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,
#12751
Flavio Coceani
#160333
Overall Influence
#12752
Lewis S. Nelson
#160341
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#12753
Nortin M. Hadler
#160383
Overall Influence
#12754
Wolfgang H. Jost
#160386
Overall Influence
#12755
Mariusz Papp
#160390
Overall Influence
#12756
Roberto De Franchis
#160429
Overall Influence
#12757
Owen M. Wolkowitz
#160435
Overall Influence
#12758
Dennis E. Hruby
#160436
Overall Influence
#12759
Vered Stearns
#160441
Overall Influence
#12760
Allen R. Wyler
#160446
Overall Influence
#12761
Antonio Comellas y Cluet
1832 - 1884 (52 years)
Antonio Comellas y Cluet was a philosopher. Comellas studied philosophy and theology in Vic, and entered the diocesan seminary in Solsona, Lleida. After his ordination he continued to teach Latin at Solsona until 1862, when he was appointed professor of theology. During his stay there he published two pamphlets. The first was a discourse, delivered at the opening of the scholastic term, 1866–67, in which he tried to explain in a new manner the procession of the Holy Trinity, and the second a translation, accompanied by prologue and notes, of a work by Reginald Baumstark, Pensamientos de un p...
Go to Profile#12762
John William Ballantyne
1861 - 1923 (62 years)
John William Ballantyne FRSE FRCPE was a Scottish physician and obstetrician. In his teaching of female doctors he was a pioneer in the advancement of female professional training in the field of medicine. He made major advances in the field of midwifery in the late 19th and early 20th century, with influences still felt today. He founded the science of antenatal pathology.
Go to Profile#12763
J. Peter Burkholder
#55506
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
J. Peter Burkholder is an American musicologist and author. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He has written numerous monographs, essays, and journal articles on twentieth-century music, Charles Ives, musical borrowing, American music, musical meaning, analysis, and music history pedagogy. He is the principal author of A History of Western Music, 10th Edition, published by W. W. Norton & Company.
Go to Profile#12764
Randall J. Olson
#160483
Overall Influence
#12765
Vanessa Lemm
#133557
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Vanessa Lemm was previously vice-president and Executive Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University. She is Chief Editor of the journal, Nietzsche Studien and published on the topics of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. She was the Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University .
Go to Profile#12766
Dimitrios T.h. Kremastinos
#160514
Overall Influence
#12767
James Tissot
1836 - 1902 (66 years)
Jacques Joseph Tissot , better known as James Tissot , was a French painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. He was born to a drapery merchant and a milliner and decided to pursue a career in art at a young age, coming to incorporate elements of realism, early Impressionism, and academic art into his work. He is best known for a variety of genre paintings of contemporary European high society produced during the peak of his career, which focused on the people and women's fashion of the Belle Époque and Victorian England, but he would also explore many medieval, biblical, and Japoniste subjects throughout his life.
Go to Profile#12768
Ichthyas
Ichthyas , the son of Metallus, was a Greek philosopher and a disciple and successor of Euclid of Megara in the Megarian school. He was a colleague of Thrasymachus of Corinth in the school. Ichthyas is described as a man of great eminence, and Diogenes of Sinope is said to have addressed a dialogue to him.
Go to Profile#12769
Elana Goldberg Shohamy
#160548
Overall Influence
#12770
Axel Steiger
#160567
Overall Influence
#12771
Alain Borgeat
#160584
Overall Influence
#12772
Catharina Svanborg
#160589
Overall Influence
#12773
Robert A. Zittoun
#160594
Overall Influence
#12774
Kenneth Frank Binmoeller
#160608
Overall Influence
#12775
Philippe M. Morel
#160609
Overall Influence
#12776
Catherine McDermott
#38558
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Catherine McDermott is a Professor of Design at Kingston University in London, England. In 2001, McDermott set up a masters programme titled "Curating Contemporary Design" with Paul Thompson, then director of the Design Museum in London and now director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York. Much of McDermott's personal research has focused on curating British design identity. She is the author of books and articles on design history.
Go to Profile#12777
Sergei Tolstoy
1863 - 1947 (84 years)
Count Sergei Lvovich Tolstoy was a composer and ethnomusicologist who was among the first Europeans to make an in-depth study of the music of India. He was also an associate of the Sufi mystic, Inayat Khan, and participated in helping the Doukhobors move to Canada.
Go to Profile#12778
David J. A. Goldsmith
#160636
Overall Influence
#12779
Donald J. Massaro
#160659
Overall Influence
#12780
Bernd Brinkmann
#18714
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Bernd Brinkmann is a German forensic pathologist. Biography Bernd Brinkmann was the director of the Institute of Legal Medicine of the University of Münster in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany from 1981 until 2007. From 1990 until 2009 he served as the Coordinating Editor of the International Journal of Legal Medicine.
Go to Profile#12781
Syed Zulfiqar Ali
#160675
Overall Influence
#12782
Richard Joel Friedman
#160687
Overall Influence
#12783
Richard Ian Ogilvie
#160693
Overall Influence
#12784
Richard J. Mcmanus
#160699
Overall Influence
#12785
Karin Scharffetter‐kochanek
#160701
Overall Influence
#12786
Bruce Beresford
#34033
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director and screenwriter. He has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. Beresford's films include Breaker Morant , Tender Mercies , Crimes of the Heart and Driving Miss Daisy , which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Go to Profile#12787
Carlo Gambacorti-Passerini
#72715
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Carlo Gambacorti-Passerini is an Italian oncologist and hematologist known for his contributions to cancer research. He is Professor of Internal Medicine and Hematology at the University of Milan Bicocca in Italy and Director of the Hematology Department at S. Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Italy. He was Senior Investigator and Head of the Oncogenic Fusion Proteins Unit at the National Cancer Institute, Milan Italy from 1990 to 2003, and Professor of Oncology and Hematology at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from 2004 to 2007.
Go to Profile#12788
Dean J. Tuma
#160708
Overall Influence
#12789
Manfred Clynes
#69392
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Manfred Edward Clynes was an Austrian-born scientist, inventor, and musician. He is best known for his innovations and discoveries in the interpretation of music, and for his contributions to the study of biological systems and neurophysiology.
Go to Profile#12790
Elizabeth A. Musgrove
#160735
Overall Influence
#12791
Yuichi Kumahara
#160771
Overall Influence
#12792
Thomas Wichmann
#160776
Overall Influence
#12793
Harriet Mayanja-Kizza
#53477
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Harriet Mayanja-Kizza, MBChB, MMed, MSc, FACP, is a Ugandan physician, researcher, and academic administrator. She is the former Dean of Makerere University School of Medicine, the oldest medical school in East Africa, established in 1924.
Go to Profile#12794
Dr. Donald S. Gann
#160790
Overall Influence
#12795
Liam Donaldson
#6714
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Sir Liam Joseph Donaldson is a British doctor. He was formerly the Chief Medical Officer for England, being the 15th occupant of the post since it was established in 1855. As such, he was principal advisor to the United Kingdom Government on health matters and one of the most senior officials in the National Health Service .
Go to Profile#12796
Waleed Aly
#69213
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Waleed Aly is an Australian television presenter, journalist, academic, and lawyer. Aly is a lecturer in politics at Monash University working in their Global Terrorism Research Centre, and a co-host of Network Ten's news and current affairs television program The Project. He also writes for Fairfax Media, co-hosts The Minefield, an ABC RN program about ethical dilemmas of modern life, and is lead guitarist in rock band Robot Child.
Go to Profile#12797
Lucia Altucci
#160812
Overall Influence
#12798
Ezra Heymann
#76375
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Ezra Heymann was a philosopher and university professor. Career Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a German family of Jewish descent, during the 1940s his family avoided deportation to Transnistria while living in Czernowitz during his youth thanks to the protection of Traian Popovici. In 1946 Heymann began studies in Philosophy and Literature at the University of Bucharest, then to the University of Vienna and in 1947 to the University of Heidelberg where he completed his doctoral degree under Hans-Georg Gadamer. In 1953 he emigrated to Uruguay teaching at the "Instituto de Profesores Artigas" and at the University of the Republic until Juan María Bordaberry came into power.
Go to Profile#12799
Keith O'Nions
#17091
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sir Robert Keith O'Nions FRS HonFREng , is a British scientist and ex-President & Rector of Imperial College London. He is the former Director General of the Research Councils UK as well as Professor of the Physics and Chemistry of Minerals and Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford.
Go to Profile#12800
David W. Eisele
#160816
Overall Influence
