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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.

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#1451

Fritz Mauthner

1849 - 1923 (74 years)

Fritz Mauthner was an Austrian philosopher and author of novels, satires, reviews and journalistic works. He was an exponent of philosophical scepticism derived from a critique of human knowledge and of philosophy of language.

#1452

Cebes

500 BC - 400 BC (100 years)

Cebes of Thebes was an Ancient Greek philosopher from Thebes remembered as a disciple of Socrates. One work, known as the Pinax or Tabula, attributed to Cebes still survives, but it is believed to be a composition by a pseudonymous author of the 1st or 2nd century CE.

#1453

Archelaus

500 BC - Present (2524 years)

Archelaus was an Ancient Greek philosopher, a pupil of Anaxagoras, and may have been a teacher of Socrates. He asserted that the principle of motion was the separation of hot from cold, from which he endeavoured to explain the formation of the Earth and the creation of animals and humans.

#1454

Christian Hermann Weisse

1801 - 1866 (65 years)

Christian Hermann Weisse was a German Protestant religious philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig. He was the son of theologian . Biography Weisse was born in Leipzig, and studied at the university there, at first adhering to the Hegelian school of philosophy. In the course of time, his ideas changed, and became close to those of Schelling in his later years. He developed a new speculative theism, and became an opponent of Hegel's idealism. In his addresses on the future of the Protestant Church , he finds the essence of Christianity in Jesus' conceptions of the heavenly Father, the Son of Man and the kingdom of Heaven.

#1455

John Warwick Montgomery

#2869

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

John Warwick Montgomery is a lawyer, professor, Lutheran theologian, and author living in France. He was born in Warsaw, New York, United States. Montgomery maintains multiple citizenship in the United States, United Kingdom and France. From 2014 to 2017, he was Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University, Wisconsin. He is currently Professor-At-Large, 1517: The Legacy Project. He is named Avocat honoraire, Barreau de Paris , after 20 years in French legal practise. He continues to work as a barrister specializing in religious freedom cases in international Human Ri...

#1456

Paramartha

499 - 569 (70 years)

Paramārtha was an Indian monk from Ujjain, who is best known for his prolific Chinese translations of Buddhist texts during the Six Dynasties era. He is known as one of the four great translators in Chinese Buddhist history . He is also known for the various oral commentaries he gave on his translations which were written down by his disciples . Some of Paramārtha's influential translations include Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa, Asaṅga’s Mahāyānasaṃgraha, and Dignāga's Ālambanaparīkṣā & Hastavālaprakaraṇa.

#1457

Tim Crane

#9304

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Timothy Martin Crane is a British philosopher specialising in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, philosophy of psychology and metaphysics. His contributions to philosophy include a defence of a non-physicalist account of the mind; a defence of intentionalism about consciousness; a defence of the thesis that perceptual experience has non-conceptual content; a psychologistic approach to the objects of thought; and a defence of the thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental. He is currently the Head of Department and Professor of Philosophy at Central European University...

#1458

Wonhyo

617 - 686 (69 years)

Wŏnhyo was one of the most important philosophers and commentators in East Asian Buddhism and the most prolific scholar in Korean Buddhism. As one of the most eminent scholar-monks in East Asian history, his extensive literary output runs to over 80 works in 240 fascicles. His most influential commentaries are those on buddha-nature texts like the *Vajrasamādhisūtra, the Awakening of Faith, and the Mahāparinivāṇasūtra. These works became classics widely respected throughout Korea, China and Japan.

#1459

Andrei Pleșu

#6793

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Andrei Gabriel Pleșu is a Romanian philosopher, essayist, journalist, literary and art critic. He has been intermittently involved in politics, having been appointed Minister of Culture , Minister of Foreign Affairs and presidential counsellor for external affairs .

#1460

Arnold Gehlen

1904 - 1976 (72 years)

Arnold Gehlen was an influential conservative German philosopher, sociologist, and anthropologist. Biography Gehlen's major influences while studying philosophy were Hans Driesch, Nicolai Hartmann and especially Max Scheler. Furthermore, he was heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and US-American pragmatism: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and especially George Herbert Mead.

#1461

Eli Siegel

1902 - 1978 (76 years)

Eli Siegel was a poet, critic, and educator. He founded Aesthetic Realism, a philosophical movement based in New York City. An idea central to Aesthetic Realism—that every person, place or thing in reality has something in common with all other things—was expressed in the title poem of his first volume, Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems. His second volume was Hail, American Development.

#1462

Thomas Browne

1605 - 1682 (77 years)

Sir Thomas Browne was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the scientific revolution of Baconian enquiry and are permeated by references to Classical and Biblical sources as well as the idiosyncrasies of his own personality. Although often described as suffused with melancholia, Browne's writings are also characterised by wit and subtle humour, while his literary style is varied, according to genre,...

#1463

Báb

1819 - 1850 (31 years)

The Báb was the founder of Bábism, and one of the central figures of the Baháʼí Faith. He was a merchant from Shiraz in Qajar Iran who, in 1844 at the age of 25, claimed to be a messenger of God. He was acclaimed by his followers as the Báb , a reference to the deputy of the Hidden Imam, while instigating a millenarian movement — which proposed the abrogation of Islamic laws and traditions — and the establishment of a new religion. Though he was popular among the lower classes, he faced opposition from the orthodox clergy and government, which eventually executed him and thousands of his foll...

#1464

Hans Cornelius

1863 - 1947 (84 years)

Johannes Wilhelm Cornelius was a German neo-Kantian philosopher and psychologist. Biography Born in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria on 27 September 1863. He originally studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, graduating with a Ph.D. in 1886, before turning to philosophy. In 1894, he habilitated in philosophy and subsequently held a post in philosophy at the University of Munich . In 1910, Cornelius moved as a full professor to the Akademie für Sozialwissenschaften, which four years later would become a department of the newly founded University of Frankfurt. Among his students in Frankfurt wer...

#1465

William A. Dembski

William A. Dembski

#2774

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Trained as a mathematician, philosopher, and theologian, William Albert “Bill” Dembski is a writer, editor, and researcher whose books and articles range over mathematics, engineering, philosophy, theology, and education. A past philosophy professor, he retired from teaching in 2013. A prominent proponent of intelligent design (ID), specifically for developing rigorous methods of design detection, he was a senior fellow of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture until 2016 and is currently a member of Discovery’s Institute’s governing board. He has secured the rights from Cambridg...

#1466

Evan Thompson

#3288

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Evan Thompson is a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He writes about cognitive science, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

#1467

H. Richard Niebuhr

1894 - 1962 (68 years)

Helmut Richard Niebuhr is considered one of the most important Christian theological ethicists in 20th-century America, best known for his 1951 book Christ and Culture and his posthumously published book The Responsible Self. The younger brother of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr taught for several decades at the Yale Divinity School. Both brothers were, in their day, important figures in the neo-orthodox theological school within American Protestantism. His theology has been one of the main sources of postliberal theology, sometimes called the "Yale school". He influenced suc...

#1468

Euhemerus

400 BC - 300 BC (100 years)

Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others suggest Chios or Tegea.

#1469

Erik De Clercq

#14744

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Erik De Clercq M.D. Ph.D., is a Belgian physician and biologist. He studied medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven . He did research and later became a professor at the Department of Medicine, where he specialised in microbiology and immunology. He worked at the Rega Institute for Medical Research. He is one of the founders and the second president of the International Society for Antiviral Research.

#1470

Michael Allen Gillespie

Michael Allen Gillespie

#15309

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Michael Allen Gillespie is an American philosopher and Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Duke University. His areas of interest are political philosophy, continental philosophy, history of philosophy, and the origins of modernity. He has published on the relationship between theology and philosophy, medieval theology, liberalism, and a number of philosophers such as Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, and Kant.

#1471

Didier Raoult

#9342

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Didier Raoult is a retired French physician and microbiologist specialising in infectious diseases. He taught about infectious diseases at the Faculty of Medicine of Aix-Marseille University , and in 1984, created the Rickettsia Unit of the university. From 2008 to 2022, Raoult was the director of the Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes. He gained significant worldwide attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for vocally promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the disease, despite the lack of evidence for its effectiveness and the subsequent opposit...

#1472

Oscar Horta

#15106

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Óscar Horta Álvarez is a Spanish animal activist and moral philosopher who is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Santiago de Compostela and one of the co-founders of the organization Animal Ethics. He is known for his work in animal ethics, especially around the problem of wild animal suffering. He has also worked on the concept of speciesism and on the clarification of the arguments for the moral consideration of nonhuman animals. In 2022, Horta published his first book in English, Making a Stand for Animals.

#1473

Charles Batteux

Charles Batteux

1713 - 1780 (67 years)

Charles Batteux was a French philosopher and writer on aesthetics. Biography Batteux was born in Alland'Huy-et-Sausseuil, Ardennes, and studied theology at Reims. In 1739 he came to Paris, and after teaching in the colleges of Lisieux and Navarre, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Roman philosophy in the Collège de France. His 1746 treatise Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe was an attempt to find a unity among existing theories of beauty and taste on "a single principle", and its views were widely accepted, not only in France but throughout Europe.

#1474

Gualtiero Piccinini

Gualtiero Piccinini

#6156

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Gualtiero Piccinini is an Italian–American philosopher known for his work on the nature of mind and computation as well as on how to integrate psychology and neuroscience. He is Curators' Distinguished Professor in the Philosophy Department and Associate Director of the Center for Neurodynamics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

#1475

Athenagoras of Athens

133 - 190 (57 years)

Athenagoras was a Father of the Church, an Ante-Nicene Christian apologist who lived during the second half of the 2nd century of whom little is known for certain, besides that he was Athenian , a philosopher, and a convert to Christianity.

#1476

Buddhapālita

470 - 550 (80 years)

Buddhapālita was an Indian Mahayana Buddhist commentator on the works of Nagarjuna and Aryadeva. His Mūlamadhyamaka-vṛtti is an influential commentary to the Mūlamadhyamakakarikā. Buddhapālita's commentarial approach works was criticised by his contemporary Bhāviveka, and then defended by the later Candrakīrti .

#1477

Konrad Ott

#15883

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Konrad Ott is a German philosopher with a special interest in discourse ethics and environmental ethics. Biography Konrad Ott was born 1959 in Bergkamen, Germany. From 1981 to 1986, he studied philosophy, history and German philology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. He is regarded as a representative of the 'Third Generation' of the Frankfurt School.

#1478

Henry Jenkins

#846

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Henry Guy Jenkins III is an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He also has a joint faculty appointment with the USC Rossier School of Education. Previously, Jenkins was the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities as well as co-founder and co-director of the Comparative Media Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He has also served on the technical advisory board at ZeniMax Media, parent company of video game publisher Bethesda Softworks.

#1479

R. Edward Freeman

#5201

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Robert Edward Freeman is an American philosopher and professor of business administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia, particularly known for his work on stakeholder theory and on business ethics.

#1480

Alfonso Reyes

1889 - 1959 (70 years)

Alfonso Reyes Ochoa was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest authors in Spanish language. He served as ambassador of Mexico to Argentina and Brazil.

#1481

Diodorus Cronus

400 BC - 300 BC (100 years)

Diodorus Cronus was a Greek philosopher and dialectician connected to the Megarian school. He was most notable for logic innovations, including his master argument formulated in response to Aristotle's discussion of future contingents.

#1482

William Barrett

#9371

Overall Influence

1913 - 1992 (79 years)

William Christopher Barrett was a professor of philosophy at New York University from 1950 to 1979, and later at Pace University. Biography Precociously, Barrett began post-secondary studies at the City College of New York when 15 years old. He received his PhD at Columbia University. He was an editor of Partisan Review and later the literary critic of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. Barrett wrote philosophical works for nonexperts, including Irrational Man and The Illusion of Technique, which remain in print.

#1483

Errico Malatesta

Errico Malatesta

1853 - 1932 (79 years)

Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarchist propagandist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from Italy, Britain, France, and Switzerland. Originally a supporter of insurrectionary propaganda by deed, Malatesta later advocated for syndicalism. His exiles included five years in Europe and 12 years in Argentina. Malatesta participated in actions including an 1895 Spanish revolt and a Belgian general strike. He toured the United States, giving lectures and founding the influential anarchist journal La Questione Sociale.

#1484

Mary J. Gregor

#17180

Overall Influence

1928 - 1994 (66 years)

Mary J. Gregor was an American author, translator, and professor. She was a Kant scholar and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at San Diego State University, best known for translating the works of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

#1485

Erasistratus

305 BC - 249 BC (56 years)

Erasistratus was a Greek anatomist and royal physician under Seleucus I Nicator of Syria. Along with fellow physician Herophilus, he founded a school of anatomy in Alexandria, where they carried out anatomical research. As well, he is credited with helping to found the methodic school of teachings of medicine in Alexandria whilst opposing traditional humoral theories of Hippocratic ideologies. Together with Herophilus, he is credited by historians as the potential founder of neuroscience due to his acknowledgements of nerves and their roles in motor control through the brain and skeletal musc...

#1486

Lewis Gordon

#8230

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on Africana and black existentialism, postcolonial phenomenology, race and racism, and on the works and thought of W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon. His most recent book is titled: Fear of Black Consciousness.

#1487

Frederick Sontag

#8596

Overall Influence

1924 - 2009 (85 years)

Frederick Earl Sontag was a professor of philosophy and author. He taught at Pomona College in Claremont, California from 1952 to 2009, retiring shortly before his death. Biography Sontag served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, becoming a sergeant. He graduated from Stanford University in 1949 with a B.A. , then attended Yale University where he earned an M.A. in 1951 and a Ph.D. in 1952.

#1488

Gillo Dorfles

#8977

Overall Influence

1910 - 2018 (108 years)

Angelo Eugenio "Gillo" Dorfles was an Italian art critic, painter, and philosopher. Biography Born in Trieste to a Gorizian father of Jewish descent and a Genoese mother, Dorfles graduated in medicine, specializing in psychiatry. He was a professor in aesthetics at the University of Trieste, Milan and Cagliari and, in 1948, established the MAC with artists Atanasio Soldati, Galliano Mazzon, Gianni Monnet, and Bruno Munari. His paintings were displayed in two personal exhibitions held in Milan in 1949 and 1950 and also in numerous collective MAC exhibitions in the 1950s. In 1956 Dorfles co-fo...

#1489

John Greco

#19567

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

John Greco is the Robert L. McDevitt and Catherine H. McDevitt Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. Before coming to Georgetown, Greco taught at Saint Louis University. Greco received his A.B. from Georgetown University in 1983 and completed his Ph.D. at Brown University in 1989 under Ernest Sosa. His research interests are in epistemology and metaphysics and he has published widely on virtue epistemology, epistemic normativity, skepticism, and Thomas Reid. From 2013 until 2020, he was the Editor of American Philosophical Quarterly. For 2013–15, together with Eleonore Stump, he h...

#1490

John Corvino

#14672

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

John Frank Corvino is an American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy and the dean of the Honors College at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and the author of several books, with a focus on the morality of homosexuality. Corvino is sometimes referred to as "The Gay Moralist", a sobriquet he assumed while writing a column of the same name.

#1491

Jin Yuelin

1895 - 1984 (89 years)

Jin Yuelin or Chin Yueh-Lin was a Chinese philosopher best known for three works, one each on logic, metaphysics, and epistemology. He was also a commentator on Bertrand Russell. Biography Jin was born in Changsha, Hunan and attended Tsinghua University from 1911 until 1914. He obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1920. In 1926, Jin founded the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University. Jin was an active participant in the May 4th movement as a young, intellectual revolutionary. He helped to incorporate the scientific method into philosophy. Hao Wang was one of his students.

#1492

David Schmidtz

#11614

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

David Schmidtz is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is Presidential Chair of Moral Science at West Virginia University's Chambers College of Business and Economics. He is also editor-in-chief of the journal Social Philosophy & Policy. Previously, he was Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and Eller Chair of Service-Dominant Logic at the University of Arizona. While at Arizona, he founded and served as inaugural head of the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science.

#1493

Theobald Ziegler

1846 - 1918 (72 years)

Theobald Ziegler was a German philosopher and educator born in Göppingen, Württemberg. Career Ziegler studied theology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen, and later was a secondary school teacher in Heilbronn, Winterthur and Baden-Baden. During this time period he also taught classes at Tübinger Stift. In 1882 he became konrektor of a Protestant secondary school in Strasbourg, followed by an appointment as professor of philosophy at the University of Strasbourg .

#1494

Joachim Ritter

1903 - 1974 (71 years)

Joachim Ritter was a German philosopher and founder of the so-called Ritter School of liberal conservatism. Biography Born in Geesthacht, Ritter studied philosophy, theology, German literature and history in Heidelberg, Marburg, Freiburg and Hamburg. A disciple of Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer, he obtained his doctorate at Hamburg with a dissertation on Nicolas of Cusa in 1925, and was both Cassirer's assistant and a lecturer there. A Marxist in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, he became a member of the Nazi Party in 1937 and an officer of the German Wehrmacht in 1940. After World W...

#1495

Peter Simons

#13716

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Peter Murray Simons, is a British retired philosopher and academic. From 2009 to 2016, he was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin; he is now professor emeritus. He is known for his work with Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith on metaphysics and the history of Austrian philosophy. Since 2018 he is visiting professor at the University of Italian Switzerland.

#1496

Bernard d'Espagnat

Bernard d'Espagnat

#10218

Overall Influence

1921 - 2015 (94 years)

Bernard d'Espagnat was a French theoretical physicist, philosopher of science, and author, best known for his work on the nature of reality. Wigner-d'Espagnat inequality is partially named after him.

#1497

Moritz Geiger

1880 - 1937 (57 years)

Moritz Geiger was a German philosopher and a disciple of Edmund Husserl. He was a member of the Munich phenomenological school. Beside phenomenology, he dedicated himself to psychology, epistemology and aesthetics.

#1498

Victor Brochard

1848 - 1907 (59 years)

Victor Charles Louis Brochard was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy. Life Victor Brochard was born in Quesnoy-sur-Deûle. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1868, and in 1872 was appointed professor of philosophy at the lycée de Pau. After a succession of other lycée appointments, he was appointed lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure in 1886. A few years later he was appointed professor of the history of ancient philosophy at the Sorbonne.

#1499

Jay Rosenberg

#22576

Overall Influence

1942 - 2008 (66 years)

Jay Frank Rosenberg was an American philosopher and historian of philosophy. He spent his teaching career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he joined the Department of Philosophy in 1966 and was appointed Taylor Grandy Professor of Philosophy in 1987. Rosenberg was a student of Wilfrid Sellars and established his reputation with ten books and over 80 articles in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of language, and the history of philosophy . His most commercially successful work, The Practice of Philosophy: A Handbook for Beginners, is a standard text in introduc...

#1500

Ramon Llull

1232 - 1316 (84 years)

Ramon Llull was a philosopher, theologian, poet, missionary, Christian apologist and former knight from the Kingdom of Majorca. He invented a philosophical system known as the Art, conceived as a type of universal logic to prove the truth of Christian doctrine to interlocutors of all faiths and nationalities. The Art consists of a set of general principles and combinatorial operations. It is illustrated with diagrams.

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