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,
#10351
Alexandra H. Filipovich
#139164
Overall Influence
#10352
Lalit Dandona
#139166
Overall Influence
#10353
David Borsook
#139167
Overall Influence
#10354
Fang-Fang Yin
#132140
Overall Influence
Fang-Fang Yin is a Chinese-born radiologist. Yin earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Zhejiang University in 1982. He subsequently moved to the United States, completing a Master of Science degree at Bowling Green State University in 1987, followed by a doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1992. Yin teaches at Duke University, where he is affiliated with the Duke Cancer Institute, and was appointed the Gustavo S. Montana Professor of Radiation Oncology in 2021.
Go to Profile#10355
John S. Macdonald
#139175
Overall Influence
#10356
Peter Wilhelmus De Leeuw
#139178
Overall Influence
#10357
Robert A. Wolff
#139180
Overall Influence
#10358
Theodore G. Karrison
#139194
Overall Influence
#10359
Henric Blomgren
#139210
Overall Influence
#10360
Satoshi Minoshima
#139214
Overall Influence
#10361
Choe Chiwon
857 - 901 (44 years)
Choe Chiwon was a Korean philosopher and poet of the late medieval Unified Silla period . He studied for many years in Tang China, passed the Tang imperial examination, and rose to the high office there before returning to Silla, where he made ultimately futile attempts to reform the governmental apparatus of a declining Silla state.
Go to Profile#10362
Peter Hackett
#62470
Overall Influence
Peter H. Hackett is an American mountaineer and medical doctor. He is the third person to have summited Mount Everest in a solo ascent, climbing from South Col to the top on October 24, 1981. He studies the effect of altitude on human physiology, and is the founder of a medical rescue camp on Everest and a rescue clinic and lab on Mount Denali, and the director of the Institute for Altitude Medicine in Colorado.
Go to Profile#10363
Gunnar Steineck
#139218
Overall Influence
#10364
Leontine T. Kelly
#32681
Overall Influence
1920 - 2012 (92 years)
Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church. She was the second woman elevated to the position of bishop within the United Methodist Church, and the first African American woman.
Go to Profile#10365
Gary Lilien
#60866
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gary L. Lilien is Distinguished Professor of Management Science at the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University and is also the co-founder and research director of Institute for the Study of Business Markets ISBM, the world's leading institution focusing on fostering research in B2B markets.
Go to Profile#10366
I. Herbert Scheinberg
#139243
Overall Influence
#10367
Judith Aberg
#45368
Overall Influence
Judith Aberg is an American physician who is the George Baehr Professor of Clinical Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. She was appointed Dean of System Operations for Clinical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research considered infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and COVID-19.
Go to Profile#10368
David Buller
#80825
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
David J. Buller is an American philosopher of science who is Distinguished Research Professor and Chair Emeritus of the Department of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University. He is known for his 2005 book Adapting Minds, in which he presents a detailed philosophical critique of evolutionary psychology.
Go to Profile#10369
Juana Inés de la Cruz
1651 - 1695 (44 years)
Juana de Asuaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz , was a colonial Mexican writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, as well as a Hieronymite nun, nicknamed "The Tenth Muse" and "The Phoenix of America" by her contemporary critics. As a Spanish-criolla from the New Spain, she was among the main American-born contributors to the Spanish Golden Age, alongside Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and Garcilaso de la Vega "el Inca", and presently considered one of the most important female authors in Spanish language and Mexico's literary history.
Go to Profile#10370
Luigi Gregori
1819 - 1896 (77 years)
Luigi Gregori was an Italian artist who worked at the Vatican and served as artist in residence and professor at the University of Notre Dame. Biography He was born in Bologna, Italy, in 1819, where at the age of fourteen he became apprentice of the Bolognese artist Giovanni Battista Frulli. There, he studied art of the antiquity as well as local artists, including the Carracci and Guido Reni. Frulli died in 1837, and Gregori then worked for Prince Pignatelli of Monteleone, and he traveled throughout Italy, including studying in Milan and Naples. In 1840, he moved to Rome and enrolled at the Accademia di San Luca and studied under Tommaso Minardi.
Go to Profile#10371
Robert Zimmer
#95639
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert Zimmer is a German philosopher and essayist who writes biographies and popular introductions to philosophy and to the history of philosophy. Life and career Robert Zimmer was born in Trier, West Germany on 25 October 1953. He was educated at the German universities of Saarbrücken and Düsseldorf and wrote his doctoral dissertation on Edmund Burke. From 1986 - 2013 he lived as a freelance writer and publicist in Berlin. In 2013 he moved to Stuttgart. His most popular book so far has been “Das Philosophenportal”, a collection of 16 essays on 16 different classical works of philosophy, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages .
Go to Profile#10372
Michael Foster
1903 - 1959 (56 years)
Michael Beresford Foster was a tutor in philosophy of Oxford University's Christ Church. For a period up until his death he was the chairman of the British Student Christian Movement. He was one of A. J. Ayer's tutors at Oxford, but their relationship is remembered more as a source of strained feelings than of scholarly fellowship. His disparate works on political science and various doctrines of Christianity have influenced philosophers such as George Grant, who had, when writing his doctoral thesis, in fact visited with Foster in England.
Go to Profile#10373
Eugene P. Frenkel
#139288
Overall Influence
#10374
Kenneth Dawson Bagshawe
#139289
Overall Influence
#10375
Ramesh Chandra Tripathi
#139295
Overall Influence
#10376
L. Ch.m. Klenerman
#139327
Overall Influence
#10377
Johanna Charlotte Unzer
1725 - 1782 (57 years)
Johanna Charlotte Unzer , was a German writer and philosopher, famed for her progressive views on women's education. She was awarded the imperial Dichterkrone in 1753. She is known for her anacreontic poetry.
Go to Profile#10378
Robert Y. Moore
#139338
Overall Influence
#10379
Thomas M. Jr. File
#139339
Overall Influence
#10380
Douglas A. Canning
#139346
Overall Influence
#10381
William Egginton
#101851
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
William Egginton is a literary critic and philosopher. He has written extensively on a broad range of subjects, including theatricality, fictionality, literary criticism, psychoanalysis and ethics, religious moderation, and theories of mediation.
Go to Profile#10382
Kim Sawchuk
#31456
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Kim Sawchuk is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies, Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies, and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at Concordia University in Montreal Canada. A feminist media studies scholar, Sawchuk's research spans the fields of art, gender, and culture, examining the intersection of technology into peoples lives and how that changes as one ages.
Go to Profile#10383
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
#27020
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He conducts research into the network economy. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the co-author of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think and author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age , which won the 2010 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book and the 2010 Don K. Price Award for Best Book in Science and Technology Politics, and has written over a hundred articles and book chapters.
Go to Profile#10384
Klaus-dieter Prof. Dr. Weltmann
#139387
Overall Influence
#10385
Motsamai Molefe
#136256
Overall Influence
Motsamai Molefe is a South African philosopher, one of the thinkers to have popularised African philosophy, and specifically Applied Ethics in context of Ubuntu philosophy. Molefe is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare in Alice, Eastern Cape.
Go to Profile#10386
José Manuel Gallegos Rocafull
1895 - 1963 (68 years)
José Manuel Gallegos Rocafull was a Spanish priest, canon of the Cathedral of Cordoba, theologian and philosopher. Gallegos studied at the General and Technical Institute of Seville and later at the Theological Seminary. Upon completion of basic academic training, he matriculated to the Seminary of Madrid to continue his religious training, attending the Pontifical University of Toledo where he graduated in theology in 1920. He later earned his doctorate in the Pontificia Universidad de Sevilla.
Go to Profile#10387
Richard J. Rodeheffer
#139407
Overall Influence
#10388
John L. Ziegler
#10389
Katharine Ellis
#27671
Overall Influence
Katharine Ellis, is a British musicologist and academic, specialising in music history. Since 2017, she has been the 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge. She previously taught at the Open University, at Royal Holloway, University of London and at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, before serving as Stanley Hugh Badock Professor of Music at the University of Bristol .
Go to Profile#10390
Frederik van Leenhof
1647 - 1715 (68 years)
Frederik van Leenhof was a Dutch pastor and philosopher active in Zwolle, who caused an international controversy because of his Spinozist work Heaven on Earth . This controversy is extensively discussed in Jonathan Israel's 2001 book Radical Enlightenment.
Go to Profile#10391
Sten G. Eriksson
#139455
Overall Influence
#10392
William Paul Glezen
#139458
Overall Influence
#10393
Aad J. Van Der Lugt
#139467
Overall Influence
#10394
Anthony Laurence Zietman
#139470
Overall Influence
#10395
S. L. Bhyrappa
#73402
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa is an Indian novelist, philosopher and screenwriter who writes in Kannada. His work is popular in the state of Karnataka and he is widely regarded as one of modern India's popular novelists. His novels are unique in terms of theme, structure, and characterization. He has been among the top-selling authors in the Kannada language and his books have been translated into Hindi and Marathi which have also been sellers.
Go to Profile#10396
Michael A. Apicella
#139472
Overall Influence
#10397
Anne Tybjærg‐hansen
#139474
Overall Influence
#10398
Maximilian Diehn
#139475
Overall Influence
#10399
William H. Gaasch
#139477
Overall Influence
#10400
Bernard Klein
#139491
Overall Influence
