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.
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#15851
William Wallace
1844 - 1897 (53 years)
William Wallace was a Scottish philosopher and academic who became fellow of Merton College and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. He was best known for his studies of German philosophers, most notably Hegel, some of whose works he translated into highly regarded English editions. While reputedly forbidding in manner, he was known as an able and effective teacher and writer who succeeded in greatly improving the understanding of German philosophy in the English-speaking world. He died at the age of 52 after a bicycle accident near Oxford.
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Antipater of Tyre
50 BC - 40 BC (10 years)
Antipater of Tyre was a Greek Stoic philosopher and a friend of Cato the Younger and Cicero. Life Antipater lived after, or was at least younger than, Panaetius. Cicero, in speaking of him, says, that he died "recently at Athens", which must mean shortly before 45 BC. He is mentioned by Strabo as a "famous philosopher" from Tyre. Antipater is said to have befriended Cato when Cato was a young man, and introduced him to Stoic philosophy:
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Valentin Asmus
1894 - 1975 (81 years)
Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus was a Soviet philosopher. He was one of the small group who continued the classical European philosophical tradition through the early Soviet times. He was an independent thinker and unorthodox Marxist, with interests in the history of philosophy and aesthetics.
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Sopater of Apamea
242 - 325 (83 years)
Sopater of Apamea was a distinguished sophist and Neoplatonist philosopher. Biography Sopater was a disciple of Iamblichus, after whose death , he went to Constantinople, where he enjoyed the favour and personal friendship of Constantine I.
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H. Wildon Carr
1857 - 1931 (74 years)
Herbert Wildon Carr was a British philosopher. Life He was Professor of Philosophy, King's College, London from 1918 to 1925, and Visiting Professor at the University of Southern California from 1925 until his death on 8 July 1931 in Los Angeles, California, United States.
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Bryan Higgins
1741 - 1818 (77 years)
Bryan Higgins was an Irish natural philosopher in chemistry. He was born in Collooney, County Sligo, Ireland. His father was also called Dr. Bryan Higgins. Higgins entered the University of Leiden in 1765, whence he qualified as a doctor of physics. He subsequently ran a School of Practical Chemistry at 13 Greek Street, Soho, London during the 1770s, which was patronised by the then Duke of Northumberland amongst others. He was more of a speculator than an experimenter, and published many works on chemistry and related disciplines. Joseph Priestley was an attendee of Higgins's lectures, but ...
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Pierre Poiret
1646 - 1719 (73 years)
Pierre Poiret Naudé was a prominent French mystic and Christian philosopher. He was born in Metz and died in Rijnsburg. Life and accomplishments After the early death of his parents, he supported himself by the engraver's trade and the teaching of French, at the same time studying theology, in Basel, Hanau, and, after 1668, Heidelberg. At Basel he was captivated by Descartes' philosophy, which never quite lost its hold on him. He read also Thomas à Kempis and Tauler, but was especially influenced by the writings of the Dutch Mennonite mystic Hendrik Jansen van Barrefelt , whose works were pu...
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Joseph Estlin Carpenter
1844 - 1927 (83 years)
Joseph Estlin Carpenter was an English Unitarian minister, the principal of Manchester College, Oxford. He was an expert in Sanskrit and a pioneer in the study of comparative religion. Biography Carpenter was born in Ripley, Surrey. He was the second son of William Benjamin Carpenter. His grandfather was Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter.
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Jacques Genest
#15860
José Gregorio Hernández
1864 - 1919 (55 years)
José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros OFS was a Venezuelan physician. Born in Isnotú, Trujillo State, he became a highly renowned doctor, more so after his death. He was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2021.
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Feliks Jaroński
1777 - 1827 (50 years)
Feliks Jaroński was a Polish Catholic priest and philosopher. Life In 1809–18 Jaroński was a professor at Kraków University. A follower of Kantism, he postulated a renewal of philosophy through the rejection of empiricism and a return to metaphysics. He was the first to write a history of Polish logic.
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H. W. B. Joseph
1867 - 1943 (76 years)
Horace William Brindley Joseph, FBA , published as H. W. B. Joseph, was a British philosopher, who spent his academic career as a Fellow and Tutor at New College, Oxford. Biography Early life Horace William Brindley Joseph was born at Chatham, Kent, on 28 September 1867, the eldest surviving son of Alexander Joseph , rector of St John's, Chatham, and Honorary Canon of Rochester Cathedral, and his wife, Janet Eleanor née Acworth , daughter of George Acworth, a solicitor, and cousin of Sir William Acworth. Joseph attended Allhallows School in Honiton and then Winchester College as a scholar . ...
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Émile Saisset
1814 - 1863 (49 years)
Émile Edmond Saisset was a French philosopher. Life Émile Edmond Saisset was born at Montpellier. He studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, and carried on the eclectic tradition of his master along with Ravaisson and Jules Simon. In 1842 he was professor of philosophy at Caen, at the École Normale in Paris. He later moved on to the College de France in 1843. He became a member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques at the Sorbonne in 1862. Saisset, known as "fashionable psychologist", was associated with the Eclectic school of Victor Cousin.
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Zygmunt Zawirski
1882 - 1948 (66 years)
Zygmunt Zawirski was a Polish philosopher and logician. His main field of study was philosophy of physics, history of science, multi-valued logic and relation of multi-valued logic to calculus of probability.
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Jakob Frohschammer
1821 - 1893 (72 years)
Jakob Frohschammer was a German theologian and philosopher. Biography Frohschammer was born at Illkofen, which is now in the municipality of Barbing, near Regensburg. Destined by his parents for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he studied theology at Munich, but felt an ever-growing attraction to philosophy. Nevertheless, after much hesitation, he took what he himself calls the most mistaken step of his life, and in 1847 entered the priesthood. His keenly logical intellect, and his impatience of authority where it clashed with his own convictions, quite unfitted him for that unquestioning obedience which the Church demanded.
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Thomas Rawson Birks
1810 - 1883 (73 years)
Thomas Rawson Birks was an English theologian and controversialist, who figured in the debate to try to resolve theology and science. He rose to be Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His discussions led to much controversy: in one book he proposed that stars cannot have planets as this would reduce the importance of Christ's appearance on this planet.
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Harry Slochower
1900 - 1991 (91 years)
Harry Slochower was an Austrian-American scholar, philosopher and psychoanalyst. Biography Slochower was born Hersch Zloczower in Bukowina, formerly part of Austria and now Romania. He arrived in the United States on the S. S. Frankfurt in October 1913, joining his parents who had arrived in February 1911. He grew up in the Bronx and studied philosophy and German at the City College of New York, graduating in 1923. He also studied at the universities of Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg, before receiving his PhD from Columbia for a book on Richard Dehmel. He was made a Guggenheim Fellow in 1929 f...
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Isaac Cardoso
1604 - 1683 (79 years)
Isaac Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher, and polemic writer. Life He was born of Marrano parents at Trancoso, near Celorico, in the province of Beira, Portugal in 1603 or 1604 and died at Verona in 1683. He was an older brother of Abraham Miguel Cardoso.
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Claude Emerson Welch
#15870
Lanza del Vasto
1901 - 1981 (80 years)
Lanza del Vasto was an Italian philosopher, poet, artist, Catholic and nonviolent activist. He was born in San Vito dei Normanni, Italy and died in Murcia, Spain. A western disciple of Mohandas K. Gandhi, he worked for inter-religious dialogue, spiritual renewal, ecological activism and nonviolence.
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Kong Yingda
574 - 648 (74 years)
Kong Yingda , courtesy names Chongyuan and Zhongda , was a Chinese philosopher during the Sui and Tang dynasty. An amorous Confucianist, who is considered one of the most influential Confucian scholars in Chinese history. His most important work is the Wujing Zhengyi , which became the standard curriculum for the imperial examinations, and the basis for all future official commentaries of the Five Classics. He was also "skilled at mathematics and the calendar."
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Petrus Camper
1722 - 1789 (67 years)
Petrus Camper FRS , was a Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist in the Age of Enlightenment. He was one of the first to take an interest in comparative anatomy, palaeontology, and the facial angle. He was among the first to mark out an "anthropology," which he distinguished from natural history. He studied the orangutan, the Javan rhinoceros, and the skull of a mosasaur, which he believed was a whale.
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Anselm of Laon
1050 - 1117 (67 years)
Anselm of Laon , properly Ansel , was a French theologian and founder of a school of scholars who helped to pioneer biblical hermeneutics. Biography Born of very humble parents at Laon before the middle of the 11th century, he is said to have studied under Saint Anselm at Bec, though this is almost certainly incorrect. Other potential teachers of Anselm have been identified, including Bruno of Cologne and Manegold of Lautenbach. By around 1080, he had moved back to his place of birth and was teaching at the cathedral school of Laon, with his brother Ralph. Around 1109, he became dean and chancellor of the cathedral, and in 1115 he was one of Laon's two archdeacons.
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Fritz Berolzheimer
1869 - 1920 (51 years)
Fritz Berolzheimer, Juris Doctor was a German philosopher of law. He was the author of the five volume System der Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie . In 1907 he co-founded the Archiv für Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie .
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Lothar Meyer
1830 - 1895 (65 years)
Meyer was a distinguished German chemist who some historians feel deserves credit for the invention of the periodic table of the elements. He was born in Varel, a small town in the Duchy of Oldenburg, the son of a physician. After graduating from Gymnasium (secondary school) in Oldenburg, the young Lothar (he never used his first given name) studied medicine at the University of Zurich with Carl Ludwig and at the University of Würzburg with Rudolf Virchow. In 1854, Meyer transferred to the University of Heidelberg, where he studied chemistry with Robert Bunsen (of Bunsen burner fame). Intrig...
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Teodosio Lares
1806 - 1870 (64 years)
Teodosio Lares he was a Mexican lawyer and politician. He studied Philosophy and Jurisprudence in the Seminary of Guadalajara. In 1827 he began his career as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of the State of Jalisco. He returned to Zacatecas, where he was magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice. In 1836 he was director of the Literary Institute of Zacatecas. In 1848 he was deputy to the General Congress for the state of Zacatecas. In 1850 he was appointed senator of the Tercio by the Chamber of Deputies.
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Anna Brackett
1836 - 1911 (75 years)
Anna Callender Brackett was an American philosopher, translator, feminist, and educator. She translated Karl Rosenkranz's Pedagogics as a System and wrote The Education of American Girls, a response to arguments against the coeducation of males and females.
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Theodor Litt
1880 - 1962 (82 years)
Theodor Litt was a German culture and social philosopher as well as a pedagogue. In the debate with Dilthey, Simmel and Cassirer, Litt developed an independent approach in cultural philosophy and philosophical anthropology, which was determined by the dialectical view of the relationship between the individual and society, man and the world, reason and life. At the same time, he projected these thoughts into a that had its starting point in progressive education at the beginning of the 20th century and, via Litt's student , extended into the discussion on educational reform in the 1970s. Lit...
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Mieko Kamiya
1914 - 1979 (65 years)
Mieko Kamiya was a Japanese psychiatrist who treated leprosy patients at Nagashima Aiseien Sanatorium. She was known for translating books on philosophy. She worked as a medical doctor in the Department of Psychiatry at Tokyo University following World War II. She was said to have greatly helped the Ministry of Education and the General Headquarters, where the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers stayed, in her role as an English-speaking secretary, and served as an adviser to Empress Michiko. She wrote many books as a highly educated, multi-lingual person; one of her books, titled On the Me...
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Jacques Chevalier
1882 - 1962 (80 years)
Jacques Chevalier was a French Catholic philosopher and a politician. Chevalier was born in Cérilly, Allier, educated at the École normale supérieure and the University of Oxford and taught at the Faculty of Letters in Grenoble. He was a specialist of Plato and author of many books, mainly about the history of philosophy.
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Henry Ercole
Henry Ercole was a minor Maltese mediaeval philosopher who specialised mainly in ethics and logic. He enjoyed great esteem from his contemporaries, both as an administrator and a philosopher. Life It is unclear where Ercole was born in Malta or when. He was a Dominican friar, but it is not known where he completed his initial studies. The first documentary evidence about him is in 1711, when he was Master of Studies at the Studium Generale of the Dominicans at Rabat, Malta. Four years later, in 1715, he held the same office at Trapani, Sicily.
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James H. Hyslop
1854 - 1920 (66 years)
James Hervey Hyslop, Ph.D., LL.D, was an American psychical researcher, psychologist, and professor of ethics and logic at Columbia University. He was one of the first American psychologists to connect psychology with psychic phenomena. In 1906 he helped reorganize the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City and served as the secretary-treasurer for the organization until his death.
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Richard Lance Barnett
#15884
John Cantius
1390 - 1473 (83 years)
John Cantius was a Polish priest, scholastic philosopher, physicist and theologian. Biography John Cantius was born in Kęty, a small town near Oświęcim, Poland, to Anna and Stanisław Kanty. He attended the Kraków Academy at which he attained bachelor, and licentiate. In 1418 he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Upon graduation he spent the next three years conducting philosophy classes at the university, while preparing for the priesthood.
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François Gigot de la Peyronie
1678 - 1747 (69 years)
François Gigot de la Peyronie was a French surgeon who was born in Montpellier, France. His name is associated with a condition known as Peyronie's disease. As a teenager, he studied philosophy and surgery in Montpellier, where in 1695 he received his diploma as a barber-surgeon. Peyronie became fascinated with phalluses, which later developed into a lifelong obsession. He continued his education in Paris as a student of Georges Mareschal , who was chief-surgeon at the Hôpital de la Charité. Afterwards he returned to Montpellier as lecturer on anatomy and surgery, and was surgeon-major at the Hôtel-Dieu de Montpellier.
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Marcel Foucault
1865 - 1947 (82 years)
Marcel Foucault was a French philosopher and psychologist. Marcel Foucault was professor of philosophy at the University of Montpellier. In 1906 he founded a laboratory of experimental psychology at the university.
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Richard Assmann
1845 - 1918 (73 years)
Richard Assmann was a German meteorologist and physician who was a native of Magdeburg. He made numerous contributions in high altitude research of the Earth's atmosphere. He was a pioneer of scientific aeronautics and considered a co-founder of aerology.
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William Bartram
1739 - 1823 (84 years)
William Bartram was an American botanist, ornithologist, natural historian and explorer. Bartram was the author of an acclaimed book, now known by the shortened title Bartram's Travels, which chronicled his explorations of the southern British colonies in North America from 1773 to 1777. Bartram has been described as "the first naturalist who penetrated the dense tropical forests of Florida".
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Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales
1741 - 1816 (75 years)
Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales or Jean-Baptiste Isoard de Lisle was a French philosopher noted for his multi-edition, multi-volume opus The Philosophy of Nature: Treatise on Human Moral Nature.
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Hermogenes
500 BC - 400 BC (100 years)
Hermogenes was an ancient Athenian philosopher best remembered as a close friend of Socrates as depicted by Plato and Xenophon. Life Hermogenes was the son of Hipponicus, brother of the wealthy Callias, and resident of the Alopece deme alongside Socrates. Although he belonged to the great family of Callias, he is mentioned by Xenophon as a man of very little property, suggesting that he may have been an illegitimate son of Hipponicus. Plato, on the other hand, suggests that he was unjustly deprived of his property by Callias, his brother.
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Francisco Romero
1891 - 1962 (71 years)
Francisco Romero was a Latin American philosopher who spearheaded a reaction against positivism. Biography Romero was born in Seville, Spain, but spent much of his adult life in Latin America, especially Argentina, where he emigrated in 1904. He entered the Argentine army in 1910 and retired with the rank of major in 1931. He became a friend of the Argentine philosopher Alejandro Korn, and when he left military service he took over Korn's professorships at the universities of La Plata and Buenos Aires. Due to his strong disapproval of the Peronist government, he resigned his university positi...
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Malek Bennabi
1905 - 1973 (68 years)
Malek Bennabi was an Algerian writer and philosopher, who wrote about human society, particularly Muslim society with a focus on the reasons behind the fall of Muslim civilization. According to Malek Bennabi, the lack of new ideas in Islamic thought emerged what he coined civilizational bankruptcy. He argued that in order to recover its former magnificence, Islamic society had to become an environment in which individuals felt empowered. In order to satisfy his spiritual and material needs, a Muslim needed to feel that his industry and creativity would find reward.
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Donald Davidson
1893 - 1968 (75 years)
Donald Grady Davidson was a U.S. poet, essayist, social and literary critic, and author. An English professor at Vanderbilt University from 1920 to 1965, he was a founding member of the Fugitives and the overlapping group Southern Agrarians, two literary groups based in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a supporter of segregation in the United States.
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Anton Mauve
1838 - 1888 (50 years)
Anthonij "Anton" Rudolf Mauve was a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. He signed his paintings 'A. Mauve' or with a monogrammed 'A.M.'. A master colorist, he was a very significant early influence on his cousin-in-law Vincent van Gogh.
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Herman of Carinthia
1100 - 1160 (60 years)
Herman of Carinthia , also called Hermanus Dalmata or Sclavus Dalmata, Secundus, by his own words born in the "heart of Istria", was a philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and translator of Arabic works into Latin.
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Hermann Oppenheim
1857 - 1919 (62 years)
Hermann Oppenheim was one of the leading neurologists in Germany. Life and work Oppenheim is the son of Juda Oppenheim , the long-time rabbi of the Warburg synagogue community , and his wife, Cäcilie, née Steeg .
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Johan Christian Dahl
1788 - 1857 (69 years)
Johan Christian Claussen Dahl , often known as or , was a Danish-Norwegian artist who is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway, the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting. He is often described as "the father of Norwegian landscape painting" and is regarded as the first Norwegian painter to reach a level of artistic accomplishment comparable to that attained by the greatest European artists of his day. He was also the first to acquire genuine fame and cultural renown abroad. As one critic has put it, "J.C. Dahl occupies a central position in Norwegian artistic life ...
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Giovanni Rasori
1766 - 1837 (71 years)
Giovanni Rasori was an Italian academic, physician and translator. Career Rasori was born in Parma. He began studying at the university of that city with results so brilliant that he deserved the interest of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma that allowed him to complete his studies at the University of Florence, Pavia, London and Paris, where he remained fascinated by the illuminist and pre-revolutionary climate of the time. In Parma, he was a pupil of the anatomist Flaminio Torrigiani.
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Jeffries Wyman
1814 - 1874 (60 years)
Jeffries Wyman was an American naturalist and anatomist, born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Wyman died in Bethlehem, New Hampshire of a pulmonary hemorrhage. Career He graduated Harvard College in 1833 and Harvard Medical School in 1837. He was made curator at Lowell Institute, Boston, in 1839 and remained affiliated there until 1842. Fees from Lowell Institute lectures enabled him to study in Europe, from 1841 to 1842, where he had the opportunity to study under anatomist Richard Owen in London. Upon his return to the United States, he had hoped to gain a professorship at Harvard College but the position went to Asa Gray.
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