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,
#10801
Dr. David Puett
#143149
Overall Influence
#10802
Bradley E. Chipps
#143154
Overall Influence
#10803
Philip B. Clement
#143155
Overall Influence
#10804
Geoffrey D. Chisholm
#143159
Overall Influence
#10805
Daniel L. Kastner
#106797
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Daniel L. Kastner is an American physician and researcher specialising in the genetics of autoinflammatory disorders. He is scientific director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, where he is a National Institutes of Health Distinguished Investigator. He was awarded the 2021 Crafoord Prize for Polyarthritis for his pioneering work on autoinflammatory diseases.
Go to Profile#10806
Ronnie Tung‐ping Poon
#143169
Overall Influence
#10807
Simone Bignall
#88144
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Simone Bignall is an Australian philosopher. She is Senior Researcher in Jumbunna Indigenous Nations and Collaborative Futures Hub at the University of Technology Sydney. Bignall completed her doctoral degree in Philosophy at the University of Sydney in 2007, supervised by Professor Moira Gatens. In 2010 she received a postdoctoral award and subsequently was appointed a Faculty Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. She joined the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement at Flinders University of South Australia before taking up her current role at the University of T...
Go to Profile#10808
Eric George Tangalos
#143176
Overall Influence
#10809
Rollin K. Daniel
#143178
Overall Influence
#10810
Benjamin G. Covino
#143198
Overall Influence
#10811
Esteban Mezey
#143202
Overall Influence
#10812
C. C. Y. Chan
#143213
Overall Influence
#10813
Godfrey Kneller
1646 - 1723 (77 years)
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet was a German-British painter. The leading portraitist in England during the late Stuart and early Georgian eras, he served as court painter to successive English and British monarchs, including Charles II of England and George I of Great Britain. Kneller also painted scientists such as Isaac Newton, foreign monarchs such as Louis XIV of France and visitors to England such as Michael Shen Fu-Tsung. A pioneer of the kit-cat portrait, he was also commissioned by William III of England to paint eight "Hampton Court Beauties" to match a similar series of paintings ...
Go to Profile#10814
H. Jeremy C. Swan
#143266
Overall Influence
#10815
Clyde Hertzman
#143271
Overall Influence
#10816
James Q. Del Rosso
#143272
Overall Influence
#10817
Camillo Mac Bica
#52161
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Camillo Mac Bica is an American philosopher, poet, activist, and author. Biography Bica was born on January 7, 1947, in Brooklyn. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Long Island University in 1968 and a Master of Arts from New York University in 1986. He then attended the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he received a Master's of Philosophy in 1993 and a Ph.D in Philosophy in 1995.
Go to Profile#10818
Stephen Sternberg
#49017
Overall Influence
1920 - 2021 (101 years)
Stephen Stanley Sternberg was an American surgical pathologist, who worked at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for his entire career. He was well known because of his editorship of two widely used reference books in anatomical pathology . He was also the founding Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Surgical Pathology, a position he held for 24 years, and an expert in colorectal neoplasia.
Go to Profile#10819
John Michael Finnis
#143280
Overall Influence
#10820
Kenneth J. Fotherby
#143285
Overall Influence
#10821
Adam Burski
1560 - 1611 (51 years)
Adam Burski or Bursius was a Polish philosopher of the Renaissance period. History Burski was a leading Polish representative of Neostoicism. He wrote a Dialectica Ciceronis that boldly proclaimed Stoic sensualism and empiricism and—before Francis Bacon—urged the use of inductive method. He set himself the same goals as Lipsius, the restorer of Stoicism famous in the West. Lipsius himself valued highly the work of his Polish fellow-philosopher.
Go to Profile#10822
Simcha Yagel
#143289
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
#10823
Kenneth B. Schechtman
#143301
Overall Influence
#10824
Hazim J. Safi
#143313
Overall Influence
#10825
D. Bradford Sanders
#143315
Overall Influence
#10826
Joseph McElroy
#24656
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Joseph Prince McElroy is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He is noted for his long postmodern novels such as Women and Men. Personal background McElroy was born on August 21, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1947 and was given an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the school's Board of Governors. He graduated from Williams College in 1951. The following year, McElroy earned a master's degree from Columbia University. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952 to 1954, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D.
Go to Profile#10827
Andrea Bonomi
#117642
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Andrea Bonomi is an Italian philosopher and logician, who studied with Enzo Paci. After an initial interest in phenomenology , he decided to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to the study of analytic philosophy, particularly the philosophy of language.
Go to Profile#10828
Bernd Saletu
#143340
Overall Influence
#10829
Evan Flatow
#75968
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Evan Flatow is an American orthopaedic surgeon-scientist. As of 2023, he is President of Mount Sinai West , part of the Mount Sinai Health System. He published more than 400 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Flatow is indicated as principal or co-principal investigator for nine research grants and listed on six patents for influential shoulder implant systems.
Go to Profile#10830
Amy Allen
#128382
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Amy Allen is a liberal arts research professor of philosophy and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at The Pennsylvania State University, where she is also head of department. Previously, she was the Parents distinguished research professor in the humanities, and professor of philosophy and gender and women's studies, at Dartmouth College, and was chair of its department of philosophy from 2006 to 2012. Her research takes a critical approach to feminist approaches of power, and attempts to broaden traditional feminist understandings of power to apply to transnational issues.
Go to Profile#10831
Anushka Patel
#87941
Overall Influence
Anushka Patel is Chief Executive Officer at The George Institute for Global health, a Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, and Cardiologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Go to Profile#10832
Gary Cox
#132689
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Gary Cox is a British philosopher and biographer and the author of several books on Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism, general philosophy, ethics and philosophy of sport. A Philosophy graduate of the University of Southampton, UK, in 1988, he was awarded his PhD in 1996 from the University of Birmingham, UK, for his thesis on Jean-Paul Sartre's theory of consciousness, freedom and bad faith and is an honorary research fellow of that same university. His most notable works to date are The Sartre Dictionary , How to Be an Existentialist, or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses , T...
Go to Profile#10833
Jeffrey Long
#24700
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Jeffrey Long is an American author and researcher into the phenomenon of near-death experiences . A physician by training, Long practices radiation oncology at a hospital in Louisiana. Long is the author of Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences, which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list. In 1998, he founded the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, which is concerned with documenting and researching NDEs.
Go to Profile#10834
Janice Bishop
#59802
Overall Influence
Janice Bishop is a planetary scientist known for her research into the minerals found on Mars. Education and career In 1988, Bishop earned a B.S. in chemistry and an M.S. in Applied Earth Science from Stanford University. She earned her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1994 and then was a postdoctoral associate at the German Aerospace Center in Berlin until 1997. From 1997 to 1999 she was a fellow at the National Aeronautics Space Agency Ames Research Center before becoming a research scientist at the SETI Institute. Starting in 2015 she joined the Science Council at the SETI Institute and is a...
Go to Profile#10835
Amable Liñán
#47738
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Amable Liñán Martínez is a Spanish aeronautical engineer considered a world authority in the field of combustion. Biography He holds a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering from the Technical University of Madrid, advised by :es:Gregorio Millán Barbany and Degree of Aeronautical Engineer from the Caltech advised by Frank E. Marble.
Go to Profile#10836
Shigeaki Hinohara
#23279
Overall Influence
1911 - 2017 (106 years)
Shigeaki Hinohara was a Japanese physician. In 1941 he began his long working association with St. Luke's International Hospital in central Tokyo and worked as a medical doctor throughout the wartime firebombing of the city. From 1990 he served as the hospital's honorary director. He was also Sophia University's Grief Care Institute director emeritus. He was honorary chairman of the Foundation Sasakawa Memorial Health Cooperation. Hinohara is credited with establishing and popularizing Japan's practice of annual medical checkups.
Go to Profile#10837
Keith Deans Buchanan
#143400
Overall Influence
#10838
Asclepiades of Phlius
350 BC - 270 BC (80 years)
Asclepiades of Phlius was a Greek philosopher in the Eretrian school of philosophy. He was the friend of Menedemus of Eretria, and they both went to live in Megara and studied under Stilpo, before sailing to Elis to join Phaedo's school. His friendship with Menedemus was said to have been hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. As impoverished young men living in Athens, they were one day summoned before the Areopagus, to explain how they could spend all day with the philosophers if they had no visible means of support. They summoned a miller to the court to explain that the...
Go to Profile#10839
Greg Kot
#13359
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Greg Kot is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues. Kot co-hosts the radio program Sound Opinions, which introduces itself as "the world's only rock 'n' roll talk show", nationally syndicated through Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ.
Go to Profile#10840
Margaret Harding
#97423
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Margaret Harding is an Australian chemist and educator who is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor at The Australian National University . She is an expert in medicinal and biomolecular chemistry, with special research interests in the areas of antifreeze proteins and ligand-DNA interactions.
Go to Profile#10841
Ann Van Sevenant
#139523
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Ann Van Sevenant is a Belgian philosopher. Biography Van Sevenant was born in Torhout, Belgium. After her humanities, she studied Film and Photography at the Lucas School of Art in Brussels. Inspired by the teaching of Jan Wüst, she decided to study philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel , where she took the courses of Leopold Flam, Hubert Dethier and Annie Reniers.
Go to Profile#10842
Benjamin Movsas
#143452
Overall Influence
#10843
Ronald E. Laporte
#143454
Overall Influence
#10844
Count Gibson
#58375
Overall Influence
1921 - 2002 (81 years)
Count Dillon Gibson, Jr. was an American physician known for his advocacy in medical civil rights. As a young professor at the Medical College of Virginia, in 1955 he became the first person outside Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments to raise ethical objections to the study. He was on the medical auxiliary committee that supported voting rights workers during Freedom Summer and with one of his collaborators from that project, H. Jack Geiger, in 1965 Gibson cofounded the first community health center in the United States, beginning a network that grew to serve 28 million low-income patients, as of 2020.
Go to Profile#10845
Andrew E. Simor
#143464
Overall Influence
#10846
Kenneth Blackfan
1883 - 1941 (58 years)
Kenneth Blackfan was an American pediatrician. He took particular interest in nutrition and hematology. A childhood blood disorder, Diamond–Blackfan anemia, is partly named after him. Early in his career, Blackfan did work that identified the origin of cerebrospinal fluid.
Go to Profile#10847
Lemuel A. Iii Moyé
#143481
Overall Influence
#10848
Michael Anthony Hollingsworth
#143502
Overall Influence
#10849
Pierre P. Singer
#143518
Overall Influence
#10850
Philippe Autier
#143522
Overall Influence
