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,
#7951
Robert Gooding-Williams
#47001
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert Gooding-Williams is M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is the founding director of Columbia's Center for Race, Philosophy, and Social Justice. He specializes in philosophy of race and Continental philosophy, especially Nietzsche.
Go to Profile#7952
Peter Rudge
#146942
Overall Influence
#7953
Donald West Harward
#38462
Overall Influence
Donald West "Don" Harward is an American philosopher who served as the sixth President of Bates College from March 1989 to November 2002, where he was succeeded by the first female president, Elaine Tuttle Hansen.
Go to Profile#7954
Gastone G. Celesia
#147000
Overall Influence
#7955
R. D. G. Milner
#147037
Overall Influence
#7956
Jacqueline Whang-Peng
#84160
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Jacqueline Jia-Kang Whang-Peng is a Taiwanese-American physician-scientist specialized in cytogenetics of cancer, as well as medical genetics, genetic oncology, and gene mapping. She was a researcher at the National Cancer Institute from 1960 to 1993.
Go to Profile#7957
Frank w. Sharbrough
#147057
Overall Influence
#7958
Ashok Gangadean
#117194
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ashok Gangadean is a Trinidadian philosopher, author and spiritual activist. He is the Margaret Gest Professor of Global Philosophy at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania and the Founder and Director of the Global Dialogue Institute.
Go to Profile#7959
Zvi Fuks
#147077
Overall Influence
#7960
Robin Wood
#56203
Overall Influence
1931 - 2009 (78 years)
Robert Paul "Robin" Wood was an English film critic and educator who lived in Canada for much of his life. He wrote books on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Arthur Penn. Wood was a longtime member—and co-founder, along with other colleagues at Toronto's York University—of the editorial collective which publishes CineACTION!, a film theory magazine. Wood was also York professor emeritus of film.
Go to Profile#7961
Joel G. Breman
#147097
Overall Influence
#7962
Mladen Vranic
#147105
Overall Influence
#7963
Hiroyuki Daida
#147108
Overall Influence
#7964
Hudson Gerry Taylor
#147123
Overall Influence
#7965
William H. Eaglstein
#147135
Overall Influence
#7966
Michael Stuart
#29258
Overall Influence
Michael J. Stuart is an American sports physician and orthopedic surgeon. He is a professor and vice-chairman of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and a co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center. He has published more than 370 journal articles and 50 book chapters, as of 2022. He specializes in sports medicine, and advocates for strength, flexibility, and awareness, to reduce injuries in ice hockey. He collaborated to arrange the 2010, 2013 and 2017 Ice Hockey Summits, which focused on concussions, and educational programs for players, coaches and parents.
Go to Profile#7967
Eitan Friedman
#147149
Overall Influence
#7968
Massimo Menenti
#147150
Overall Influence
#7969
Burleigh Taylor Wilkins
#102974
Overall Influence
1932 - 2015 (83 years)
Burleigh Taylor Wilkins was a professor in the Department of Philosophy of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He studied at Duke University, ; Harvard University ; and Princeton University . He previously taught history at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia from 1956–57; humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1957–60; philosophy at Princeton University and at Rice University . He taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1968 until 2012.
Go to Profile#7970
Howard Kreisel
#120741
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Howard "Haim" Kreisel is a professor of medieval Jewish philosophy in the department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev . Biography Howard Kreisel was born in New York in 1951. He received his B.A. at Brandeis University in 1972 and went on to complete his M.A. and Ph.D. at Brandeis in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. His doctoral dissertation, Theories of Prophecy in Medieval Jewish Philosophy was written under the supervision of Alfred Ivry. He taught medieval Jewish studies for three years at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College before moving to Israel in 1983.
Go to Profile#7971
Arthur Zimmermann
#147179
Overall Influence
#7972
Alfred P. Hallstrom
#147182
Overall Influence
#7973
Francis Wilson Price
#147208
Overall Influence
#7974
Robert Michael Franklin Jr.
#38711
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Robert Michael Franklin Jr. is an American author, theologian, ordained minister, and academic administrator who served as the tenth president of Morehouse College from 2007 to 2012. Franklin is a visiting scholar in residence at Stanford University's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. In January 2014, he became director of the religion program at the Chautauqua Institution.
Go to Profile#7975
Charles F. Frey
#147236
Overall Influence
#7976
Richard J. Gryglewski
#147242
Overall Influence
#7977
Tatsuo Miyamura
#147243
Overall Influence
#7978
Jørg Gustav Mørland
#147267
Overall Influence
#7979
Larry L. Butcher
#147285
Overall Influence
#7980
John Desmond Ward
#147288
Overall Influence
#7981
Karl Michaëlsson
#147320
Overall Influence
#7982
William Hare
#87366
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
William Hare is a philosopher whose writings deal primarily with problems in philosophy of education. He attended Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys, 1955–62. After receiving his B.A. from the University of London , he gained an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Leicester , and a Ph.D. in educational theory from the University of Toronto . He was Professor of Education and Philosophy at Dalhousie University from 1970 to 1995, and subsequently Professor of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University until his retirement in June 2008. He is now Professor Emeritus. He is known mainly for ...
Go to Profile#7983
Robert W. Ii Hobson
#147346
Overall Influence
#7984
Elizabeth Castelli
#51339
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Elizabeth Castelli is an author and Professor of Religion at Barnard College. She specializes in biblical studies, late ancient Christianity, feminist studies in religion along with theory and method in the study of religion, with a particular focus on the after-effects of biblical and early Christian texts, including the citation of the Bible and ancient Christian sources in debates concerning cultural and political expression.
Go to Profile#7985
Hermann Otto Handwerker
#147382
Overall Influence
#7986
Diethelm Wallwiener
#147388
Overall Influence
#7987
Ukshin Hoti
#78164
Overall Influence
1943 - 1999 (56 years)
Ukshin Hoti was a Kosovo Albanian philosopher and activist. Hoti was a professor of international law and later philosophy at the University of Pristina and founder of UNIKOMB, a political party of Kosovo. Since 1982 he had been arrested several times by Yugoslav authorities. In 1994 he was convicted to five years in the Dubrava prison. In May 1999, when his sentence ended and he was to be released, the prison guards transferred him to an unknown location. His whereabouts remain unknown and many human rights activists consider him dead.
Go to Profile#7988
Mark Silk
#45013
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mark Silk is an American academic. He is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, where he also serves as the Director the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. In addition, Silk is a Contributing Editor of the Religion News Service, specializing in Spiritual Politics.
Go to Profile#7989
Caroline Homer
#128373
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Caroline Susan E. Homer is an Australian midwifery researcher and international advocate for women's health rights. She is Co-Program Director, Maternal and Child Health at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne and Visiting Distinguished Professor of Midwifery at the University of Technology Sydney.
Go to Profile#7990
Marja. A. Boermeester
#147406
Overall Influence
#7991
Geoffrey Watkinson
#147411
Overall Influence
#7992
Dr Donald L. Lamm
#147417
Overall Influence
#7993
F. Blair Simmons
#147425
Overall Influence
#7994
Martine R. Rémy-jardin
#147428
Overall Influence
#7995
Yukitaka Ushio
#147433
Overall Influence
#7996
Sudhansu Chokroverty
#147463
Overall Influence
#7997
Nicole Mosconi
#126333
Overall Influence
1942 - 2021 (79 years)
Nicole Mosconi was a French philosopher and professor. A specialist in educational questions, she was a member of the from 2006 until her death. Biography Mosconi, née Aubineau, graduated from the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles in 1961 with an agrégation in philosophy. She earned a doctorate from Paris Nanterre University in 1986 under the direction of with the title "La mixité dans l'enseignement secondaire : un faux-semblant ?" In 1992, she published "Savoir, rapport au savoir et différence des sexes". In 1994, she became a professor of educational sciences.
Go to Profile#7998
Ronald M. Du Bois
#147495
Overall Influence
#7999
Michihiko Tada
#147499
Overall Influence
#8000
Roland H. Ingram
#147510
Overall Influence
