoral dissertation was Moore’s Ethics: Theory and Practice. Begum was a prolific author, and translated a number of philosophical classics into Bengali.

#6962

José Arthur Giannotti

#105300

Overall Influence

1930 - 2021 (91 years)

José Arthur Giannotti was a Brazilian philosopher, essayist, and university professor. He was a full professor and emeritus at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo.

#6963

Laura J. Snyder

Laura J. Snyder

#73326

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Laura J. Snyder is an American historian, philosopher, and writer. She is a Fulbright Scholar, is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, was the first Leon Levy/Alfred P. Sloan fellow at The Leon Levy Center for Biography at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and is the recipient of an NEH Public Scholars grant. She writes narrative-driven non-fiction books including, most recently, Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing, which won the Society for the History of Technology's 2016 Sally Hacker Prize. In 2019, Snyder signed a contract with A. A. Knopf to author a biography of Oliver Sacks, based on exclusive access to the Sacks archive.

#6964

Ian Christie

#51833

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Ian Christie is a British film scholar. He has written several books including studies of the works of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Martin Scorsese and the development of cinema. He is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound magazine and a frequent broadcaster. Christie is Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London.

#6965

Adriaan Koerbagh

1633 - 1669 (36 years)

Adriaan Koerbagh was a Dutch physician, scholar, and writer who was a critic of religion and conventional morality. He was in the circle of supporters of Baruch Spinoza. Life Adriaan Koerbagh and his younger brother Johannes were sons of a ceramics maker, who died young leaving them funds allowing them to pursue extended schooling. Adriaan studied at the universities of respectively Utrecht, Franeker and Leiden, becoming a doctor in medicine in 1659 and master in jurisprudence in 1661. He was one of the most radical figures of the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting and reviling the church and ...

#6966

David Altshuler

David Altshuler

#39868

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

David Matthew Altshuler is a clinical endocrinologist and human geneticist. He is Executive Vice President, Global Research and Chief Scientific Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Vertex in 2014, he was at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and was a Professor of Genetics and Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and in the Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also a faculty member in the Department of Molecular Biology, Center for Human Genetic Research, and the Diabetes Unit, all at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was one of four Fo...

#6967

Franz Defregger

Franz Defregger

1835 - 1921 (86 years)

Franz Defregger was an Austrian artist known for producing genre art and history paintings set in his native county of Tyrol. Biography Franz Defregger was born on 30 April 1835 at the Ederhof in Stronach, Tyrol in the Austrian Empire. He was the second son of Maria and Michael Defregger, a farmer, who also had five daughters. His mother and two of his sisters died in 1841 during a typhoid epidemic. Franz himself nearly died from the fever. During his early years, Franz developed a strong love of music, and learned to play the flugelhorn. He soon became a member of a local band in Dölsach, playing at weddings, assemblies, and balls.

#6968

Juhn Atsushi Wada

#15786

Overall Influence

1924 - Present (102 years)

Juhn Atsushi Wada was a Japanese–Canadian neurologist known for research into epilepsy and human brain asymmetry, including his description of the Wada test for cerebral hemispheric dominance of language function. The Wada Test remains the gold standard for establishing cerebral dominance and is conducted worldwide prior to epilepsy surgery.

#6969

Clemens von Pirquet

Clemens von Pirquet

1874 - 1929 (55 years)

Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology. Career Born in Vienna, he studied theology at the University of Innsbruck and philosophy at the University of Leuven before he enrolled at the University of Graz where he became a doctor of medicine in 1900. He started practicing at the Children's Clinic in Vienna.

#6970

Takeshi Iwatsubo

#108131

Overall Influence

#6971

Paolo Valore

#100184

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Paolo Valore is an Italian philosopher and academic who deals with metaphysics, general ontology and the ontological implications of formal theories. He is also interested in projects of artificial languages and auxiliary languages.

#6972

Stephen Nicholls

#106021

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Stephen J. Nicholls FRACP, FACC, FESC, FAHA, FAHMS, is an Australian cardiologist. He was appointed to the position of director of MonashHeart, Monash Health and professor of cardiology, Monash University in October 2018. He is the inaugural clinical director of the Victorian Heart Hospital. He is also the inaugural director of Monash University’s Victorian Heart Institute, an organisation dedicated to creating the cardiovascular health solutions of the future.

#6973

Robert Scott Kirsner

#108148

Overall Influence

#6974

Walter Clark Randall

#108158

Overall Influence

#6975

Andrea Cesalpino

Andrea Cesalpino

1524 - 1603 (79 years)

Andrea Cesalpino was a Florentine physician, philosopher and botanist. In his works he classified plants according to their fruits and seeds, rather than alphabetically or by medicinal properties. In 1555, he succeeded Luca Ghini as director of the botanical garden in Pisa. The botanist Pietro Castelli was one of his students. Cesalpino also did limited work in the field of physiology. He theorized a circulation of the blood. However, he envisioned a "chemical circulation" consisting of repeated evaporation and condensation of blood, rather than the concept of "physical circulation" popular...

#6976

Gillian Brock

#83608

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Gillian Greenwall Brock is a New Zealand philosophy and ethics academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland and fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University.

#6977

Friedrich Leibniz

Friedrich Leibniz

1597 - 1652 (55 years)

Friedrich Leibniz was a Lutheran lawyer and a notary, registrar and professor of moral philosophy within Leipzig University, where is also served as Dean of Philosophy. He was the father of Gottfried Leibniz.

#6978

Hermann Abert

1871 - 1927 (56 years)

Hermann Abert was a German historian of music. Life Abert was born in Stuttgart, the son of Johann Josef Abert , the Hofkapellmeister of that city. From 1890 to 1896 he studied classical philology at the Universities of Tübingen, Berlin and Leipzig. While at Tübingen he joined the Akademische Gesellschaft Stuttgardia, a student fraternity which shaped the political views of the liberalism in southern Germany. His philological studies ended in 1896 at Halle, where he had done work on Ancient Greek music. For the next three years he studied music theory at Berlin. In 1902 he qualified as lectur...

#6979

Abdallah Daar

#73614

Overall Influence

Dr. Abdallah Daar is an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Public Health, Global Health, and Surgery at the University of Toronto. He has also been a Senior Scientist at the Research Institutes of University Health Network/Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, and the Hospital for SickKids. At the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, from 2001 to 2007, he was co-director of the Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health, and Director of the University of Toronto Program in Applied Ethics and Biotechnology. At the Sandra Rotman Centre, he was Director of Ethics and Commercia...

#6980

John Snow

1813 - 1858 (45 years)

John Snow was an English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in London's Soho, which he identified as a particular public water pump. Snow's findings inspired the adoption of anaesthesia as well as fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities, and a significant improvement in general public health around the world.

#6981

Stefano Pace

1695 - 1735 (40 years)

Stefano Pace was a minor Maltese mediaeval philosopher who specialised mainly in physics. Life Unfortunately, very little is known about the private life of Pace. It seems that, in his youth, he might have been a student at the Studium Generale of the Dominicans at Valletta, Malta. It seems he was a diocesan priest. Whatever the case, it is certain that he was a member of the clerical branch of the Franciscan Order in Malta. No portrait of Pace has been discovered so far.

#6982

Stephan Rössner

#108237

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Stephan Rössner is a Swedish physician. He is Professor in Health Related Behavioral Science at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, working at the Department of Medicine at the Huddinge campus of the Karolinska University Hospital. He has written several books on the issue and is the leading member of Viktklubben at the tabloid Aftonbladet.

#6983

Johann Peter Frank

Johann Peter Frank

1745 - 1821 (76 years)

Johann Peter Frank was a German physician and hygienist. Biography He was born in Rodalben. His first studies were in theology. He then studied medicine at the Universities of Strasbourg and Heidelberg, and earned his medical doctorate in 1766. He practiced medicine in Bruchsal and elsewhere for a time, and then became physician to the prince-bishop of Speyer. He was appointed professor of physiology and medical policy at the University of Göttingen in 1784, but the next year he went to Italy for his health and joined the faculty of the University of Pavia, where he succeeded Samuel-Auguste ...

#6984

Scholastica

480 - 547 (67 years)

Scholastica is a saint of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Communion. She was born in Italy, and a ninth-century tradition makes her the twin sister of Saint Benedict of Nursia. Her feast day is 10 February, Saint Scholastica's Day. Scholastica is traditionally regarded as the founder of the Benedictine nuns.

#6985

Michael Goldacre

#33320

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Michael John Goldacre is an Australian-born British medical doctor and academic. He has been a fellow of Magdalen College since 1985 and was awarded a Title of Distinction as Professor of Public Health at the University of Oxford in 2002. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health.

#6986

Lev Kreft

#78778

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Lev Kreft is a Slovenian politician, former Member of Parliament, editor, philosopher and sociologist. Biography He was elected into the first Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia in 1992 and acted as Vice President of Parliament during that term.

#6987

William Angus Knight

1836 - 1916 (80 years)

William Angus Knight was a Scottish Free Church minister and author and Professor of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University. He created the Lady Literate in Arts qualification. Life He was born in the manse at Mordington in the Scottish Borders on 22 February 1836, the son of Rev George Fulton Knight.

#6988

Mustafa Topchubashov

Mustafa Topchubashov

1895 - 1981 (86 years)

Mustafa Agha bey oglu Topchubashov was an Azerbaijani surgeon, Hero of Socialist Labor, Stalin Prize winner, and recipient of the Order of Lenin. Early life Mustafa Topchubashov was born in Erivan, to Agha bey and Fatma khanim Topchubashov, wealthy landowners of the Erivan Governorate . After completing his primary and secondary education in his hometown, young Topchubashov left for Kiev in 1916 to study medicine at the Saint Vladimir University. Despite the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent Russian Civil War, he managed to obtain a degree and having suffered hunger and numerous arre...

#6989

Hans Sloane

1660 - 1753 (93 years)

Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet , was an Anglo-Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Museum, the British Library, and the Natural History Museum, London. He was elected to the Royal Society at the age of 24. Sloane travelled to the Caribbean in 1687 and documented his travels and findings with extensive publications years later. Sloane was a renowned medical doctor among the aristocracy, and was elected to the Royal College of Physicians at age 27. Though he is credited...

#6990

Larry K. Pickering

#108290

Overall Influence

#6991

Borys Surawicz

#108291

Overall Influence

#6992

Trevor J. Orchard

Trevor J. Orchard is a British-American hold epidemiologist currently a Distinguished Professor at University of Pittsburgh. He received the Kelly West Award in 1993.

#6993

Mrinal Miri

#44984

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Mrinal Miri is an Indian philosopher and educationalist. Early life He was awarded a BA in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge in 1966 and gained his doctorate in 1970. Career From 1970 to 1974 he was a Lecturer in Philosophy at St. Stephen's College under the University of Delhi, before moving to North Eastern Hill University. Mrinal also served as the Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, from 1993 to 1999. He was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha on 21 March 2012.

#6994

John Seiler Brubacher

1898 - 1988 (90 years)

John Seiler Brubacher was an American scholar who was a professor at Yale University and the author of many books on the subjects of philosophy of education and history of education. Biography Brubacher was born in 1898 in Easthampton, Massachusetts. His parents were Rosa , who had taught music, and Abram Royer Brubacher, an administrator of public schools who became president of the New York State Teachers College at Albany.

#6995

Kirsti Malterud

#108332

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

#6996

Leon V. Kochian

#108335

Overall Influence

#6997

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

#52936

Overall Influence

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, FBA is the Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University. His research focuses on Indian religions – Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism – and comparative phenomenology, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of religion. His studies include the conceptual roots of contemporary beliefs, politics and conflict in religious context, and the religious identities of South Asian diaspora in the United Kingdom. He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017.

#6998

Anja Steinbauer

#78247

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Anja Steinbauer is a London-based Sinologist and philosopher. She was born in Mainz, Germany. She is notable as one of the pioneers of the popular philosophy movement, and is the president of Philosophy For All in London. She is also one of the editors of the popularizing magazine Philosophy Now.

#6999

José de la Luz y Caballero

José de la Luz y Caballero

1800 - 1862 (62 years)

José Cipriano de la Luz y Caballero was a Cuban scholar, acclaimed by José Martí as "the father ... the silent founder" of Cuban intellectual life of the 19th century. Interest in Luz's work was revived around the time of the Cuban Revolution, and new editions of his work published, as he was regarded as a wellspring of intellectual autonomy for the country.

#7000

Linda López McAlister

#92139

Overall Influence

1939 - 2021 (82 years)

Linda López McAlister was an American philosopher and academic. She held several positions in academia, spending much of her career at the University of South Florida . She became Professor Emerita of Philosophy at USF in 1999. She also worked as a radio film critic and ran her own theatrical company.

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