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,
#9201
Salvino Busuttil
#99020
Overall Influence
1936 - 2016 (80 years)
Salvino Busuttil was a Maltese economist, ambassador to France, and philosopher. In philosophy he specialised in economics and international relations. Life Busuttil was born at Floriana, Malta, in 1936.
Go to Profile#9202
Ackbar Abbas
#22127
Overall Influence
Ackbar Abbas is a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. Previously he was chair of comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong and also co-director of the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Cultures.
Go to Profile#9203
Michele Emdin
#129246
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#9204
Vincent Michael Riccardi
#129260
Overall Influence
#9205
J. M. Hyyppä
#129261
Overall Influence
#9206
Ulrich Tadday
#83173
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ulrich Tadday is a German musicologist, a professor at the University of Bremen. Career Born in Gelsenkirchen, Tadday studied musicology, music pedagogy, philosophy and German literature at the University of Dortmund and University of Bochum 1983 to 1988. He achieved a Ph.D in 1992 and completed his habilitation in 1998.
Go to Profile#9207
Renata Adler
#49051
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Renata Adler is an American author, journalist, and film critic. Adler was a staff writer-reporter for The New Yorker, and in 1968–69, she served as chief film critic for The New York Times. She is also a writer of fiction.
Go to Profile#9208
Lila R. Elveback
#129294
Overall Influence
#9209
Deng Guang Yu
#129303
Overall Influence
#9210
Anthony Science Russell
#129313
Overall Influence
#9211
Jean-charles E. Preiser
#129319
Overall Influence
#9212
Abraham Goldberg
#63664
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
Sir Abraham Goldberg was a British physician who was a Regius Professor of the Practice of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. He was educated at George Heriot's School in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#9213
Drew Pinsky
#33734
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
David Drew Pinsky , commonly known as Dr. Drew, is an American media personality, internist, and addiction medicine specialist. He hosted the nationally syndicated radio talk show Loveline from the show's inception in 1984 until its end in 2016. On television, he hosted the talk show Dr. Drew On Call on HLN and the daytime series Lifechangers on The CW. In addition, he served as producer and starred in the VH1 show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, and its spinoffs Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, Celebrity Rehab Presents Sober House. Pinsky currently hosts several podcasts, including The Dr. Drew Podcast, This Life with Dr.
Go to Profile#9214
Paul L. Enright
#129341
Overall Influence
#9215
Deborah G. Grady
#129350
Overall Influence
#9216
Ma Chao
176 - 222 (46 years)
Ma Chao , courtesy name Mengqi, was a Chinese military general and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty and early Three Kingdoms period of China. A descendant of the general Ma Yuan, Ma Chao was the eldest son of Ma Teng, a prominent warlord in Liang Province . In 211, he formed a coalition with Han Sui and other northwestern warlords and revolted against the Han central government, which was led by the warlord Cao Cao. The coalition broke up after losing the Battle of Tong Pass against Cao Cao's forces. Ma Chao initially retreated, but later returned to attack and seize control ...
Go to Profile#9217
Andrea Biondi
#129358
Overall Influence
#9218
John Burnheim
#53995
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
John Bernard Burnheim was an Australian philosopher who was Professor of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney. Biography John Bernard Burnheim was born in Sydney on 20 April 1927. He was originally a Catholic priest and, from 1958 to 1968, was rector of St John's, the Catholic college attached to the university. He became a major figure in the disturbances of the 1970s that split the university's Department of Philosophy. Burnheim died in Camperdown on 26 October 2023, at the age of 96.
Go to Profile#9219
Colin Dayan
#65841
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Colin Dayan, also known as Joan Dayan, is the Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University, where she teaches American studies, comparative literature, and the religious and legal history of the Americas.
Go to Profile#9220
John Latham
1740 - 1837 (97 years)
John Latham was an English physician, naturalist and author. His main works were A General Synopsis of Birds and General History of Birds . He was able to examine specimens of Australian birds which reached England in the last twenty years of the 18th century, and was responsible for providing English names for many of them. He named some of Australia's most famous birds, including the emu, sulphur-crested cockatoo, wedge-tailed eagle, superb lyrebird, Australian magpie, magpie-lark and pheasant coucal. He was also the first to describe the hyacinth macaw. Latham has been called the "grandfa...
Go to Profile#9221
Helena Knyazeva
#63847
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Helena Nikolaevna Knyazeva is a Russian philosopher of science, complex systems scientist, scholar of synergetics, and translator into Russian of the works of Ilya Prigogine, Edgar Morin, and others. She is a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Go to Profile#9222
Cheng‐li Lin
#129375
Overall Influence
#9223
Eduard de Muralt
1808 - 1895 (87 years)
Eduard de Muralt was a Swiss-German professor of theology, librarian, and palaeographer. Born in Bischofszell, as son of Kaspar, a dealer, and of Elizabeth Sprüngli. Studies of theology in Zurich , then of philology and philosophy in Berlin, Jena and Paris. Muralt emigrated to Russia in 1834, took the German Protestant parish of St. Petersburg , he was a librarian of the Imperial Hermitage , and described Greek manuscripts housed in the library. He examined also the Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library.
Go to Profile#9224
John E. Mcgowan,
#129392
Overall Influence
#9225
Fiona Hughes
#81266
Overall Influence
Fiona Hughes is a British Academic. She is a Senior Lecturer in philosophy and Director of Education for Philosophy at the University of Essex. Hughes graduated from the University of Edinburgh and Merton College, Oxford. In January 2017, Hughes was on the expert panel for BBC Radio 4's In Our Time on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality.
Go to Profile#9226
Ennio Antonio Chiocca
#129411
Overall Influence
#9227
Natalie Depraz
#60133
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Natalie Depraz is a French philosopher. She is a specialist in German philosophy, phenomenology, and, more specifically, Edmund Husserl. She is a professor at the University of Rouen Normandy and an academic member of the Husserl Archives at the École normale supérieure . She is the founder of the .
Go to Profile#9228
Ion Dragoumis
1878 - 1920 (42 years)
Ion Dragoumis was a Greek diplomat, philosopher, writer and revolutionary. Biography Born in Athens, Dragoumis was the son of Stephanos Dragoumis who was foreign minister under Charilaos Trikoupis. The Dragoumis family was a prominent Greek family, which originated from Vogatsiko in Kastoria regional unit. Ion's great-grandfather, Markos Dragoumis , was a member of the Filiki Eteria revolutionary organisation.
Go to Profile#9229
Dale E. Bredesen
#129418
Overall Influence
#9230
Joel Lexchin
#112328
Overall Influence
Joel Lexchin is a professor emeritus at the York University Faculty of Health where he taught about pharmaceutical policy, an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, an emergency physician at the Toronto General Hospital and a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Lexchin is the author of over 160 peer-reviewed publications.
Go to Profile#9231
Gary W. Small
#129447
Overall Influence
#9232
Marvin A. Konstam
#129451
Overall Influence
#9233
Bernd Dörken
#129456
Overall Influence
#9234
Enrico Solcia
#129462
Overall Influence
#9235
Bruce D. Weintraub
#129472
Overall Influence
#9236
David G. Warnock
#129483
Overall Influence
#9237
Edward M. Messing
#129485
Overall Influence
#9238
David S. Satcher
#129488
Overall Influence
#9239
Gernot Gruber
#82767
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Gernot Gruber is an Austrian musicologist. Life Born in Bruck an der Mur, Styria, Gruber studied music, musicology, philosophy and German literature at the University of Graz and received his doctorate in 1964. Afterwards he was assistant at the same university until 1970. From 1970 to 1972 he was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. From 1972 to 1975 Gruber was an assistant at the University of Vienna and was habilitated for musicology in 1973. From 1976 to 1995 he was professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich and from 1995 to 2008 he held a full professor...
Go to Profile#9240
Allan P. Pollack
#129540
Overall Influence
#9241
Victoria J. Fraser
#102043
Overall Influence
Victoria J. Fraser is an American physician. Fraser graduated from William Woods College before earning a medical degree from the University of Missouri School of Medicine. After completing her residency at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, she joined the Washington University in St. Louis faculty in 1991. Fraser was subsequently named J. William Campbell Professor of Medicine, serving until her appointment as Adolphus Busch Professor of Medicine and department chair in 2012.
Go to Profile#9242
Donald L. Trump
#79717
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Donald Lynn "Skip" Trump is an American oncologist who has been the executive director and chief executive officer of the Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Falls Church, Virginia, since January 2015. He has the same first and last name as former United States President Donald Trump, but they are not related to each other.
Go to Profile#9243
Darwyn Cooke
#20033
Overall Influence
1962 - 2016 (54 years)
Darwyn Cooke was a Canadian comics artist, writer, cartoonist, and animator who worked on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit and Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter. His work has been honoured with numerous Eisner, Harvey, and Joe Shuster Awards.
Go to Profile#9244
Nelson Sewankambo
#45250
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Nelson Kawulukusi Sewankambo, MBChB, MMed, MSc, FRCP, LLD , sometimes spelled as Nelson Ssewankambo, is a Ugandan physician, academician, medical researcher, and medical administrator. He is a professor of medicine and former principal of the Makerere University College of Health Sciences, a semi-autonomous constituent college of Makerere University.
Go to Profile#9245
Sidney Strickland
#129595
Overall Influence
#9246
Giovanni Piana
#108077
Overall Influence
1940 - 2019 (79 years)
Giovanni Piana was an Italian philosopher. He taught theoretical philosophy at the University of Milan from 1970 to 1999. He was a disciple of Enzo Paci and wrote his dissertation on Husserl's unpublished works.
Go to Profile#9247
Gabriel Chen-Ying Ly
#119375
Overall Influence
1929 - 2023 (94 years)
Gabriel Chen-Ying Ly was a Taiwanese philosopher, secretary-general of the Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference and president of Fu Jen Catholic University. Ly was a philosophy professor at Fu Jen and the National Chengchi University.
Go to Profile#9248
Julius S. Youngner
#129607
Overall Influence
#9249
Bernard. Verdcourt
#129611
Overall Influence
#9250
Ben A. C. Dijkmans
#129621
Overall Influence
