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,
#7351
Garbis Kortian
#81862
Overall Influence
1938 - 2009 (71 years)
Garbis Kortian was a philosopher and political theorist. Kortian was born to an Armenian family in Kessab, Mandatory Syria on February 15, 1938. He acquired his PhD in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1966; his dissertation was on Wilhelm von Humboldt. Kortian taught at Université de Montréal from 1968 to 1995 and, sporadically, at UC Berkeley, McGill University, Université Laval, Balliol College, Oxford, and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He was one of the founders of the Zoryan Institute, a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada. He died in Vienna, Austria. He spoke Armenian, French, German, and English.
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Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1623 - 1673 (50 years)
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was a prolific English philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction writer and playwright. In her lifetime she produced more than 12 original literary works, many of which became well known due to her high social status. This high social status allowed Margaret to meet and converse with some of the most important and influential minds of her time.
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
#7610
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
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Kii-Ming Lo
#36879
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Kii-Ming Lo , born November 4, 1954, in Keelung, is a Taiwanese musicologist. Life Kii-Ming Lo was born on November 4, 1954, in Keelung, Taiwan. After initial studies of textile technology at Fu Jen Catholic University , which she completed with a bachelor's degree, she went to Germany in order to study musicology. From 1980 to 1988 she studied musicology , sinology and ethnology at Heidelberg University. She received her doctorate in 1989 under the supervision of Ludwig Finscher with the dissertation »Turandot« auf der Opernbühne , which since then has become a reference book on the subject [Frankfurt / Bern 1996].
Go to Profile#7355
Maurice Pradines
1874 - 1958 (84 years)
Maurice Pradines was a French philosopher. Although his thought was largely original, Pradines may be categorized among the interwar period philosophers of the mind. Also a professor, he developed a philosophy of knowledge in light of problems of sensation.
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Zhang Fei
167 - 221 (54 years)
Zhang Fei , courtesy name Yide, was a Chinese military general and politician serving under the warlord Liu Bei in the late Eastern Han dynasty and early Three Kingdoms period of China. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, who were among the earliest to join Liu Bei, shared a brotherly relationship with their lord and accompanied him on most of his early exploits. Zhang Fei fought in various battles on Liu Bei's side, including the Red Cliffs campaign , takeover of Yi Province , and Hanzhong Campaign . He was assassinated by his subordinates in 221 after serving for only a few months in the state of Shu H...
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Alison Hills
#111757
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Alison Hills is a British philosopher who specializes in moral philosophy and animal ethics. Hills is Professor of Philosophy at St John's College, Oxford. She obtained her PhD in philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge. She lectured in philosophy at Bristol University from 2003 to 2006 and joined St John's in 2006.
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Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara
#79793
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara Scabia is an Italian logician and philosopher of science, known for her work on quantum logic and quasi-set theory. She is a professor emerita at the University of Florence.
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Stephan A. Mayer
#99913
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Stephan A. Mayer is an American neurologist and critical care physician who currently serves as Director of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology Services for the Westchester Medical Center Health System. Mayer is most noted for his research in subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage, acute ischemic stroke, cardiac arrest, coma, status epilepticus, brain multimodality monitoring, therapeutic temperature modulation, and outcomes after severe brain injury. He has gained media attention for popularizing the concept that physicians have historically underestimated the brain’s resilience and capacity for recovery.
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Friedhelm Krummacher
#96950
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Friedhelm Krummacher is a German musicologist. Life Born in Berlin, Krummacher is the second oldest son of . He studied musicology after his private music teacher examination in 1957, philosophy and German studies in Berlin, Marburg and Uppsala and was awarded a doctorate in 1964 with repertoire studies on the older church music in Berlin by Adam Adrio. From 1965 to 1972 he worked as an assistant at the Erlangen seminary with Martin Ruhnke, where he habilitated in 1972 with studies on chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. He remained there as a private lecturer until 1975, when, after...
Go to Profile#7361
Jean‐claude Roujeau
#111996
Overall Influence
#7362
Vigdis Songe-Møller
#112014
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Vigdis Songe-Møller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bergen. Songe-Møller's Philosophy without Women was a feminist exploration of ancient philosophy. Her own experience as a pregnant woman – for whom "the Parmenidean idea of all things existing ultimately as one and self-identical is, to say the least, far from self-evident" – led her to investigate connections between "the Greek philosophers' ideals of unity, self-identity and eternity and their attitudes towards sexuality, reproduction and sexual difference."
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Jeremy Neil Ruskin
#112022
Overall Influence
#7364
John G. Nutt
#112031
Overall Influence
#7365
Sara Dolnicar
#101355
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Sara Dolnicar is a social scientist trained in Austria who researches market segmentation, sustainable tourism, and Airbnb. Since 2013, she has been a research professor of Tourism at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. She has been recognised by the Republic of Slovenia for her research achievements.
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Tang Yongtong
1893 - 1964 (71 years)
Tang Yongtong was a Chinese educator, philosopher and scholar best known for studying Chinese Buddhism. Tang was proficient in Sanskrit, Pali, English and Japanese. Tang attended the Tsinghua School and Shuntian School before he pursued advanced studies in the United States. While studying at Harvard University, he became known as "one of the three Outstanding Persons of Harvard" along with Chen Yinke and Wu Mi.
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Hélène Metzger
1889 - 1944 (55 years)
Hélène Metzger was a French philosopher of science and historian of science. In her writings she focused mainly on the history of chemistry. She was murdered in the Holocaust. Early life and education Hélène Bruhl was born on 26 August 1889 to an upper middle-class Jewish family in Chatou. She was the niece of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, an influential French anthropologist. Her father insisted that she and her sister stop their studies after only three years at university. In 1912, she obtained a diploma in crystallography. She married in 1914, and was widowed only a few months afterwards, after whic...
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Timothy Hla
#112056
Overall Influence
#7369
Albert A. Bühlmann
#26984
Overall Influence
1923 - 1994 (71 years)
Albert Alois Bühlmann was a Swiss physician who was principally responsible for a number of important contributions to decompression science at the Laboratory of Hyperbaric Physiology at the University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. His impact on diving ranged from complex commercial and military diving to the occasional recreational diver. He is held in high regard for his professional ethics and attention to his research subjects.
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Matthias Schwab
#107410
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Matthias Schwab is a German doctor and university lecturer. He is director of the Dr. Margarete Fischer-Bosch-Institute of Clinical Pharmacology located on the campus of the Robert-Bosch-Hospital in Stuttgart, an institution of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and holder of the Chair of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Tübingen as well as Medical Director of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital Tübingen.
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Donald S. Coffey
#87686
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Donald Straley Coffey was the Catherine Iola and J. Smith Michael distinguished professor of urology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and subsequently professor emeritus. He had a primary appointment in urology and secondary appointments in oncology, pharmacology and pathology.
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Hans‐georg Gadamer
#112092
Overall Influence
#7373
Oton Postružnik
1900 - 1978 (78 years)
Oton Postružnik was a Croatian artist, painter, graphic artist, and ceramist. He was one of the founding members of the Earth Group artist collective in Zagreb from 1929 to 1933. He studied in Zagreb, Prague and Paris, and was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb from 1950 to 1970. He is best known for his abstract paintings of natural subjects, such as his Leaf series.
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Louis Michael Seidman
#17277
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Louis Michael Seidman is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., a widely read constitutional law scholar and major proponent of the critical legal studies movement. Seidman's 2012 work is On Constitutional Disobedience, where Seidman challenges the viability of political policy arguments made in reference to constitutional obligation.
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Richard of Saint Victor
1110 - 1173 (63 years)
Richard of Saint Victor was a Medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian and one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. A canon regular, he was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173.
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Judith Axler Turner
#112140
Overall Influence
#7377
Antonio Gotto
#20363
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Antonio M. Gotto, Jr. was Dean of Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He was succeeded by Laurie H. Glimcher in January 2012. Prior to his appointment in 1997, Gotto was chairman of the department of internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine for 20 years, where he collaborated extensively with Michael DeBakey. Gotto is best known for his research into blood lipids. As administrator, he presided over an enormous growth at Cornell, an affiliation with Houston Methodist Hospital when it separated from Baylor, and a deepening of Cornell's longtime affiliation with New York Hospit...
Go to Profile#7378
Edward W. Hook
#100230
Overall Influence
1924 - 1998 (74 years)
Edward Watson Hook, Jr was an academic physician and international expert in infectious diseases. He attended Wofford College, Yale University, and Emory University School of Medicine, receiving his medical degree in 1949. After completing his residency and two years of fellowship in bacteriology at Emory University and four years of residency at the University of Minnesota and at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, he joined the Johns Hopkins Infectious Diseases group in 1956. At Johns Hopkins, Ed worked primarily on the influenza virus and salmonella infection.
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Georges Flandrin
#112174
Overall Influence
#7380
Everett Hall
1901 - 1960 (59 years)
Everett Wesley Hall was an American philosopher, known for his advocacy of common-sense realism and his notion of what he called the "categorial" primacy of certain assertions. Hall received his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Lawrence College, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University . Between 1929 and his death in 1960, he taught at the following universities: the University of Chicago, Ohio State, Stanford, the University of Iowa, and the University of North Carolina . He also held visiting appointments at Northwestern University, the University of Southern California, and Kyoto University. Hall was the author of four books as well as numerous papers.
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John A. H. Wass
#112206
Overall Influence
#7382
Marietta Kies
1853 - 1899 (46 years)
Marietta Kies was an American philosopher and educator who belonged to the St. Louis Hegelians. She was the second American woman to receive a PhD in philosophy, after May Gorslin Preston Slosson , and taught full-time at a university.
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Peter Croft
#85315
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Peter R. Croft is an English physician and a primary care researcher. He is currently Professor of Primary Care Epidemiology and Director, Primary Care Musculoskeletal Research Centre at Keele University Medical School. He has published extensively on the treatment of musculoskeletal problems in primary care.
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Yan Yuan
1635 - 1704 (69 years)
Yan Yuan , courtesy name Yizhi or Hunran, art name Xizhai was a Chinese classicist, essayist, and philosopher. He founded the practical school of Confucianism to contrast with the more ethereal Neo-Confucianism that had been popular in China for the previous six centuries. Like the Han learning scholars, he rejected the abstract metaphysics of the Neo-Confucians. However, he considered Han learning as too obsessed with philology and textual criticism and not enough emphasis on pragmatism. His school promoted the Six Arts.
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John Barr Cavanagh
#112247
Overall Influence
#7386
Hans Gude
1825 - 1903 (78 years)
Hans Fredrik Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters. He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Romanticism. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
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Fabio Levi
#112300
Overall Influence
#7388
Vanessa Northington Gamble
#37232
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Vanessa Northington Gamble is a physician who chaired the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee in 1996. Early life and education Born in West Philadelphia, Gamble was primarily raised by her maternal grandmother. She attended Philadelphia High School for Girls and graduated in 1970, then studied medical sociology and biology at Hampshire College, graduating with her bachelor's degree in 1974. Gamble then attended medical school and graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, earning her M.D. in 1983 and her Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science in 1987. She completed her gr...
Go to Profile#7389
Marguerite La Caze
#104249
Overall Influence
Marguerite La Caze is an Australian philosopher and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland. She is an Australian Research Fellow and a former Chair of the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy . La Caze is known for her research on feminist philosophy and aesthetics.
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Joseph A. Kisslo
#112334
Overall Influence
#7391
Roger Detels
#112342
Overall Influence
#7392
Woodbridge Riley
1869 - 1933 (64 years)
Isaac Woodbridge Riley was an American academic scholar who worked in and across the areas of philosophy, religion, and psychology. His published work often combined two of these disciplines in considering the historical development of a social movement or entity , particularly examining the influence of the founders' psychological character. His books concerning the foundation and moral standing of Mormonism and Christian Science made him a focus of controversy. Most of his career was spent as a professor of philosophy at Vassar College.
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Nikephoros Blemmydes
1197 - 1269 (72 years)
Nikephoros Blemmydes was a 13th-century Byzantine author. Biography Blemmydes was born in 1197 in Constantinople as the second child of a physician. After the conquest of Constantinople by the forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he migrated to Asia Minor. There, he received a liberal education in Prusa, Nicaea, Smyrna and Scamander. Blemmydes studied medicine, philosophy, theology, mathematics, astronomy, logic, and rhetoric. When he finally acquired a career as a cleric, he took an active part in the theological controversies between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, writing treatises on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, advocating the western usage.
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Yuan-Tsong Chen
#32629
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Yuan-Tsong Chen is a Taiwanese physician scientist, notable for his work on human genetic disorders. He is the director emeritus and distinguished research fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and also tenured professor of pediatrics of Duke University Chen was a 2019 awardee of Taiwan's , as were Yuan-Pern Lee and Wei Fu-chan.
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William A. Knaus
#112395
Overall Influence
#7396
Octave Chanute
1832 - 1910 (78 years)
Octave Chanute was a French-American civil engineer and aviation pioneer. He advised and publicized many aviation enthusiasts, including the Wright brothers. At his death, he was hailed as the father of aviation and the initial concepts of the heavier-than-air flying machine.
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Emil von Behring
1854 - 1917 (63 years)
Emil von Behring , born Emil Adolf Behring , was a German physiologist who received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first one awarded in that field, for his discovery of a diphtheria antitoxin. He was widely known as a "saviour of children", as diphtheria used to be a major cause of child death. His work with the disease, as well as tetanus, has come to bring him most of his fame and acknowledgment. He was honoured with Prussian nobility in 1901, henceforth being known by the surname "von Behring."
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Martin M.h. Prins
#112435
Overall Influence
#7399
Ezra Abraham Amsterdam
#112439
Overall Influence
#7400
Jann G. P. Tijssen
#112441
Overall Influence
