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,
#7301
Michael B. Kastan
#111395
Overall Influence
#7302
Betsy Foxman
#111401
Overall Influence
#7303
Professor P. Franchimont
#111434
Overall Influence
#7304
Kenneth J. Ottenbacher
#111439
Overall Influence
#7305
Dennis D. Weisenburger
#111440
Overall Influence
#7306
Robert H. Cofield
#111448
Overall Influence
#7307
Maureen Furniss
#44712
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Maureen Ruth Furniss is a writer, animation historian, animation theorist, critic, professor, and president of the Society for Animation Studies. Furniss served as a professor at the California Institute of Arts, Savannah College of Art and Design, University of Southern California, and Chapman University.
Go to Profile#7308
Jaume Casals
#22089
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Jaume Casals Pons is the professor of philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University since 2003. He received his Doctorate in Philosophy summa cum laude from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1984; prior to teaching at UPF, he taught at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Paris Diderot University.
Go to Profile#7309
Igor Rudan
#98179
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Igor Rudan is a Croatian-British scientist, writer, and science communicator. He leads research projects in global health and genetics, writes books, and creates documentary series. Igor Rudan is a medical doctor with two master’s degrees and two Ph.D. degrees . He has published more than 600 research papers as of 1 October 2023, which have been cited more than 200,000 times.
Go to Profile#7310
Syed Mujtaba Ali
1904 - 1974 (70 years)
Syed Mujtaba Ali was a Bengali writer, journalist, travel enthusiast, academic, scholar and linguist. He lived in Bangladesh, India, Germany, Afghanistan and Egypt. Early life and education Ali was born on 13 September 1904 to a Bengali Muslim family in Karimganj, Sylhet district, British Raj. His father, Khan Bahadur Syed Sikander Ali, was a sub-registrar. He traced his paternal descent to Shah Ahmed Mutawakkil, a local holy man and a Syed of Taraf, though apparently unrelated to Taraf's ruling Syed dynasty. Ali's mother, Amatul Mannan Khatun, belonged to the Chowdhuries of Kala and Bahadurpur, an Islamised branch of the Pal family of Panchakhanda.
Go to Profile#7311
Carl Richard Moore
1892 - 1955 (63 years)
Carl Richard Moore was an American endocrinologist. He was born in rural farm region of Greene County, Missouri and received his early education in nearby Springfield. After graduating from High School, he attended Drury College where he acquired an interest in biology. In 1913, he obtained his B.S. degree, then worked as an assistant at Drury to earn his M.S. in 1914. With the granting of a fellowship, he attended the University of Chicago where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1916, with a thesis on the fertilization and parthenogenesis in sea urchin eggs. He became an associate in the universit...
Go to Profile#7312
Mikhail V. Blagosklonny
#111493
Overall Influence
#7313
Heinrich Taegtmeyer
#111503
Overall Influence
#7314
Joseph S. Coselli
#111517
Overall Influence
#7315
John Weckert
#80974
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
John Weckert is an Australian philosopher who has been an influential figure in, and substantial contributor to the field of information and computer ethics. He has published many books and journal articles outlining his research in this field.
Go to Profile#7316
William Vainchenker
#88311
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
William Vainchenker, born on 16 December 1947, is a French medical doctor and researcher. He is considered a specialist in hematopoiesis. Biography William Vainchenker is director of research at Inserm, Hematopoiesis and Stem Cells Unit, Gustave Roussy Institute, Villejuif.
Go to Profile#7317
Vladimir Hütt
#56854
Overall Influence
1936 - 1997 (61 years)
Vladimir Hütt was an Estonian philosopher. He was born in Leningrad, Russia RFSR and move to Estonia after the annexation of Estonia by the USSR. Hütt, a physicist by education, mostly dealt with philosophy of physics, scientific world-view and the theory of cognition. His works followed the Marxist line of thought that was official in the USSR. Most of Hütt's works were published in Russian. In 1979 Hütt published a monographic overview entitled "Philosophical Problems of Physics in Soviet Estonia in 30 Years 1948–1978", where he expounded his philosophical ideas about the complementarity and objectivity in physical knowledge.
Go to Profile#7318
Kimberley Brownlee
#90252
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Kimberley Brownlee is a Canadian philosopher. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Ethics at the University of British Columbia. Previously, she was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. She is known for her works on conscience, conviction, civil disobedience, the ethics of sociability, ideals, virtue, practical reason, and human rights. Brownlee is a winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize.
Go to Profile#7319
Lisa Kemmerer
#98484
Overall Influence
Lisa Kemmerer is an American academic who has written on animal ethics and environmental ethics. She is an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Montana State University Billings, and is the author or editor of nine books.
Go to Profile#7320
Robert Lechler
#54172
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Sir Robert Ian Lechler, is a British nephrologist, immunologist, and academic. He specialises in transplantation tolerance and immunology. Since 2004, he has been Professor of Immunology at King's College London. Since 2009, he has been executive director of King's Health Partners.
Go to Profile#7321
Mark Emberton
#78622
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mark Emberton is a urologist and prostate cancer research specialist using novel imaging techniques and minimally invasive treatments to improve diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. Emberton is Professor of Interventional oncology at University College London and Dean of its Faculty of Medical Sciences. and is Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon at University College Hospital. He serves as Founding Pioneer of the charity Prostate Cancer UK.
Go to Profile#7322
Wan-yee J. Lau
#111584
Overall Influence
#7323
Helmut Wautischer
#78703
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Helmut Wautischer is an Austrian philosopher. He is currently a senior philosophy lecturer at Sonoma State University. He received his Bachelor's degree from the Bundeshandelsakademie Klagenfurt and a PhD in philosophy from Karl-Franzens University of Graz where he studied with Rudolf Haller and Ernst Topitsch. He was influenced by the writings of Carlos Castaneda and received a Fulbright scholarship for research on this subject at UCLA, leading to his dissertation, Methodology and Knowledge. Proposing an Expanded Science of Man. He has published essays in scholarly journals, such as Polylog,...
Go to Profile#7324
Lars Farde
#111591
Overall Influence
#7325
Peter Gottfried Kremsner
#81187
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Peter Gottfried Kremsner is a specialist in tropical medicine and Full Professor at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Since 1992 he has been leading the Centre de Recherches Médicales de Lambaréné , Gabon, now as president.
Go to Profile#7326
Lauri Ellen Markowitz
#111617
Overall Influence
#7327
Gertrude C. Bussey
1888 - 1961 (73 years)
Gertrude Carman Bussey was an American academic philosopher and activist for women's rights, civil liberties, and peace. Education and academic career Gertrude Bussey first attended Barnard College before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1908 from Wellesley College. After graduate study at Columbia University in 1908-1909 and teaching at a private school in Bronxville she went on to do further study at Oxford University during 1912-14. She then went to Northwestern University and became, in 1915, its first student to receive a PhD in philosophy. In the same year Dr. Bussey was appointed as an instructor of philosophy at Goucher College.
Go to Profile#7328
Gerald C. MacCallum Jr.
1925 - 1987 (62 years)
Gerald C. MacCallum Jr. was an American philosopher. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. MacCallum is well known for his critique to the distinction, made famous by Isaiah Berlin, between negative and positive liberty, proposing instead that the concept of freedom can only be understood as a 'triadic relation', in which "x is free from y to do z". His other publications include Political Philosophy and Legislative Intent and Other Essays on Law, Politics, and Morality which collects 14 essays on topics that include legislative intent, violence, integrity...
Go to Profile#7329
Leonard John Deftos
#111695
Overall Influence
#7330
David Weinberger
#7667
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
David Weinberger is an American author, technologist, and speaker. Trained as a philosopher, Weinberger's work focuses on how technology — particularly the internet and machine learning — is changing our ideas, with books about the effect of machine learning’s complex models on business strategy and sense of meaning; order and organization in the digital age; the networking of knowledge; the Net's effect on core concepts of self and place; and the shifts in relationships between businesses and their markets.
Go to Profile#7331
Clifford Y. Ko
#111708
Overall Influence
#7332
Raymond J. Gibbons
#111709
Overall Influence
#7333
Julian Taylor
1889 - 1961 (72 years)
Professor Julian Taylor, C.B.E., M.S., F.R.C.S., Hon.F.R.A.C.S. was a specialist in neurological surgery, Senior Surgeon at University College Hospital, a former vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons and later Professor of Surgery at the University of Khartoum.
Go to Profile#7334
Mário de Andrade
1893 - 1945 (52 years)
Mário Raul de Morais Andrade was a Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist, art historian and critic, and photographer. He wrote one of the first and most influential collections of modern Brazilian poetry, Paulicéia Desvairada , published in 1922. He has had considerable influence on modern Brazilian literature, and as a scholar and essayist—he was a pioneer of the field of ethnomusicology—his influence has reached far beyond Brazil.
Go to Profile#7335
Frédéric Gros
#79551
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Frédéric Gros is a French philosopher. He is a specialist in the work of Michel Foucault. His 2008 book Marcher, une philosophie is a bestseller in France and has been translated into several languages. An English translation by John Howe, titled A Philosophy of Walking, was published by Verso in 2014.
Go to Profile#7336
Kenneth D. Aldape
#111754
Overall Influence
#7337
Tomasz Kitliński
#26594
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Tomasz Kitliński is a Polish political philosopher, cultural and social analyst, and civic activist. He is a lecturer and trade unionist at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University and an author of books , articles, petitions and letters of protest. In his research and teaching, he deals with contemporary society, culture and politics, intellectual history, literary and critical theory, art practice, religious studies and social anthropology. In his activism, he champions women's, LGBT, labour and refugee rights and participation.
Go to Profile#7338
Andrew H. Miller
#111784
Overall Influence
#7339
John H. McClendon
#94815
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John H. McClendon III is a professor in the department of philosophy at Michigan State University. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Kansas, and taught at Binghamton University, Eastern Illinois University, University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana, Bates College, and the University of Missouri before coming to Michigan State University. His areas of focus include African philosophy, marxist philosophy, philosophy of African-American studies, and the history of African-American philosophers.
Go to Profile#7340
David A. Kessler
#10315
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
David Aaron Kessler is an American pediatrician, attorney, author, and administrator serving as Chief Science Officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team since 2021. Kessler was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from November 8, 1990, to February 28, 1997. He co-chaired the Biden-Harris transition’s COVID-19 Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021 and was the head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government program to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines and other treatments, from January to February 2021.
Go to Profile#7341
Francis L. Delmonico
#43919
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Francis L. Delmonico, MD, FACS is a surgeon, clinical professor and health expert in the field of transplantation. He serves on numerous committees and is affiliated with various leading organizations and institutions. He is the chief medical officer of the New England Organ Bank and Professor of Surgery, Part-Time at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is emeritus director of renal transplantation. He served as president of The Transplantation Society from 2012 to 2014, an international non-profit organization based in Montreal, Canada that works with international transplantation physicians and researchers.
Go to Profile#7342
Harold T. Dodge
#111829
Overall Influence
#7343
David Sabiston
#35849
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
David Coston Sabiston, Jr., M.D.,, F.A.C.S. was an early innovator in cardiac surgery. In 1962, he performed a seminal procedure that paved the way for modern coronary-bypass surgery, grafting a vein from a patient's leg to bypass a blocked coronary artery during open-heart surgery. The patient died from unrelated complications, but Sabiston's technique and other surgeons' improvements on it led to the development of surgical coronary revascularization as it exists today.
Go to Profile#7344
Erastus of Scepsis
#70422
Overall Influence
Erastus of Scepsis and his brother Coriscus were students of Plato. He was also a friend of Aristotle. Scepsis is located about fifty kilometers from Assos in Asia Minor, to which Aristotle and Xenocrates traveled after Plato's death.
Go to Profile#7345
Michael Farthing
#37341
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael John Godfrey Farthing is British emeritus professor at the University of Sussex, where he was previously its vice-chancellor . His early academic career was in medicine, specialising in gastroenterology.
Go to Profile#7346
Pierre Lévy
#16162
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Pierre Lévy is a Tunisian-born French philosopher, cultural theorist and media scholar who specializes in the understanding of the cultural and cognitive implications of digital technologies and the phenomenon of human collective intelligence.
Go to Profile#7347
Mario Maggi
#111883
Overall Influence
#7348
William Romaine Newbold
1865 - 1926 (61 years)
William Romaine Newbold was an American philosopher who held the Adam Seybert Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy chair at the University of Pennsylvania from 1907 to 1926. Newbold was noted for his lectures and writings on the psychology of religion, Christian Gnosticism, and cryptography.
Go to Profile#7349
G. Ian Franco Gensini
#111890
Overall Influence
#7350
Jussi Vahtera
#111901
Overall Influence
