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,
#13501
David G. Simons
#167039
Overall Influence
#13502
Vito Brusasco
#167058
Overall Influence
#13503
Howard L. Levine
#167062
Overall Influence
#13504
Tefko Saračević
#167064
Overall Influence
#13505
Jan Deutsch
#41821
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Jan Ginter Deutsch was a Polish-born American philosopher and legal scholar best known for his work on the philosophy of corporate law, jurisprudence, and the cultural underpinnings of capitalist democracy. Deutsch's most recent book, Power and Precedent , is a summation of his work on United States jurisprudence over the past few decades.
Go to Profile#13506
Rosemary D. Higgins
#167080
Overall Influence
#13507
Bernard Isaacs
#167089
Overall Influence
#13508
Nabil el-khoury
#103437
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Nabil Melhem el-Khoury is a Lebanese philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the Lebanese University in Beirut. His research focuses on Enlightenment philosophy, the Christian Orient, and the Christian-Islamic Dialogue.
Go to Profile#13509
Antonius J. M. De Craen
#167109
Overall Influence
#13510
Werner Falk
#167123
Overall Influence
#13511
Eric Arthur D'asaro
#167150
Overall Influence
#13512
Lauren B. Gerson
#167152
Overall Influence
#13513
Katy Börner
#67597
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Katy Börner is an engineer, scholar, author, educator, and speaker specializing in data analysis and visualization, particularly in the areas of science and technology studies and biomedical applications. Based out of Indiana University, Bloomington, Börner is the Victor Yngve Distinguished Professor of Engineering & Information Science in the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering and the Department of Information and Library Science at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering and a member of the Core Cognitive Science Faculty. Since 2012, she has also held the pos...
Go to Profile#13514
William J. Aronson
#167180
Overall Influence
#13515
Christina M. Surawicz
#167193
Overall Influence
#13516
Kenryo Kanamatsu
1915 - 1986 (71 years)
Kenryō Kanamatsu was a translator, author, and lifelong devotee of Jōdo Shinshū, sometimes called "Shin Buddhism". His seminal work, Naturalness, , was an introduction of Jōdo Shinshū to the Western world.
Go to Profile#13517
Anđelko Habazin
1924 - 1978 (54 years)
Anđelko Habazin was a Croatian philosopher. Anđelko Habazin was born in Zagreb , where he graduated from the university with a degree in philosophy in 1954. He received his doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Sarajevo in 1962. He worked as a professor at the University of Banja Luka , and then at the University of Zadar from 1974 until 1978. He died in Zadar, aged 54.
Go to Profile#13518
Yves Lacasse
#167205
Overall Influence
#13519
Michael G. Jr. Hanna
#167208
Overall Influence
#13520
Quique Bassat
#167210
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#13521
Robert Stuart Holzman
#167211
Overall Influence
#13522
Philip D. Henry
#167216
Overall Influence
#13523
Scott J. Mubarak
#167221
Overall Influence
#13524
Robert. S. Baltimore
#167236
Overall Influence
#13525
Eva Hellström‐lindberg
#167238
Overall Influence
#13526
Hans Th. M. Folgering
#167247
Overall Influence
#13527
Stanisław Bohusz-Siestrzeńcewicz
1869 - 1927 (58 years)
Stanisław Bohusz-Siestrzeńcewicz was a Polish-Lithuanian painter and illustrator. Biography He was born to a noble family. In 1888, he began his artistic studies at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg under Bogdan Willewalde. This was followed by enrollment at the Académie Julian in Paris. Later, he took private lessons from Józef Brandt at his studio in Munich and married his daughter Krystyną. They were divorced in 1905.
Go to Profile#13528
Allan Victor Hoffbrand
#103358
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Allan Victor Hoffbrand is Emeritus Professor of Haematology at University College, London. He is distinguished for his research and as an author of internationally read textbooks of haematology. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1935. After education at Bradford Grammar School, he gained an Open Scholarship in 1953 to The Queen's College, Oxford. He gained a BA degree in Physiology and began clinical studies at The London Hospital in 1957 and qualified in medicine at University of Oxford, BM BCH in 1959.
Go to Profile#13529
Elbert S. Huang
#167275
Overall Influence
#13530
Elisabeth Samsonov
#110338
Overall Influence
Elisabeth von Samsonow is an Austrian artist and philosopher. She is the Professor for Philosophical and Historical Anthropology at the Kunst an der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna. She is also a member of GEDOK Munich.
Go to Profile#13531
Chelsea S. Kidwell
#167283
Overall Influence
#13532
David Bloor
#167284
Overall Influence
#13533
Khalid F. Tabbara
#167293
Overall Influence
#13534
Pieter Boddaert
1730 - 1795 (65 years)
Pieter Boddaert was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name . The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the University of Utrecht in 1764.
Go to Profile#13535
Sabeeha Merchant
#63054
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Sabeeha Sabanali Merchant is a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the photosynthetic metabolism and metalloenzymes In 2010 Merchant led the team that sequenced the Chlamydomonas genome. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.
Go to Profile#13536
Geert Kazemier
#167306
Overall Influence
#13537
David Kirsch
#75825
Overall Influence
David Guy Kirsch is an American oncologist currently the Barbara Levine University Professor at Duke University and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Education He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2000.
Go to Profile#13538
Eira R. A. Viikari-juntura
#167321
Overall Influence
#13539
Michael J. Zinner
#13540
Frans H. Van Eemeren
#13541
George Bartzokis
#167352
Overall Influence
#13542
Hiroshi Ashihara
#167357
Overall Influence
#13543
Lennart Nilsson
#167358
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#13544
Masaomi Tomonaga
#167359
Overall Influence
#13545
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner , a Liverpool physician, is considered to be the author or co-author of the 1782 pamphlet, Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, the first published work of avowed atheism in Britain. Turner was also a pioneer in the use of ether for medical purposes, and wrote a pamphlet on the subject. In a footnote, Turner was the man who introduced Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Bentley in Liverpool, a friendship which led to the formation of the company that produced the famous pottery.
Go to Profile#13546
Solomon Posen
#167366
Overall Influence
#13547
Paul J. Elson
#167371
Overall Influence
#13548
Richard Page
#122823
Overall Influence
Richard L. Page is Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and holds the George R. and Elaine Love Professor endowed Chair. Education Page received his bachelor's and medical degrees from Duke University and the Duke University School of Medicine, followed by residency and specialty training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He then completed a fellowship at Duke and joined the Duke faculty.
Go to Profile#13549
George Forell
#81696
Overall Influence
1919 - 2011 (92 years)
George Wolfgang Forell was the Carver Distinguished Chair of Religion in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa. He was a scholar, author, lecturer, and guest professor in the field of Christian ethics.
Go to Profile#13550
Lars Frodesen
1889 - 1921 (32 years)
Lars Frodesen was a Danish writer and philosopher from Sønderborg, in Syddanmark. Having been heavily inspired by Blaise Pascal he mainly wrote pessimistic novels, and published essays on modern philosophy and philosophical anthropology. Frodesen's most important work Om planter og gartnere is an exploration of relations between pedagogy, literature, art, and nature. The goal of forming a human being in the process of upbringing is, he claims, creating a person, who thanks to her openness to experiences, is ready to live a life which has a structure mimicking that of the work of literature. S...
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