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,
#7601
Robert M. Freedom
#114485
Overall Influence
#7602
Oded Bar‐or
#114502
Overall Influence
#7603
William Stewart Halsted
1852 - 1922 (70 years)
William Stewart Halsted, M.D. was an American surgeon who emphasized strict aseptic technique during surgical procedures, was an early champion of newly discovered anesthetics, and introduced several new operations, including the radical mastectomy for breast cancer. Along with William Osler , Howard Atwood Kelly and William H. Welch , Halsted was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. His operating room at Johns Hopkins Hospital is in Ward G, and was described as a small room where medical discoveries and miracles took place. According to an intern who once...
Go to Profile#7604
Pierre Amarenco
#114519
Overall Influence
#7605
Liu Shu-hsien
#99853
Overall Influence
1934 - 2016 (82 years)
Liu Shu-hsien was a Neo-Confucian philosopher and emeritus professor of philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shatin, Hong Kong. Biography Liu Shu-hsien was born in Shanghai, China in 1934. He graduated from the National Taiwan University and received his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University. Before joining the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Liu taught at Tunghai University from 1958 to 1962 and at Southern Illinois University from 1966 to 1981. Liu was invited to join the philosophy Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1974. He formally joined upon his res...
Go to Profile#7606
Marianna Dieterich
#114523
Overall Influence
#7607
William B. Campbell
#114550
Overall Influence
#7608
Daniel J. Diekema
#114573
Overall Influence
#7609
Joanne Faulkner
#100933
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Joanne Faulkner is an Australian writer, philosopher and Future Fellow in Cultural Studies at Macquarie University. Biography Faulkner received her Ph.D. in philosophy from La Trobe University in 2006. Faulkner is married with two children.
Go to Profile#7610
Jeffrey Koplan
#33015
Overall Influence
Jeffrey P. Koplan is an American physician and epidemiologist who is the Vice President for Global Health at Emory University. He established and became the first Director of the Emory Global Health Institute from 2006 to 2013. Koplan was the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1998 to 2002; he had previously worked at the CDC for more than twenty years, looking into HIV-contaminated blood, as well as the Bhopal disaster. During his tenure as Director, he fought syphilis, and supervised the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks; before leaving the agency in M...
Go to Profile#7611
Udo Hoffmann
#114628
Overall Influence
#7612
Tom Hornbein
#20030
Overall Influence
1930 - 2023 (93 years)
Thomas Hornbein was an American mountaineer who made the first ascent of Everest via the west ridge; the Hornbein Couloir on Everest was named in his honour. Biography Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hornbein developed an interest in geology as a teenager. His study of geology led to a fascination with mountains. Eventually, he also became interested in medicine; he received his MD in 1956 from Washington University School of Medicine and worked as an anesthesiologist. He also studied human physiological limits and performance at high altitudes. He was Professor and Chairman of the Department ...
Go to Profile#7613
Anastasio Cuschieri
1876 - 1962 (86 years)
Anastastio Cuschieri was a Maltese poet, politician, and minor philosopher. He held the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Malta . In philosophy he was mostly interested in ethics. Life Beginnings Cuschieri was born at Valletta, Malta, on 27 January 1876. He joined the Carmelite Order on 25 April 1891, at 19 years of age. That same year he began pursuing his institutional studies in philosophy and theology at the University of Malta. He made his religious profession on 28 August 1892. On completion of his university courses in 1898, Cuschieri was ordained a priest, and sent to Rome, Italy, to pursue studies in philosophy and theology at the Jesuits' Gregorian University.
Go to Profile#7614
Masatoshi Fujishima
#114670
Overall Influence
#7615
Kurt J. Bloch
#114672
Overall Influence
#7616
William Bill Dobyns
#114679
Overall Influence
#7617
Jean Elizabeth Hampton
#89123
Overall Influence
1954 - 1996 (42 years)
Jean Elizabeth Hampton was an American political philosopher, author of Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, Political Philosophy, The Authority of Reason, The Intrinsic Worth of Persons and, with Jeffrie G Murphy, Forgiveness and Mercy.
Go to Profile#7618
Bryson of Achaea
450 BC - 400 BC (50 years)
Bryson of Achaea was an ancient Greek philosopher. Very little information is known about him. He was said to have been a pupil of Stilpo and Clinomachus, which would mean that he was a philosopher of the Megarian school. He was said to have taught Crates the Cynic, Pyrrho the Skeptic, and Theodorus the Atheist. Diogenes Laërtius includes him among a list of philosophers who left no writings.
Go to Profile#7619
Mani M. Menon
#114695
Overall Influence
#7620
Henri François Marion
1846 - 1896 (50 years)
Henri François Marion was a French philosopher and educationalist. Life He was born in Saint-Parize-en-Viry, Nièvre department, on 9 September 1846. He studied at Nevers, and at the École Normale, where he graduated in 1868. After occupying several minor positions, he returned to Paris in 1875 as professor of the Lycée Henri IV, and in 1880 he became Docteur ès lettres. In the same year he was elected a member of the Council of Public Instruction, and devoted himself to improving the scheme of French education, especially in girls' schools. He was largely instrumental in the foundation of eco...
Go to Profile#7621
Theombrotus
Theombrotus was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Cynic school who is said to have thrown himself to his death from a high wall after reading Plato's work on the immortality of the soul and concluding that he would be better off in the next life.
Go to Profile#7622
Michael Saag
#71928
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Michael S. Saag is a physician and prominent HIV/AIDS researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham . He holds the Jim Straley Chair in AIDS Research, is Director of the Division of Infectious Disease and of the William C. Gorgas Center for Geographic Medicine, and Director of the Center for AIDS Research. He is also the founder of the 1917 Clinic, a comprehensive AIDS treatment and research center at UAB Saag is a frequent lecturer at AIDS conferences around the world and is credited with performing pioneering clinical trials for several antiretroviral drugs now in common use for HIV...
Go to Profile#7623
William Thomas Creasman
#114721
Overall Influence
#7624
Claudio Borghi
#114747
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#7625
Ernst Kurth
1886 - 1946 (60 years)
Ernst Kurth was a Swiss music theorist of Austrian origin. Career Kurth studied musicology with Guido Adler in Vienna, and earned his Ph.D. with a thesis about Christoph Willibald Gluck's operatic style. In a relatively short publishing career of about 15 years, Kurth wrote four enormously influential works: Grundlagen des Linearen Kontrapunkts , Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners "Tristan" , Bruckner, and Musikpsychologie. Since the 1940s, Kurth was gradually eclipsed by other theorists . However, his concept of "developmental motif" has remained influential. A developmental motif is one which gradually changes or grows, becoming a structural carrier of formal developments.
Go to Profile#7626
Garegin Nzhdeh
1886 - 1955 (69 years)
Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan, better known by his nom de guerre Garegin Nzhdeh , was an Armenian statesman, military commander and nationalist political thinker. As a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, he was involved in the national liberation struggle and revolutionary activities during the First Balkan War and World War I and became one of the key political and military leaders of the First Republic of Armenia . He is widely admired as a charismatic national hero by Armenians.
Go to Profile#7627
Christoph Anton Nienaber
#114778
Overall Influence
#7628
Dimitar Dimov
1909 - 1966 (57 years)
Dimitar Todorov Dimov was a Bulgarian dramatist, novelist and veterinary surgeon. Biography Born in Lovech, Dimov is best known for his best-selling novel Tobacco which was made into the 1962 film Tobacco directed by Nikola Korabov. The plot of Dimov's Tobacco deals with the fates of a number of characters connected to a major tobacco factory. The central thread of the plot is the story of Boris, an ambitious youth of poor origins who renounces his first love Irina to marry Maria, the heiress of the tobacco business. He proceeds to steer the business with great greed and ruthlessness. His wi...
Go to Profile#7629
Bonnie Mann
#59980
Overall Influence
Bonnie J. Mann is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. She is known for her expertise on feminist philosophy. She is co-editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy.
Go to Profile#7630
Sherene Loi
#104095
Overall Influence
Sherene Loi is an Australian oncologist. She is the 2021 winner of the Australian Prime Ministers Prize for Science, in the category of Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year. Loi is Head of Translational Breast Cancer Research, within the Peter Macallum Cancer Centre. Loi's research has advanced understanding into breast cancer, developing and implementing an immune system biomarker. This biomarker will enable improved management for people with advanced cancer. This biomarker is now part of routine pathology reporting across many countries and also is included in the World Health ...
Go to Profile#7631
Gilbert Greub
#114846
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#7632
Samuel Haughton
1821 - 1897 (76 years)
Samuel Haughton was an Irish clergyman, medical doctor, and scientific writer. Biography The scientist Samuel Haughton was born in Carlow, the son of another Samuel Haughton and grandson of the three-times-married Samuel Pearson Haughton , a Quaker.
Go to Profile#7633
Francis Robicsek
#114869
Overall Influence
#7634
Kevin Crowston
#114876
Overall Influence
#7635
İhsan Doğramacı
#4138
Overall Influence
1915 - 2010 (95 years)
İhsan Doğramacı was a Turkish paediatrician, entrepreneur, philanthropist, educationalist and college administrator of Iraqi Turkmen descent born in today's Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq then Ottoman Empire.
Go to Profile#7636
Vincent Colapietro
#85687
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Vincent Colapietro is a Liberal Arts Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University . His education includes a bachelor's degree from Saint Anselm College, a master's degree from Marquette University and a Ph.D. from Marquette University. While his principal area of historical research is classical American pragmatism , he has wide and varied scholarly interests. They range from such literature, film, and music to semiotics, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis, from social and political philosophy to philosophical and experimental psychology. He is the...
Go to Profile#7637
Kanu Chatterjee
#114892
Overall Influence
#7638
David Renaud Boullier
1699 - 1759 (60 years)
David Renaud Boullier was a Dutch Huguenot theologian, Protestant minister and philosopher. Biography Boullier was born in Utrecht on 24 March 1699. He was educated at Utrech University. He was a Protestant pastor in Amsterdam and was active in London for several years.
Go to Profile#7639
Dieter F. Hoelzer
#114910
Overall Influence
#7640
Marina Gržinić
#70836
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Marina Gržinić is a philosopher, theoretician, and artist from Ljubljana. She is a prominent contemporary theoretical and critical figure in Slovenia. Since 1993, she is employed at the Institute of Philosophy at the Scientific and Research C |title= enter of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts . Today, she serves as a professor and research adviser. For her scientific work, she received the Golden SASA sign in 2007. Since 2003, she has also served as a Full Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. She publishes extensively, lectures worldwide, and is involved in video ...
Go to Profile#7641
Christopher G. Chute
#54184
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Christopher G. Chute is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University, physician-scientist and biomedical informatician known for biomedical terminologies and health information technology standards. He chairs the World Health Organization Revision Steering Group for the revision of the International Classification of Diseases .
Go to Profile#7642
Darío Botero
#38420
Overall Influence
1938 - 2010 (72 years)
Darío Botero Uribe was a Colombian writer, thinker, professor emeritus and teacher at the National University of Colombia; he received a Doctorate degree from the National University with the title of Master. He studied law, political science and philosophy at the same university, where he held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Law, Political and Social Sciences . He developed an original philosophical project that he called Cosmic Vitalism. He was vitalist and utopian. He contributed to Colombian and Latin American thought.
Go to Profile#7643
Aleksander Giwercman
#114944
Overall Influence
#7644
Peter Branscombe
#47095
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Peter John Branscombe was an English academic in German studies, a musicologist, and a writer on Austrian cultural history. Career Branscombe attended Dulwich College where he showed talent as cricket player. Having served his military service in Vienna, Austria, he studied literature at Worcester College, Oxford. There, he became acquainted with notable Austrian émigrés such as the composer Egon Wellesz and the musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch.
Go to Profile#7645
Emily Chew
#68400
Overall Influence
Emily Ying Chew is an American ophthalmologist and an expert on the human retina with a strong clinical and research interest in diabetic eye disease and age-related eye diseases. She currently works for the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where she serves as deputy director of the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications and the Institute's deputy clinical director. She designs and implements Phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials at the NIH Clinical Center. Chew is board certified in ophthalmology.
Go to Profile#7646
Maurizio Cecconi
#114971
Overall Influence
#7647
Anna Brożek
#106333
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Anna Magdalena Brożek is a Polish philosopher and musician. Life Brożek studied piano at the Academy of Music in Kraków in 1999–2004, and at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in 2006–2008. At the same time, she studied philosophy at the Pontifical University of John Paul II from 1999 to 2003. Between 2004 and 2006, she completed her PhD studies in philosophy at Warsaw University, gaining her habilitation in 2008, and titular professorship in 2015.
Go to Profile#7648
James Rutka
#34039
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
James Rutka is a Canadian neurosurgeon from Toronto, Canada. Rutka served as RS McLaughlin Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto from 2011 – 2022. He subspecializes in pediatric neurosurgery at The Hospital for Sick Children , and is a Senior Scientist in the Research Institute at SickKids. His main clinical interests include the neurosurgical treatment of children with brain tumours and epilepsy. His research interests lie in the molecular biology of human brain tumours – specifically in the determination of the mechanisms by which brain tumours grow and invade.
Go to Profile#7649
Walter Hermann Hörl
#114974
Overall Influence
#7650
Douglas P. Kiel
#114985
Overall Influence
