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,
#11401
Pedro L. Alonso
#69280
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Pedro L. Alonso , is a physician, epidemiologist, and researcher in diseases that affect vulnerable populations. Based on a multidisciplinary approach, his work focuses mainly on malaria, although he has also studied other infectious diseases. He served as the Director of the Global Malaria Programme at the World Health Organization between 2014 and 2022, and is currently Professor of Global Health at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science-Hospital Clinic, at the University of Barcelona.
Go to Profile#11402
Crickette Sanz
#58697
Overall Influence
Crickette Marie Sanz is a professor, naturalist, explorer, and field biologist notable for her work on primates and great apes in the Republic of the Congo. Background and career Sanz received her BS and MS in experimental psychology from Central Washington University, followed by her PhD in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, where she is currently a professor of biological anthropology.
Go to Profile#11403
Clark H. Millikan
#11404
Martin Buchheit
#148426
Overall Influence
#11405
Sehadete Mekuli
#29540
Overall Influence
1928 - 2013 (85 years)
Sehadete Mekuli , also spelled Sadete Mekuli, was a Yugoslavian-born Albanian gynecologist, professor, and public figure. She became known for tending to the injured students of the 1981 protests in Kosovo, when Albanians demanded more autonomy within the Yugoslav federation. As a result of her actions, she was denied a full professorship at the University of Pristina School of Medicine and was forced into early retirement in 1988. She is the inspiration for the character of Teuta Shkreli in Ismail Kadare's 1985 novel The Wedding Procession Turned to Ice .
Go to Profile#11406
Monique Deveaux
#101808
Overall Influence
Monique Deveaux is a Canadian philosopher. She is a Full Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global Social Change at the University of Guelph. She is known for her research on poverty, cultural pluralism and global justice.
Go to Profile#11407
Matthew J. Mcgirt
#148436
Overall Influence
#11408
Richard E. Kuntz
#148443
Overall Influence
#11409
Regis J. O'keefe†
#148448
Overall Influence
#11410
Adam Wanner
#148449
Overall Influence
#11411
Michael S. Torbenson
#148490
Overall Influence
#11412
Roberto De Franchis
#148494
Overall Influence
#11413
Felicity J.m. Reynolds
#148496
Overall Influence
#11414
Abraham T. K. Cockett
#148500
Overall Influence
#11415
Klaus Klaushofer
#148502
Overall Influence
#11416
John F. Forbes
#148507
Overall Influence
#11417
Michael Thomas Clandinin
#148528
Overall Influence
#11418
Hans Memling
1435 - 1494 (59 years)
Hans Memling was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. Born in the Middle Rhine region, he probably spent his childhood in Mainz. During his apprenticeship as a painter he moved to the Netherlands and spent time in the Brussels workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. In 1465 he was made a citizen of Bruges, where he became one of the leading artists and the master of a large workshop. A tax document from 1480 lists him among the wealthiest citizens. Memling's religious works often incorporated donor portraits of the clergymen, aristocrats, and burgherss who were his patrons.
Go to Profile#11419
Kazuo Sugamura
#148535
Overall Influence
#11420
David F. Swenson
1876 - 1940 (64 years)
David Ferdinand Swenson was an authority on the life and writings of the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Work Swenson is best known as the first of the translators of the works of Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard into the English Language. He was born in Kristinehamn, Sweden and moved to Minnesota with his parents in 1882, when he was 6 years old. He was educated in the public schools of Minneapolis and in 1894 entered the University of Minnesota. Upon graduation he was offered a position as assistant professor in the department of philosophy at that same university. By 1917 Swenson had...
Go to Profile#11421
Neville R. Rowell
#148568
Overall Influence
#11422
Fattaneh A. Tavassoli
#148578
Overall Influence
#11423
Claudia Haferlach
#148582
Overall Influence
#11424
Ernst Josef Rummeny
#148591
Overall Influence
#11425
Paul Vincent Holland
#148599
Overall Influence
#11426
Carl V. Leier
#148608
Overall Influence
#11427
John Leckie
#26386
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John William Leckie is an English record producer and recording engineer. His production credits include Magazine's Real Life ; XTC's White Music ; Dukes of Stratosphear's 25 O'Clock and The Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace ; the Stone Roses' The Stone Roses ; the Verve's A Storm in Heaven ; Radiohead's The Bends ; Cast's All Change ; Muse's Origin of Symmetry ; and the Levellers' We the Collective .
Go to Profile#11428
Héctor-neri Castañeda
#148616
Overall Influence
#11429
August Friedrich Müller
1684 - 1761 (77 years)
August Friedrich Müller was a German legal scholar and logician. August Friedrich was born in Penig, the son of Johann Adam Müller and his wife Johanne Susanne, daughter of a pharmacist in Rochlitz, Johann Fromhold. Prefigured by his father, he attended school in 1697 and studied at the University of Leipzig from 1703. Here he completed a degree in early philosophical sciences; Andreas Rüdiger was his most important teacher. On the side he studied law under Gottlieb Gerhard Titius .
Go to Profile#11430
Scott Dulchavsky
#59262
Overall Influence
Scott Dulchavsky is the Roy D. McClure Chairman of Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief at the Henry Ford Hospital and Professor of Surgery, Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#11431
Per-olof J. Hasselgren
#11432
Edmond A. Murphy
#148629
Overall Influence
#11433
Scott Rivkees
#72455
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Scott Andrew Rivkees is an American physician-scientist and pediatric endocrinologist, who served as State Surgeon General and Secretary of Health of Florida from June 2019 to September 2021. The majority of Rivkees' tenure coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to Profile#11434
Jan Henriksson
#148646
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#11435
Xu Ai
1487 - 1517 (30 years)
Xu Ai was an important Chinese philosopher during the mid-late Ming Dynasty. He was also a magistrate and writer. Biography Xu was born in Maoyan , Yuyao, Shaoxing Fu , Zhejiang Province in 1487. His courtesy name was Yueren , and artist's pseudonym was Hengshan .
Go to Profile#11436
Kathleen Martin Ginis
#141989
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Kathleen Anne Martin Ginis is a Canadian exercise behavioural scientist. She is a Full professor in the Department of Medicine and in the School of Health and Exercise Sciences at the University of British Columbia. She also holds the Reichwald Family UBC Southern Medical Program Chair in Preventive Medicine.
Go to Profile#11437
Ross E. Rocklin
#148653
Overall Influence
#11438
David H. Ilson
#148673
Overall Influence
#11439
Alain Golay
#148676
Overall Influence
#11440
Søren Erik Pedersen
#148678
Overall Influence
#11441
Jeffrey S. Crawford
#148680
Overall Influence
#11442
Yves Fradet
#148683
Overall Influence
#11443
G. A. den Hartogh
#108170
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Govert A. den Hartogh is a Dutch moral, legal and political philosopher. He studied theology in Kampen and philosophy in Leiden and Oxford. He received his PhD in philosophy in 1985 from the University of Amsterdam . From 1974 on he worked at the University of Amsterdam as assistant and associate professor of ethics and jurisprudence in the Philosophy Department and the Faculty of Law, as an extra-ordinary professor of medical ethics in the Faculty of Medicine, and as a full professor of ethics and its history in the Philosophy Department. In 1992 he took the initiative of founding the Nether...
Go to Profile#11444
Albert F. Lobuglio
#148689
Overall Influence
#11445
Peg O'Connor
#120098
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Peg O'Connor, is a Professor of Philosophy and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies as well as Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Gustavus Adolphus College. Her present research interests include two separate but intersecting strains: Wittgenstein's approach to ethics, and the philosophy of addiction. She also contributes to public discourse about her areas of interest through contributing to popular media, especially around philosophical issues surrounding addiction, and has actively spoken out about issues of gender equity facing the field of philosophy.
Go to Profile#11446
George A. Steiner
#148700
Overall Influence
#11447
Martin A. Hainz
#72056
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Martin Andreas Hainz is an Austrian philologist, theorist and philosopher. He has taught at several universities in Europe and the United States, among them the universities of Vienna, Timișoara and Iaşi. He is a member of the Northeastern Language Association . His main interests are contemporary Austrian philosophy and literature.
Go to Profile#11448
Dan Buskila
#148715
Overall Influence
#11449
Ron Theodoor Van Domburg
#148735
Overall Influence
#11450
Kyogo Itoh
#148738
Overall Influence
