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,
#8101
Kenneth John O’byrne
#119234
Overall Influence
#8102
Karen Leigh King
#13858
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Karen Leigh King is a historian of religion working in the field of Early Christianity, who is currently the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, in the oldest endowed chair in the United States .
Go to Profile#8103
L. Gordon Graham
#90137
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Gordon Graham is Chair of the Edinburgh Sacred Arts Foundation, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary in the USA, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's premier academy of science and letters.
Go to Profile#8104
Suzanne Craft
#119278
Overall Influence
#8105
Joël Ménard
#119279
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
#8106
Lawrence Howard Schwartz
#119292
Overall Influence
#8107
Ahmad Ali Heydari
#117722
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ahmad Ali Heydari is an Iranian philosopher and associate professor of philosophy at Allameh Tabataba'i University known for his works on ethics and his research on the reception of Western philosophy by Iranian thinkers. He received his PhD in philosophy from University of Bonn in 2003. Heydari is a member of board of directors of Iranian Society of Intercultural Philosophy .
Go to Profile#8108
Paul C. Taylor
#102184
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Paul Christopher Taylor is an American philosopher, author, and W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Previously he taught philosophy and African American studies at Pennsylvania State University. He writes on race theory, aesthetics, pragmatism, social and political philosophy, and Africana philosophy.
Go to Profile#8109
Daniel Hutto
#78242
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Daniel D. Hutto is an American philosopher and professor of philosophical psychology jointly at the University of Wollongong and University of Hertfordshire. He is known for his research on enactivism, affect, folk psychology and Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy. He is also known for designing and heading the degree of western civilisation at the University of Wollongong. This degree has led to controversy due to being funded by the Ramsay Centre, of which former prime ministers Toby Abbott and John Howard are board members.
Go to Profile#8110
Karl‐erik Hagbarth
#119327
Overall Influence
#8111
David L. Reich
#12436
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
David L. Reich is an American academic anesthesiologist, who has been President & Chief Operating Officer of The Mount Sinai Hospital, and President of Mount Sinai Queens , since October 2013. Reich is the Horace W. Goldsmith Professor of Anesthesiology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, and from 2004 to 2014 he served as the Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. In 2011, he received the Physician of the Year Award from Mount Sinai's nurses and nursing leadership. In 2011–12, he served as President of The Mount Sinai Hospital Medical Board. In 2014, he received the Jacobi Medallion from ...
Go to Profile#8112
Seamus Carey
#46054
Overall Influence
Seamus Carey, Ph.D., an American philosopher and academic, is the 9th President of Iona University in New Rochelle, New York. He previously served as the 26th President of Transylvania University, the first university in the state of Kentucky, from 2014 to 2019. While at Transylvania he was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 2015.
Go to Profile#8113
William Patrick Cooney
#119379
Overall Influence
#8114
Ciaran Patrick Kelly
#119383
Overall Influence
#8115
Ernst E. Van Der Wall
#119409
Overall Influence
#8116
Thomas Khurana
#92136
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Thomas Khurana is a German philosopher. Since 2020, he has held the position of Chair of Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy of Mind in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Potsdam. He is also currently the director of the Center for Post-Kantian Philosophy.
Go to Profile#8117
Werner Leinfellner
#99398
Overall Influence
1921 - 2010 (89 years)
Werner Leinfellner was professor of philosophy at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and at the Vienna University of Technology. After recovering from life-threatening wounds during World War II, he studied chemistry and physics at the Universities of Vienna and Graz, eventually turning to the study of the philosophy of science, and receiving his Ph.D. in 1959. He moved to the United States in 1967, in part, because of problems faced by empirically oriented philosophers in obtaining academic positions in Austria and Germany. He is notable for his contributions to philosophy of science, as a ...
Go to Profile#8118
Pierre Soulages
#3808
Overall Influence
1919 - 2022 (103 years)
Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are held by leading museums of the world, and there is a museum dedicated to his art in his hometown of Rodez.
Go to Profile#8119
Allan S. Brett
#119422
Overall Influence
#8120
Nils Alwall
1904 - 1986 (82 years)
Nils Alwall was a Swedish professor at Lund University, Sweden. He was a pioneer in hemodialysis and the inventor of one of the first practical dialysis machines. Alwall pioneered the technique of ultrafiltration and introduced the principle of hemofiltration. Alwall is referred to as the "father of extracorporeal blood treatment."
Go to Profile#8121
Antoon Van den Braembussche
#58162
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Antoon A.A. Van den Braembussche is a Flemish Philosopher of Culture, Emeritus Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a poet. He started as a poet, became a professor in the philosophy of history, and later specialized in art philosophy.
Go to Profile#8122
Jackie D. Corbin
#119438
Overall Influence
#8123
Axel Bruns
#75030
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Axel Bruns is a German-Australian media scholar. He is a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.
Go to Profile#8124
Moira Gatens
#69159
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Moira Gatens is an Australian academic feminist philosopher and current Challis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. She previously held the Spinoza Chair at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Go to Profile#8125
Khalil Kamarah'i
1898 - 1984 (86 years)
Ayatollah Haj Mirza Khalil Kamarah'i . He was an author, researcher and philosopher of contemporary theology that sought to unite the Muslim sects supporting his cause. He studied under Abdul-Karim Ha'eri Yazdi in Arak and Qom. He continued his studies of various Islamic subjects and philosophy throughout his life. He worked with the administration in the Vatican City on various philosophical questions, which he later released in a separate book. He travelled to Cairo on behalf of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Mahmud Shaltut, the Grand Mufti and dean of Al-Azhar University Sheikh, for fatwa. H...
Go to Profile#8126
Mark B. Orringer
#119471
Overall Influence
#8127
John C. Cheville
#119472
Overall Influence
#8128
Rexford S. Ahima
#71133
Overall Influence
Rexford Sefah Ahima is a Professor of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing; Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Diabetes at the Johns Hopkins Medical School; and the Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Ahima's research focuses on central and peripheral actions of adipocyte hormones in energy homeostasis, and glucose and lipid metabolism.
Go to Profile#8129
Thomas Francis Burks
#119497
Overall Influence
#8130
Meredith Minkler
#80549
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Meredith Minkler is an American public health researcher who is emeritus Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work on community-based participatory research and its use in public policy, criminal justice reform and democratizing access to food.
Go to Profile#8131
Paul Bril
1556 - 1626 (70 years)
Paul Bril was a Flemish painter and printmaker principally known for his landscapes. He spent most of his active career in Rome. His Italianate landscapes had a major influence on landscape painting in Italy and Northern Europe.
Go to Profile#8132
Corrado Barbui
#119535
Overall Influence
#8133
Wesley S. Moore
#119540
Overall Influence
#8134
Robert F. Ozols
#119541
Overall Influence
#8135
Sigrid Fry-Revere
#72182
Overall Influence
Sigrid Fry-Revere is an American medical ethicist and lawyer who has worked on many issues in patient care ethics, but most recently has been working on the rights of living organ donors. Background Fry-Revere worked as an attorney, practicing bioethics, health, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration law with the law firm of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn. She worked as an adjunct professor of ethics and healthcare law at George Mason University College of Nursing and Health Science and as an associate professor at the University of Virginia Center for Biomedical Ethics. She formerly served ...
Go to Profile#8136
Ian R. Phillips
#119546
Overall Influence
#8137
Ritesh Agarwal
#119555
Overall Influence
#8138
Ronald Rousseau
#75574
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Ronald Rousseau is a Belgian mathematician and information scientist. He has obtained an international reputation for his research on indicators and citation analysis in the fields of bibliometrics and scientometrics.
Go to Profile#8139
Cindy Farquhar
#115607
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Cynthia Margaret Farquhar is the Postgraduate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Auckland. Within the Cochrane Collaboration, she is the Co-ordinating Editor of Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility. Farquhar has over 200 published papers, with a focus on women's reproductive and sexual health.
Go to Profile#8140
Burton Edward Livingston
1875 - 1948 (73 years)
Burton Edward Livingston was an American plant physiologist, born at Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was educated at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago , where he worked as an assistant from 1899 to 1905. He published Róle of Diffusion and Osmotic Pressure in Plants . In 1913, Livingston became the professor of plant physiology at Johns Hopkins University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1914. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as the Society for Science and the Public, from 1930 to 1937. He was elected to th...
Go to Profile#8141
John Bulwer
1606 - 1656 (50 years)
John Bulwer was an English physician and early Baconian natural philosopher who wrote five works exploring the Body and human communication, particularly by gesture. He was the first person in England to propose educating deaf people, the plans for an Academy he outlines in Philocophus and The Dumbe mans academie.
Go to Profile#8142
Magnus Unemo
#119625
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
#8143
Garry M. Gray
#119629
Overall Influence
#8144
Ravinder N. Maini
#48971
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Sir Ravinder Nath Maini is an Indian-born British rheumatologist and academic who is an emeritus professor at Imperial College London. He led the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. Biography Maini was born in Ludhiana, Punjab, British India, to Sir Amar Maini, a Kenyan-born lawyer and Ugandan politician, and his wife, Sam Saheli Mehra. His younger brother is academic Yoginder Nath Tidu Maini. Ravinder completed his bachelor's degree at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. In the 1980s, Maini, Marc Feldmann and Fionula Brennan identified TNF alpha as a key cytokine in the process of rheumatoid a...
Go to Profile#8145
Carsun Chang
1886 - 1969 (83 years)
Carsun Chang Biography A pioneering theorist of human rights in the Chinese context, Chang established his own small "Third Force" democratic party during the Nationalist era. Chang supported German-style social democracy while opposing capitalism, communism, and guild socialism. He supported socialization of major industries such as railroads and mines to be run by a combination of government officials, technicians, and consumers. The development of a mixed economy in China, like that advocated by the Social Democratic Party of Germany under Philipp Scheidemann.
Go to Profile#8146
Lenn E. Goodman
#93413
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Lenn Evan Goodman is an American Jewish philosopher. His philosophy, particularly his constructive work, draws from classical and medieval sources as well as religious texts. Goodman is also an academic, scholar, and a historian with research interest in metaphysics, ethics, and Jewish philosophy. He is serving as a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University.
Go to Profile#8147
Karl von Piloty
1826 - 1886 (60 years)
Karl Theodor von Piloty was a German painter, noted for his historical subjects, and recognised as the foremost representative of the realistic school in Germany. Life and work Piloty was born in Munich. His father, Ferdinand Piloty , enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 1840, Karl was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Karl Schorn and Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld. A year later the acclaimed history paintings , i.e. the Compromise of the nobles and The Abdication of Charles V by the two Belgian artists Edouard de Bièfve and Louis Gallait, were shown i...
Go to Profile#8148
Denis Eunan O'donnell
#119661
Overall Influence
#8149
G. Garabed Eknoyan
#119667
Overall Influence
#8150
Alan S. Maisel
#119668
Overall Influence
