Search People Result | Academic Influence

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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#851

Amelia Valcárcel

#17094

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Amelia Valcárcel is a Spanish philosopher and feminist. She is considered within the “philosophic feminism” as part of the “equality feminism” approach. In 2015 she is a professor in Moral and Political Philosophy at the National University of Distance Education and since 2006 is member of the Spanish Council of State.

#852

János Kis

#9948

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

János Kis is a Hungarian philosopher and political scientist, who served as the inaugural leader of the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats from 1990 to 1991. He is considered to be the first Leader Hungarian parliamentary opposition.

#853

Rémi Brague

#10551

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Rémi Brague is a French historian of philosophy, specializing in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought of the Middle Ages. He is professor emeritus of Arabic and religious philosophy at the Sorbonne, and Romano Guardini chair of philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

#854

María Zambrano

#8837

Overall Influence

1904 - 1991 (87 years)

María Zambrano Alarcón was a Spanish essayist and philosopher associated with the Generation of '36 movement. Her extensive work between the civic engagement and the poetic reflection started to be recognised in Spain over the last quarter of the 20th century after living many years in exile. She was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize .

#855

Jean Paul Van Bendegem

#11765

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Jean Paul Van Bendegem is a mathematician, a philosopher of science, and a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels. Career Van Bendegem received his master's degree in mathematics in 1976. Afterwards, he went to study philosophy. He attended lectures on the philosophy of mathematics from Leo Apostel. He received his master's degree in philosophy in 1979.

#856

Crispin Sartwell

#18780

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Crispin Gallagher Sartwell is an American academic, philosopher, and journalist who is a faculty member of the philosophy department at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He has taught philosophy, communication, and political science at a number of schools, including Vanderbilt University, University of Alabama, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and Dickinson College.

#857

Jenny Teichman

#11402

Overall Influence

1930 - 2018 (88 years)

Jenny Teichman was an Australian-British philosopher, writing mostly on ethics. She was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1930 and grew up in Belgrave. Her uncle was Justus Jorgensen, founder of the artists' colony of Montsalvat. She married the lecturer and political commentator Max Teichmann. She was a research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford, from 1957 until 1960. She taught mostly at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, formerly known as New Hall, where she became an Emeritus Fellow. She also taught for shorter periods in Australia, Canada and the USA.

#858

Timothy Smiley

#19465

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Timothy John Smiley FBA is a British philosopher, appointed Emeritus Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Clare College, Cambridge University. He works primarily in philosophy of mathematics and logic.

#859

Herbert Fingarette

#12877

Overall Influence

1921 - 2018 (97 years)

Herbert Fingarette was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Early life and education Fingarette was born Herbert Borenstein in Brooklyn. His father, David Borenstein, manufactured sewing machine parts. As a teenager, he moved with his family to Los Angeles. He later adopted the last name of his stepfather, Harry Fingarette. Fingarette initially studied chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, but left to serve in the United States Army during World War II, where he was assigned to the Pentagon. He later earned a Bac...

#860

Martin Balluch

#14090

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Martin Balluch is an Austrian physicist, philosopher, vegan and prominent animal rights activist. He co-founded the Austrian Vegan Society in 1999, and has been president of the Austrian Association Against Animal Factories since 2002. The philosopher Peter Singer has called Balluch "one of the foremost spokesmen in the worldwide animal rights movement for pursuing the nonviolent, democratic road to reform."

#861

Celia Amorós

#16088

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Celia Amorós Puente is a Spanish philosopher, essayist and supporter of feminist theory. She is a key figure in the so-called equality feminism and focused an important part of her research in the building of relations between Enlightenment and feminism. Her book Hacia una crítica de la razón patriarcal constitutes a new outlook on the gender perspective of philosophy, revealing the biases of androcentrism and claims a critical review on behalf of women.

#862

Jean Ladrière

#19705

Overall Influence

1921 - 2007 (86 years)

Jean Ladrière was a Belgian logician and philosopher, born in Nivelles. He was professor at the University of Louvain from 1959 to 1986, where he was chair of the Higher Institute of Philosophy from 1977 to 1985.

#863

Jonathan Lear

#9201

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Jonathan Lear is an American philosopher and psychoanalyst. He is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and served as the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago from 2014 to 2022.

#864

Peter Ludlow

#8976

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Peter Ludlow , who also writes under the pseudonym Urizenus Sklar, is an American philosopher of language. He is noted for interdisciplinary work on the interface of linguistics and philosophy—in particular on the philosophical foundations of Noam Chomsky's theory of generative linguistics and on the foundations of the theory of meaning in linguistic semantics. He has worked on the application of analytic philosophy of language to topics in epistemology, metaphysics, and logic, among other areas.

#865

Edward S. Casey

Edward S. Casey

#10006

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Edward S. Casey is an American philosopher and university professor. He has published several volumes on phenomenology, philosophical psychology, and the philosophy of space and place. His work is widely cited in contemporary continental philosophy. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University in New York and distinguished visiting faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

#866

E. J. Lowe

#16783

Overall Influence

1950 - 2014 (64 years)

Edward Jonathan Lowe , usually cited as E. J. Lowe but known personally as Jonathan Lowe, was a British philosopher and academic. He was Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. Biography Lowe was born in Dover, England. His secondary education was at Bushey Grammar School, and he subsequently studied at the University of Cambridge, 1968–72 , and the University of Oxford, 1972–75 .

#867

Peter Carruthers

Peter Carruthers

#8591

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Peter Carruthers is a British-American philosopher and cognitive scientist working primarily in the area of philosophy of mind, though he has also made contributions to philosophy of language and ethics. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, an associate member of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, and a member of the Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences.

#868

Michael E. Rosen

#19644

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Michael Eric Rosen is a British political philosopher active in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental European intellectual thought. He is best known for his work on Hegel and the Frankfurt School. He is currently the Senator Joseph S. Clark Professor of Government at Harvard University.

#869

Susan Buck-Morss

#12349

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Susan Buck-Morss is an American philosopher and intellectual historian. She is currently Professor of Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, and professor emeritus in the Government Department at Cornell University, where she taught from 1978 to 2012. Her interdisciplinary work involves but is not limited to the fields of Art History, Architecture, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, German studies, History, Philosophy, and Visual Studies. She has won a Getty Scholar Grant, a Fulbright Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work.

#870

Wing-tsit Chan

#8849

Overall Influence

1901 - 1994 (93 years)

Wing-tsit Chan was a Chinese scholar and professor best known for his studies of Chinese philosophy and his translations of Chinese philosophical texts. Chan was born in China in 1901 and went to the United States in 1924, earning a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1929. Chan taught at Dartmouth College and Chatham University for most of his academic career. Chan's 1963 book A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy was highly influential in the English-speaking world, and was often used as a source for quotations from Chinese philosophical classics.

#871

Martin Hollis

#11979

Overall Influence

1938 - 1998 (60 years)

James Martin Hollis was an English rationalist philosopher. Writing for The Independent, Tim O'Hagan, an Emeritus Professor at the University of East Anglia argued that central to Hollis's rationalism was "the epistemological unity of mankind", the view that "some beliefs are universal ... There are, because there have to be, percepts and concepts shared by all who can understand each other." This rationalism, of Hollis, was in its early formulations strongly influenced by Peter Strawson and applied to understanding and explaining the approach of the social sciences.

#872

Peter Godfrey-Smith

Peter Godfrey-Smith

#9991

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Peter Godfrey-Smith is an Australian philosopher of science and writer, who is currently Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He works primarily in philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind, and also has interests in general philosophy of science, pragmatism , and some parts of metaphysics and epistemology. Godfrey-Smith was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.

#873

Mario Costa

#12620

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Mario Costa was an Italian philosopher. He was known for his studies of the consequences of new technology in art and aesthetics, which introduced a new theoretical perspective through concepts such as the "communication aesthetics", the "technological sublime", the "communication block", and the "aesthetics of flux".

#874

Rick Roderick

#16603

Overall Influence

1949 - 2002 (53 years)

Rick Roderick was an American professor of philosophy, best known for his lectures for The Teaching Company. Life Roderick was born in Abilene, Texas, on June 16, 1949, son of a "con-man" and a "beautician". He was a teacher of philosophy at several universities, where he was much revered by many students for a Socratic style of teaching combined with a brash and often humorous approach. His breakthrough into wider circles came with his engagement with The Teaching Company where he recorded several lecture series. Rick Roderick died on January 18, 2002, from a congestive heart condition.

#875

Helen Longino

#17164

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Helen Elizabeth Longino is an American philosopher of science who has argued for the significance of values and social interactions to scientific inquiry. She has written about the role of women in science and is a central figure in feminist epistemology and social epistemology. She is the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. In 2016, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

#876

Frederick G. Lawrence

Frederick G. Lawrence

#10478

Overall Influence

Frederick G. Lawrence is an American hermeneutic philosopher and theologian, and a specialist in Bernard Lonergan, teaching in the Department of Theology at Boston College, Boston, US. Life Fred Lawrence is married to Sue Lawrence. He has been running the annual Lonergan Workshop at Boston College for many years, and is editor of Lonergan Workshop, which publishes the proceedings. He also convened the First and Second International Lonergan Conferences at Rome and Toronto , and the Third and Fourth International Lonergan Conferences at Mainz and Jerusalem respectively.

#877

Achille Varzi

#13162

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Achille C. Varzi is an Italian-born philosopher who is John Dewey Professor of philosophy at Columbia University. He graduated from the University of Trento and received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto. Varzi is also Bruno Kessler Honorary Professor at the University of Trento and, since 2017, Visiting Professor at the University of Italian Switzerland.

#878

Eurymedon the Hierophant

#15076

Overall Influence

Eurymedon the Hierophant was a representative of the priestly clan overseeing the Eleusinian Mysteries. Together with Demophilus he reportedly brought a charge of impiety against Aristotle after Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC.

#879

Michael Inwood

#21554

Overall Influence

1944 - 2021 (77 years)

Michael Inwood was a British philosopher and fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. He is known for his works on Hegel, Heidegger and ancient philosophy. Inwood died from lung cancer in Kidlington on 31 December 2021, at the age of 77.

#880

Marek Jędraszewski

Marek Jędraszewski

#16589

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Marek Jędraszewski is a Polish Roman Catholic prelate who has been Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków since 8 December 2016. He served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Łódź from 2012 to 2017. He has also been Vice-President of the Polish Episcopal Conference since 2014.

#881

Mark Siegler

#11770

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Mark Siegler is an American physician who specializes in internal medicine. He is the Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Chicago. , He is the Founding Director of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Siegler has practiced and taught internal medicine at the University of Chicago for more than 50 years.

#882

Duncan Pritchard

#17552

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Duncan Pritchard is the chancellor's professor of philosophy and the director of graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine. He was previously professor of philosophy and chair in epistemology at the University of Edinburgh. His research is mainly in the field of epistemology. He has studied the problem of scepticism, the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction; the rationality of religious belief; testimony; the relationship between epistemic and content externalism; virtue epistemology; epistemic value; modal epistemology; Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology; the history ...

#883

Alberto Mantovani

#12944

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Alberto Mantovani is an Italian physician and immunologist. He is Scientific Director of Istituto Clinico Humanitas , President and Founder of the Fondazione Humanitas per la Ricerca, and Professor of Pathology at the State University of Milan. He is known for his works in the roles of the immune system in the development of cancer. His research on tumor-associated macrophages established inflammation as one of the causes of cancer. He was the first to identify monocyte chemotactic protein - 1 / CCL2 in 1983, and PTX3 in 1997. His works revealed the existence of decoy receptors in cell-signalling.

#884

Béla H. Bánáthy

Béla H. Bánáthy

#1989

Overall Influence

1919 - 2003 (84 years)

Béla Heinrich Bánáthy was a Hungarian-American linguist, and Professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley. He is known as founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program, established the International Systems Institute in 1982, and was co-founder of the General Evolutionary Research Group in 1984.

#885

David Kolb

#9236

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

David Kolb is an American philosopher and the Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Bates College in Maine. Kolb received a B.A. from Fordham University in 1963 and an M.A. in 1965. He later received a M.Phil. from Yale University in 1970 and a Ph.D. in 1972. Kolb's Dissertation was titled "Conceptual Pluralism and Rationality." Most of Kolb's writing deals with "what it means to live with historical connections and traditions at a time when we can no longer be totally defined by that history." Professor Kolb taught at the University of Chicago before moving to Bates in 1977 ...

#886

Alexander Spirkin

#16731

Overall Influence

1918 - 2004 (86 years)

Alexander Georgyevich Spirkin was a Soviet and Russian philosopher and psychologist. He was born in Saratov Governorate and graduated from the Moscow State Pedagogical University. In 1959 he received his doctorate in philosophy for a dissertation on the origin of consciousness.

#887

Adrian Johnston

#12890

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Adrian Johnston is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and a faculty member at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute in Atlanta.

#888

Drucilla Cornell

#8473

Overall Influence

1950 - 2022 (72 years)

Drucilla Cornell , was an American philosopher and feminist theorist, whose work has been influential in political and legal philosophy, ethics, deconstruction, critical theory, and feminism. Cornell was an emerita Professor of Political Science, Comparative Literature and Women's & Gender Studies at Rutgers University the State University of New Jersey; Professor Extraordinaire at the University of Pretoria, South Africa; and a visiting professor at Birkbeck College, University of London. She also taught for many years on the law faculties of the University of Pennsylvania and of Cardozo La...

#889

Lilli Alanen

#19788

Overall Influence

1941 - 2021 (80 years)

Lilli Kristina Alanen was a Finnish philosopher and Professor Emeritus of History of Philosophy at Department of Philosophy at Uppsala University. She was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.

#890

Hans-Johann Glock

#21855

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Hans-Johann Glock is a German philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Zurich. Biography Glock studied philosophy, German studies, and mathematics at University of Tübingen, University of Oxford, and the Free University of Berlin, and in 1990 received his DPhil at Oxford. After lectureships at Oxford and the University of Reading, he was appointed a position in 2006 at the University of Zurich, where he holds a chair in Theoretical Philosophy. He is also visiting professor at the University of Reading.

#891

Bob Hale

#16033

Overall Influence

1945 - 2017 (72 years)

Bob Hale, FRSE was a British philosopher, known for his contributions to the development of the neo-Fregean philosophy of mathematics in collaboration with Crispin Wright, and for his works in modality and philosophy of language.

#892

Molefi Kete Asante

Molefi Kete Asante

#1546

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Molefi Kete Asante is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently a professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University, where he founded the PhD program in African-American Studies. He is president of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies.

#893

Kelly James Clark

#16845

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Kelly James Clark is an American philosopher noted for his work in the philosophy of religion, science and religion, and the cognitive science of religion. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan.

#894

Paul Watzlawick

#1645

Overall Influence

1921 - 2007 (86 years)

Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy. Watzlawick believed that people create their own suffering in the very act of trying to fix their emotional problems. He was one of the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute and lived and worked in Palo Alto, California.

#895

Michel Henry

#10425

Overall Influence

1922 - 2002 (80 years)

Michel Henry was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.

#896

Richard Carrier

Richard Carrier

#9813

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Richard Cevantis Carrier is an ancient historian. He is long-time contributor to skeptical websites, including The Secular Web and Freethought Blogs, Carrier has published a number of books and articles on philosophy and religion in classical antiquity, discussing the development of early Christianity from a skeptical viewpoint, and concerning religion and morality in the modern world. He has publicly debated a number of scholars on the historical basis of the Bible and Christianity. He is a prominent advocate of the theory that Jesus did not exist, which he has argued in a number of his works.

#897

Otfried Höffe

#15527

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Otfried Höffe is a German philosopher and professor. Academic career From 1964 to 1970, Höffe studied philosophy, history, sociology and theology at the universities of Münster, Tübingen, Saarbrücken and Munich. His 1971 dissertation was on the practical philosophy of Aristotle. In 1970 and 1971, he was visiting scholar at Columbia University.

#898

Ruth Chang

#10773

Overall Influence

Ruth Chang is an American legal scholar who serves as the Professor and Chair of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, a Professorial Fellow of University College, Oxford, and an American professor of philosophy. She was previously a professor at Rutgers University from 1998 to 2019. She is known for her research on the incommensurability of values and on practical reason and normativity. She is also widely known for her work on decision-making and is lecturer or consultant on choice at institutions ranging from video-gaming to pharmaceuticals, the U.S. Navy, World Bank, and CIA.

#899

Martin Kusch

#12296

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Martin Kusch is Professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna. Until 2009, Kusch was Professor of Philosophy and Sociology of science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University. Prior to Cambridge, Kusch was lecturer in the Science Studies Unit of the University of Edinburgh.

#900

Richard Shusterman

#19190

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Richard Shusterman is an American pragmatist philosopher. Known for his contributions to philosophical aesthetics and the emerging field of somaesthetics, currently he is the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University.

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