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).
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#15001
Cornelis de Langen
1887 - 1967 (80 years)
Cornelis Douwe de Langen was a Dutch physician. He spent a substantial part of his career in Java, Indonesia where he did extensive work on tropical medicine and observed an association between dietary cholesterol intake and incidence of gallstones, arteriosclerosis and other "Western diseases".
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John O. Stubbs
#58290
Overall Influence
John O. Stubbs is a Canadian academic. He was president of Trent University and Simon Fraser University. Stubbs began his career as a historian and political scientist, specializing in the history of 20th century British politics and media. He distinguished himself as a teacher and administrator at the University of Waterloo, serving in various positions including associate dean of arts. Stubbs was appointed president of Trent University in 1987, a post that he held until 1993, when he was appointed for a five-year term as president of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His term wa...
Go to Profile#15003
Kendall Shaw
#79226
Overall Influence
1924 - 2019 (95 years)
George Kendall Shaw was an American painter who was based in New Orleans, with a career spanning a number of art styles—ranging from abstract expressionism to pop art to minimalism to pattern and design to color field—with heightened emotion, pattern, shape, and vivid color predominant. Shaw's work includes a series of 30 paintings based on the Torah of the Old Testament, as well as recent work with pure colors that he terms “Cajun Minimalism.”
Go to Profile#15004
Ty Burr
#53358
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Ty Burr is an American film critic, columnist, and author who currently writes a film and popular culture newsletter "Ty Burr's Watchlist" on Substack. Burr previously served as film critic at The Boston Globe from 2002 until 2021.
Go to Profile#15005
Roberts Bartholow
1831 - 1904 (73 years)
Roberts Bartholow or Robert Bartholow was an American physician and a professor at several American medical colleges. He is best known for his experiments involving a 30-year-old patient named Mary Rafferty. Rafferty was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1874 with a 2-inch-diameter hole in her skull caused by a cancerous ulcer. Bartholow experimented with applying current to Rafferty's exposed dura using needle electrodes. His report detailed the first observations of how electrical stimulation of the brain affects motor functions of the body, but many ethical concerns were raised about the way in which he carried out his experiments.
Go to Profile#15006
David Henderson
#160389
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
David Henderson is an American philosopher and Robert R. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is known for his works on epistemology and the philosophy of the social sciences.
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Robert M. Douglas
#104117
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Robert Matheson Douglas AO . He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1959. In 1968 he took up a position as Specialist Physician and Deputy Medical Superintendent of the Port Moresby hospital in Papua New Guinea.
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Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi
#165832
Overall Influence
Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi flourished about the mid-12th century and was a prominent Provençal rabbi, Philosopher, and Talmudist. Biography He was a nephew and pupil of Isaac ben Merwan ha-Levi. His colleagues addressed him as "Great scholar, Nasi Rabbi Moses," and his ritual decisions and Talmudic comments are often quoted.
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Julie Story Byerley
#48250
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Julie Story Byerley is an American physician who is known as a leader in the fields of medical education and pediatrics. Byerley has served as a clinical professor and Vice Dean for Education for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She currently serves as President and Dean of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine as well as Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Geisinger Health System.
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Glòria Muñoz
#78843
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Glòria Muñoz is a Spanish painter, and a professor of painting at the University of Barcelona. Life and work Glòria Muñoz Pfister was born on 12 August 1949 in Barcelona, Spain. Her family was artistically inclined. She studied in Barcelona at l'Escola Superior de Belles Arts Sant Jordi, completing her art coursework in 1972. In the same year, she married Josep, whose father, painter and professor Josep Puigdengolas Barella, helped her meet important members of Barcelona's exclusive art community. This opportunity, combined with her desire to explore new methods of artistic expression, influe...
Go to Profile#15011
Anton de Haen
1704 - 1776 (72 years)
Anton de Haen was a Dutch physician who worked in Vienna as a professor at the University of Vienna and was the director of its medical department. He became a very influential physician in the Habsburg monarchy and eventually founded the Viennese Medicine School.
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Nurida Kurbanova
#177356
Overall Influence
Nurida Zulfi kizi Kurbanova is an Azerbaijani philosopher, known for her research in the sphere of alternative medicine and parapsychology. She was born in Shusha city. When Nurida was ten years old, she was hit by lightning and spent over a month in a coma. Nurida Kurbanova has a Ph.D. in philosophy and a candidate of Energy and Information Sciences. For her scientific work, Kurbanova was awarded several high international awards. She is the founder of the International Fund For Contribution for Peace and Culture.
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Manuel Gervink
#119371
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Manuel Gervink is a German musicologist and scholar who has worked at the Universities of Cologne and Dresden. Life Born in Münster, Gervink graduated from Gymnasium in 1976. From 1976 to 1984 he studied musicology, German language and literature and philosophy at the University of Münster, where he received his doctorate in 1984. From 1984 he worked for ten years as a research assistant at the Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne. From 1995 to 1999, he was professor for musicology at the Musikhochschule Köln. In 2000 he was appointed professor at the University of Cologne.
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Boris Meissner
#38903
Overall Influence
1915 - 2003 (88 years)
Boris Meissner was a German lawyer and social scientist, specializing in Soviet studies, international law and Eastern European history and politics. Life Meissner was the son of Artur Meissner, a judge of Baltic German extraction, and spent his childhood in Pärnu, Estonia. He attended Tartu University, where he received a first degree in economics in 1935. He then studied law in Tartu until he had to leave Estonia during the repatriation of Baltic Germans in 1939.
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Kim Cobb
#53175
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Kim M. Cobb is an American climate scientist. She is Professor of Environment and Society and Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University, where she directs the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. Cobb was previously a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is particularly interested in oceanography, geochemistry and paleoclimate modeling.
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Girolamo Borro
1512 - 1592 (80 years)
Girolamo Borro latinized as Hieronomyus Borrius was an Italian philosopher and a professor at the University of Pisa. He belonged to a group of natural philosophers who rejected appeals to the supernatural and occult to explain phenomena. He is thought to have influenced Galileo and Borro's ideas were published in dialogue form in a book on tides Dialogo del flusso e reflusso del mare . Another book by Borro was on moving bodies, De motu gravium et levium . He also authored some manuscripts including Multae sunt nostrarum ignorationum causae.
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David Hayes Agnew
1818 - 1892 (74 years)
David Hayes Agnew was an American surgeon. Biography Agnew was born on November 24, 1818, Nobleville, Pennsylvania . His parents were Robert Agnew and Agnes Noble. Agnew grew up as a Christian. He was surrounded by a family of doctors and had always known he was going to become a physician. As a young boy, he had a sharp sense of humor and was very intelligent.
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Debbie Shawcross
#111605
Overall Influence
Debbie Lindsay Shawcross is a British physician and clinician who is a professor at King's College London. Her research looks to better understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin chronic liver disease, with a focus on the gut-liver-brain axis.
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Ioan Biris
#173611
Overall Influence
Ioan Biris is a university professor at the West University of Timișoara,Department of Philosophy and Communication Sciences, Romania. He studied philosophy at the Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca. Secondary studies in sociology. Ph.D. in philosophy and Ph.D. in sociology . He is known for his research in the areas of philosophy of science, analytic philosophy, ontology and applied logic.
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Richard M. Dougherty
#57167
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Richard M. Dougherty is an American librarian and educator who was the director of libraries at both the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan. He served as the president of the American Library Association from 1990 to 1991, focusing on bringing attention to information access issues and supporting children's literacy.
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Joseph Osmundson
#98787
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Joseph S. Osmundson is an American biophysicist and writer. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Biology at New York University. Osmundson is the author of various books exploring bodies, queerness, race, and geography.
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Mark L. Kahn
#142581
Overall Influence
Mark L. Kahn is a cardiologist currently serving as the Edward S. Cooper, M.D./Norman Roosevelt and Elizabeth Meriwether McLure Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, Kahn additionally serves as Director of Center for Vascular Biology and Director of Molecular Cardiology.
Go to Profile#15023
Tadeusz M. Jaroszewski
1930 - 1988 (58 years)
Tadeusz Maciej Jaroszewski was a Polish Marxist philosopher and religious studies professor of humanities, in the years 1976–1981 director of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAN Publications Filozofia marksistowska. Podręcznik akademicki, Warszawa: Państ. Wydaw. Naukowe, 1975.Filozofia społeczna i doktryna polityczna Kościoła Katolickiego, Warszawa: Wyższa Szkoła Nauk Społecznych przy KC PZPR, 1965.Filozoficzne problemy współczesnego chrześcijaństwa, Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1973.Humanizm socjalistyczny , Warszawa: "Książka i Wiedza", 1980.Kierunki walki o laicyzację...
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Paul Finger
#58538
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Paul T. Finger, MD, FACS, is an ophthalmologist in New York, New York, specializing in ocular oncology . Finger is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City, New York. He is also the director of The New York Eye Cancer Center and Ocular Tumor Services at The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mt. Sinai. He consults for Northwell Health Complex of affiliated Hospitals including Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital and NYU School of Medicine. He is Chair of the Ophthalmic Oncology Task Force for the American Joint Committee on Cancer , wrote the eye cancer staging systems section for the Union International for Cancer Control .
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Janet Jakobsen
#171512
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Janet R. Jakobsen is a scholar of gender and sexuality. She is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and Director of Barnard's Center for Research on Women. She has also been Barnard's Dean for Faculty Diversity and Development.
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Theo Lingen
1903 - 1978 (75 years)
Theo Lingen , born Franz Theodor Schmitz, was a German actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in more than 230 films between 1929 and 1978, and directed 21 films between 1936 and 1960. Life and career Lingen was born the son of a lawyer in the city of Hanover, and grew up there. He attended the Royal Goethe Gymnasium – the predecessor of the Goethe School – in Hanover, but left before taking the Abitur . His theatrical talent was discovered during rehearsals for a school performance at the Schauburg boulevard theatre.
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Emil Knauer
1867 - 1935 (68 years)
Emil Knauer was an Austrian gynecologist and obstetrician. Career Knauer was born in 1867 as the son of baker Georg Knauer and his wife Karoline . After completing his schooling in his hometown, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna from autumn 1885 onwards.In Vienna he completed training in pathological anatomy under Johann Kundrat and in internal medicine under Hermann Nothnagel. In 1891 Knauer got his doctorate and worked from October 1891 at the surgical clinic of Theodor Billroth.In April 1893 he went to II. University Women's Hospital under Rudolf Chrobak, where he qualified ...
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Steven M. Zeitels
#19374
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Steven Marc Zeitels is the Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation . He specializes in diseases and disorders of the throat, voice, airway, and larynx. His contributions to voice and laryngeal surgery are highly recognized in the USA and throughout the world. In 2004, the first endowed Chair in Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School was created for him while he re-established a Harvard Laryngeal Surgery service at the MGH, which had not been present since the 1920s.
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Elias Ashmole
1617 - 1692 (75 years)
Elias Ashmole was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.
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John Fothergill
1712 - 1780 (68 years)
John Fothergill FRS was an English physician, plant collector, philanthropist and Quaker. His medical writings were influential, and he built up a sizeable botanic garden in what is now West Ham Park in London.
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Regnier de Graaf
1641 - 1673 (32 years)
Regnier de Graaf , original Dutch spelling Reinier de Graaf, or Latinized Reijnerus de Graeff , was a Dutch physician, physiologist and anatomist who made key discoveries in reproductive biology. He specialized in iatrochemistry and iatrogenesis, and was the first to develop a syringe to inject dye into human reproductive organs so that he could understand their structure and function.
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William Beaumont
1785 - 1853 (68 years)
William Beaumont was a surgeon in the U.S. Army who became known as the "Father of Gastric Physiology" for his research on human digestion on Alexis St. Martin. Early life William Beaumont was born to Samuel Beaumont and Lucretia Abel in Lebanon, Connecticut; his father was a farmer. He left his home after he turned twenty-one, moved to Champlain, New York and obtained a teaching job. In 1810 he relocated to St. Albans, Vermont, where he trained to become a physician through an apprenticeship with Dr. Truman Powell. In June 1812, the Third Medical Society of the State of Vermont in Burlingto...
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William Padula
#69980
Overall Influence
William Padula is a professor of pharmaceutical and health economics at the University of Southern California. He is a fellow in the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. He is a co-founder and principal for Stage Analytics. From 2021 to 2022, he was the President and chief executive officer of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel.
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Marcus Conant
#15590
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Marcus Augustine Conant is an American dermatologist and one of the first physicians to diagnose and treat Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in 1981. He helped create one of the largest private AIDS clinics, was a founder of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and his work contributed to development of some of today's top HIV medications. He has written over 70 publications on the treatment of AIDS.
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Randolph Chitwood
#29689
Overall Influence
Walter Randolph "Ranny" Chitwood Jr. is known for his work as a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University located in Greenville, North Carolina. Chitwood is recognized as the first heart surgeon to perform robot-assisted heart valve surgery in the US.
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Guy G. De Backer
#177470
Overall Influence
#15037
Michael M. Watkins
#20982
Overall Influence
Michael M. Watkins is an American engineer, scientist, and a Professor of Aerospace and Geophysics at the California Institute of Technology . He previously served as the 9th director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and as a vice president of Caltech, which staffs and manages JPL for NASA. His directorial position was effective from July 1, 2016 to August 20, 2021.
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Antonio Riccoboni
1541 - 1599 (58 years)
Antonio Riccoboni was an Italian scholar, active during the Renaissance as a classical scholar or humanist and historian. Biography Antonio Riccoboni was born in Rovigo. First making his life as a tutor, he moved in 1570 to Venice and Padua to study at the University under Paolo Manuzio, Marc-Antoine Muret, and Carlo Sigonio. By 1571, he had been granted a doctorate in civil law, and soon after degrees in canon law. The next year he obtained a post as professor rhetoric at the university, succeeding Giovanni Fasolo.
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Ahmad Reza Djalali
#50318
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Ahmad Reza Djalali is an Iranian-Swedish disaster medicine doctor, lecturer, and researcher. He was accused of espionage and collaboration with Israel and sentenced to death. He has worked in several universities in Europe, among which Karolinska University of Sweden, where he had also attended his PhD program, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale , Vrije Universiteit Brussel . He also cooperated with universities in Iran and is in contact with universities worldwide.
Go to Profile#15040
Priscus of Epirus
305 - 395 (90 years)
Priscus of Epirus , also known as Priscus the Thesprotian and Priscus the Molossian , was a Neoplatonist philosopher and theurgist, a colleague of Maximus of Ephesus, and a friend of the emperor Julian.
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Patrick Soon-Shiong
#137230
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Patrick Soon-Shiong is a South African-American transplant surgeon, billionaire businessman, bioscientist, and media proprietor. He is the inventor of the drug Abraxane, which became known for its efficacy against lung, breast, and pancreatic cancer. Soon-Shiong is the founder of NantWorks, a network of healthcare, biotech, and artificial intelligence startups; an adjunct professor of surgery and executive director of the Wireless Health Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles; and a visiting professor at Imperial College London and Dartmouth College. Soon-Shiong has published ...
Go to Profile#15042
E. Richard Stiehm
#177513
Overall Influence
#15043
Michel Villey
1914 - 1988 (74 years)
Michel Villey was a French legal philosopher and historian. He was a professor at the University of Strasbourg and then at the University of Paris. He was born in Caen and was the grandson of philosopher Émile Boutroux. The Institut Michel-Villey is named in his honor.
Go to Profile#15044
Shabtai Ben-Dov
1924 - 1978 (54 years)
Shabtai Ben-Dov was a member of Lehi and a philosopher. His work has been influential on several right-wing Israeli messianic groups. Personal life Ben-Dov was born in Vilnius, then part of Second Polish Republic in 1924 and moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1935. He joined the Irgun, which was fighting the British for control of the region. When Lehi split from Irgun, Ben-Dov joined the former to continue fighting the British, who he didn't think were doing enough to try and stop the Holocaust. He was caught, imprisoned, and eventually exiled to Africa by the British. He returned ...
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Günter Rimkus
#143713
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Günter Rimkus was a German dramaturge and, from 1984 to 1991, manager of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Life Born in Stallupönen, East Prussia, Rimkus studied vocal music at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar from 1947 to 1953. After graduating, he obtained the position of dramaturge at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. In 1970, he was appointed deputy artistic director there and succeeded Hans Pischner as director of the house from 1984 to 1991. Throughout his tenure at both the Admiralspalast and Unter den Linden, he had a significant influence on its high artistic reputation. For...
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James Ferguson
#177543
Overall Influence
#15047
Kathleen Bell
#129967
Overall Influence
Kathleen Bell is an American physician, currently the Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Chair in Mobility Research. A fictionalized version of Bell was featured on Saturday Night Live, where she was portrayed by Aidy Bryant.
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Kamel Ajlouni
#20025
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Kamel Mohammed Saleh Ajlouni, M.D. is a physician in the field of endocrinology. He earned a doctor of medicine degree from the Heidelberg University School of Medicine in 1967. Ajlouni became professor of endocrinology in the Department of Internal medicine at the University of Jordan in 1985. Professor Ajlouni has written more than 120 professional papers in the field of endocrinology. In recognition of his contributions, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists presented him with the International Clinician Award in 2008. He received Hamdan Award for honoring distinguished per...
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Kurt Singer
1886 - 1962 (76 years)
Kurt Singer was a German economist and philosopher. Born in Magdeburg, he was a professor at Hamburg University . He taught at the Tokyo Imperial University from 1931 to 1935. Singer died at Athens at the age of 75.
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Véronique Munoz-Dardé
#175879
Overall Influence
Véronique Munoz-Dardé is Professor of Philosophy in the University College London Department of Philosophy and Mills Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at University of California at Berkeley. She is known for her works on ethics and political philosophy.
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