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,
#16501
Edgar Meyer
1853 - 1925 (72 years)
Edgar Meyer was an Austrian painter who built himself a castle and engaged in politics. Life Professor Edgar Meyer was born on 5 September 1853 in Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria. His parents were Martin Meyer , and Theresia Megucher . He studied at the Akademie der Bildenkünste in Munich, and from 1874 to 1877 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under the direction of Eugen Dücker. He extended his studies by visiting Rome and Venice. Between 1880 and 1881, he was a member of an association of artists and academics called Malkasten in Düsseldorf. He lived in Weimar and was also Professor at Charlotte...
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Leopold Pfaundler
1839 - 1920 (81 years)
Leopold Pfaundler von Hadermur was an Austrian physicist and chemist born in Innsbruck. He was the father of pediatrician Meinhard von Pfaundler , and the father-in-law of pediatrician Theodor Escherich .
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Carl Reichenbach
1788 - 1869 (81 years)
Carl Ludwig von Reichenbach was a German chemist, geologist, metallurgist, naturalist, industrialist and philosopher, and a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He is best known for his discoveries of several chemical products of economic importance, extracted from tar, such as eupione, waxy paraffin, pittacal and phenol . He also dedicated himself in his last years to research an unproved field of energy combining electricity, magnetism and heat, emanating from all living things, which he called the Odic force.
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Francis Mitchell Caird
1853 - Present (173 years)
Francis Mitchell Caird FRCSEd was a Scottish surgeon who was an early advocate of Listerian antisepsis and then asepsis. He was a pioneer of gastrointestinal surgery. From 1908 to 1919 he was Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Edinburgh and was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1912 to 1914.
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Manuel Valls
1920 - 1984 (64 years)
Manuel Valls i Gorina was a Spanish composer, pianist, music critic, and music educator. Valls was born in Badalona. He was a first cousin of painter Xavier Valls, himself the father of former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. He studied at the University of Barcelona and the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu. At the Liceu he was mentored by Aita Donostia with whom he studied music theory, music composition, and orchestration. He became a successful composer writing symphonic works, chamber music, choral music, operas, art songs, and songs for solo piano. For many years he taught composition at the University of Barcelona and wrote music reviews for El País..
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Ivan Vyshenskyi
1550 - 1620 (70 years)
Ivan Vyshenskyi was a Ukrainian Orthodox monk and religious philosopher. He is considered to be an important polemicist of the time. Biography Not much is known about the life of Vyshenskyi. It is considered to be likely that he spent part of his youth in Lutsk and was connected with scholars from the Ostroh Academy. Within the years 1576–1580 he traveled to Mount Athos in Greece, which was the center of Orthodox monk culture. He stayed there until his death, with the exception of a short visit to Ukraine between 1604 and 1606 when he quarreled with members of the Lviv brotherhood.
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Robert Shaw
1927 - 1978 (51 years)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor, novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Beginning his career in theatre, Shaw joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre after the Second World War and appeared in productions of Macbeth, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, and other Shakespeare plays. With the Old Vic company , he continued primarily in Shakespearean roles. In 1959 he starred in a West End production of The Long and the Short and the Tall.
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Theodore Salisbury Woolsey Jr.
1880 - 1933 (53 years)
Theodore Salisbury Woolsey Jr. was a United States Forest Service employee, forestry researcher, professor at Yale University and author of books and articles related to forestry and forest regulation.
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Petrus Ryff
1552 - 1629 (77 years)
Petrus Ryff was a Swiss mathematician, physician and chronicler from Basel. Life and work Petrus Ryff was born in Basel, Switzerland. He was the son of Daniel Ryff , and Ursula Zimmermann, and the grandnephew of Basler chronicler Fridolin Ryff.
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Gerard Boate
1604 - 1650 (46 years)
Gerard Boate was a Dutch physician, known for his Natural History of Ireland. Life Boate was born Gerrit/Gerard Boot, in Gorinchem, son of the knight Godfried de Boot and of Christine van Loon. He entered the university of Leyden as a medical student and graduated there as doctor of medicine on 3 July 1628. His younger brother Arnold Boate followed him to study medicine in Leiden. Both moved to London around 1630, where their family had settled earlier. Gerard became employed as physician to Charles I of England and Arnold as physician to the Earl of Leicester. In 1631 in London Gerard married Catharina Menning with whom he had three children.
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August Eduard Martin
1847 - 1933 (86 years)
August Eduard Martin was a German obstetrician and gynecologist. His father, Eduard Arnold Martin , was also a specialist in OB/GYN. He studied medicine at the universities of Jena and Berlin, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution in 1870. He worked as an assistant to his father in Berlin, where he obtained his habilitation in 1876. In Berlin he opened a private clinic that became renowned for operative gynecology. From 1899 to 1907 he served as a full professor at the University of Greifswald, where he was also appointed head of the Frauenklinik.
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Jyeṣṭhadeva
1500 - 1575 (75 years)
Jyeṣṭhadeva was an astronomer-mathematician of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama . He is best known as the author of Yuktibhāṣā, a commentary in Malayalam of Tantrasamgraha by Nilakantha Somayaji . In Yuktibhāṣā, Jyeṣṭhadeva had given complete proofs and rationale of the statements in Tantrasamgraha. This was unusual for traditional Indian mathematicians of the time. The Yuktibhāṣā is now believed to contain the essential elements of calculus like Taylor and infinity series. Jyeṣṭhadeva also authored Drk-karana, a treatise on astronomical obser...
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William Temple
1555 - 1627 (72 years)
Sir William Temple was an English Ramist logician and fourth Provost of Trinity College Dublin. Early life William Temple was born the son of the Leicestershire man Anthony Temple, whose family name was said to descend from the Knight Templars, a once powerful monastic order during the Crusades, but which was outlawed by Pope Clement V. The rituals and the secrets of the order survived and many of the Knight Templars families came to prominence in 16th-century England when Protestantism was embraced. He was educated at Eton College and passed with a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, in 1573.
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Louis Théophile Joseph Landouzy
1845 - 1917 (72 years)
Louis Théophile Joseph Landouzy was a French neurologist from Reims, and whose father and grandfather were also physicians. He studied medicine in Reims and Paris, earning his doctorate in 1876. He spent much his career at the University of Paris, becoming a professor of therapy in 1893 and a dean of medicine in 1901.
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Richard Taylor
1805 - 1873 (68 years)
Richard Taylor was a Church Missionary Society missionary in New Zealand. He was born on 21 March 1805 at Letwell, Yorkshire, England, one of four children of Richard Taylor and his wife, Catherine Spencer.
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Ferdinand Dorsch
1875 - 1938 (63 years)
Ferdinand Franz Engelbert Dorsch was a German painter, graphic artist, and art Professor. Life and work While he was still very young, his family moved to Vienna, where he grew up. In 1891, thanks to a scholarship from the Principality of Reuss-Gera, he was able to study at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts with Leon Pohle and Ferdinand Pauwels. From 1895 to 1898, he worked with Gotthardt Kuehl, who became a lifelong friend and patron.
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Henry Dalton
1847 - Present (179 years)
Henry Clay Dalton was superintendent of the St. Louis City Hospital, Missouri, United States, from 1886 to 1892, and later a professor of abdominal and clinical surgery at Marion Sims College of Medicine . He is noted for being the first American to perform the suturing of the pericardium on record. Spanish surgeon Francisco Romero was documented with performing two successful surgeries in 1801 and French surgeon Dominique Jean Larrey was documented as successfully performing surgery on a woman's pericardium in 1810.
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Franz Volhard
1872 - 1950 (78 years)
Franz Volhard was a German internist born in Munich. Academic career He studied medicine at the universities of Bonn, Strasbourg, and Halle. As a student his instructors included Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger , Bernhard Naunyn , Oswald Schmiedeberg , and Joseph von Mering . From 1897 to 1905 he worked at the university medical clinic at Giessen under Franz Riegel . In 1905 he became head of the medical department at the city hospital in Dortmund, and in 1908 was named director of the Krankenanstalt in Mannheim, now University Hospital Mannheim. Afterwards, he served as a professor at the u...
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Raffaello Maffei
1451 - 1522 (71 years)
Raffaello Maffei was an Italian humanist, historian and theologian; and member of the Servite Order. He was a native of Volterra, Italy, and therefore is called Raphael Volaterranus or Raphael of Volterra; also Maffeus Volaterranus, or Raffaello Volterrano. Raffaello Maffei wrote the Commentaria Urbana, which was an encyclopedia divided into three parts.
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Johann Peter von Langer
1756 - 1824 (68 years)
Johann Peter Langer, after 1808, von Langer was a German painter, engraver and wallpaper designer. Biography His father, Anton Langer , was the gardener for the Hatzfeld family at their estate surrounding . He began his studies in 1775, under Lambert Krahe at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he won second prize at the Academy exhibition of 1776 and first prize, which came with a scholarship, in 1778.
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Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich
1712 - 1774 (62 years)
Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich was a German painter and art administrator. In his own works, he was adept at imitating many earlier artists, but never developed a style of his own. Early life Dietrich was born at Weimar, where he was brought up early to the profession of art by his father Johann Georg, then painter of miniatures to the court of the duke. Dietrich's sister was painter Maria Dorothea Dietrich.
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Johann Christoph Bohl
1703 - 1785 (82 years)
Johann Christoph Bohl or Bohlius or Bohle was a German physician. Life Born in Königsberg in 1703, Bohl enrolled at the local university on September 25, 1719, in order to study medicine, and continued his studies at the University of Leipzig. On September 20, 1725, he enrolled at the University of Leiden where he became a student of Herman Boerhaave, and a classmate of Albrecht von Haller. He graduated on 26 July 1726 presenting his dissertation titled "De morsu". He spent four years in Amsterdam working with the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch. He returned to Königsberg on August 15, 1730. ...
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Charles Russell Bardeen
1871 - 1935 (64 years)
Charles Russell Bardeen was an American physician and anatomist and the first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School. Early years Bardeen was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1871, and grew up in Syracuse, New York. His father, Charles William Bardeen, was an educator and publisher. He attended the Teichmann School in Leipzig, Germany, then completed his B.A. at Harvard University in 1893. By virtue of being in the first medical school class at Johns Hopkins University, and having a last name at the beginning of the alphabet, Bardeen was the first person ever to receive an M.D. fro...
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Edouard Zeckendorf
1901 - 1983 (82 years)
Edouard Zeckendorf was a Belgian doctor, army officer and amateur mathematician. In mathematics, he is best known for his work on Fibonacci numbers and in particular for proving Zeckendorf's theorem, though he published over 20 papers, mostly in number theory.
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Yu Zhengxie
1775 - 1840 (65 years)
Yu Zhengxie was a Qing dynasty scholar from Yi county in modern-day Anhui province. Along with his philological work, he was a noted critic of foot binding, female infanticide, and the cult of widow chastity.
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Gasparinus de Bergamo
1360 - 1431 (71 years)
#16527
Oenomaus of Gadara
Oenomaus of Gadara , was a Pagan Cynic philosopher. He is known principally for the long extracts of a work attacking oracles, which have been preserved among the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea. Life Oenomaus was a native of Gadara, which was then a partially Hellenized community in northern Jordan. He is listed in the Chronicle of Jerome as flourishing in the 224th Olympiad : "Plutarch of Chaeronea, Sextus, Agathobulus and Oenomaus are considered notable philosophers." He is also mentioned in The Chronography of George Synkellos associated with events from 109 to 120 AD "The philosopher Sex...
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Andrew Smith
1797 - 1872 (75 years)
Sir Andrew Smith was a British surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist. He is considered the father of zoology in South Africa having described many species across a wide range of groups in his major work, Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.
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Antoni Jurasz
1847 - 1923 (76 years)
Antoni Stanisław Jurasz was a Polish laryngologist who was a native of Spławie . He spent most of his life living and working in what was then the German Empire. He was the father of surgeon Antoni Tomasz Jurasz .
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Leo Riemens
1910 - 1985 (75 years)
Leonardus Antony Marinus Riemens was a Dutch musicologist and cultural journalist. He wrote a book about Maria Callas, and together with Karl-Josef Kutsch began a reference book about opera singers in 1962, which grew to Großes Sängerlexikon, the standard reference in the field.
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Julius Ludwig Ideler
1809 - 1842 (33 years)
Julius Ludwig Ideler was a German philologist and naturalist. He was the son of astronomer Christian Ludwig Ideler. From 1828 he studied medicine, mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Berlin, where in 1834 he obtained his habilitation for language research. He died on 17 July 1842 in Berlin, age 32.
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Hugh of Newcastle
Hugh of Newcastle was a Franciscan theologian and scholastic philosopher, a pupil of Duns Scotus. His origin in Newcastle-upon-Tyne is questioned; he may have been from another place called Neufchâtel.
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Carl Hummel
1821 - 1907 (86 years)
Carl Maria Nicolaus Hummel was a German landscape painter and etcher. Life and work He was the son of Austrian composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel and the opera singer Elisabeth Röckel. His studies began in 1841 under Friedrich Preller at the Fürstliche freie Zeichenschule Weimar. After graduating, he made several study trips to England, Norway, Rügen and the Tyrol, lingering in Italy and Sicily until 1846.
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Mikhail Averbakh
1872 - 1944 (72 years)
Mikhail Iosifovich Averbakh was a Russian Empire and Soviet ophthalmologist, Doctor of Medicine , Full Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR , founder and first director of the Helmholtz Central Institute of Ophthalmology.
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Robert Swinhoe
1836 - 1877 (41 years)
Robert Swinhoe FRS was an English diplomat and naturalist who worked as a Consul in Taiwan . He catalogued many Southeast Asian birds, and several, such as Swinhoe's pheasant, are named after him. Biography Swinhoe was born in colonial-era Kolkata where his father, who came from a Northumberland family, was a lawyer. There is no clear record of the date of his arrival in England, but it is known he attended the University of London, and in 1854 joined the China consular corps.
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Charles Alston
1685 - 1760 (75 years)
Charles Alston was a Scottish botanist. Career Alston was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, and was apparently raised by the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton. In 1715 he went to Leyden to study under the Dutch physician Hermann Boerhaave. On his return to Scotland he became lecturer in materia medica and botany at Edinburgh and also superintendent of the botanical gardens. He was a critic of Linnaeus's system of plant classification.
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Cornelius L. Keedy
1834 - 1911 (77 years)
Cornelius Luther Keedy was an American pastor, physician, and academic administrator. He served as owner and president of Kee Mar College for 25 years. Life Keedy was born March 28, 1834, in Rohrersville, Maryland to Daniel and Sophia Miller Keedy. He was admitted to Pennsylvania College and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Keedy was ordained to preach by the East Pennsylvania Lutheran Synod. He was licensed in 1859. He was pastor of Lutheran churches at various times at Johnstown, Riegelsville, Barren Hill, and Waynesboro. In 1860, Keedy married Elizabeth Wyatt Marbourg, the daughter of a Alexander Marbourg, a Johnstown merchant.
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Jan Helcelet
1812 - 1876 (64 years)
Jan Helcelet was a Czech naturalist, journalist, revolutionary and politician. He was one of the leaders of the Old Czech Party in Moravia. Biography His family originated in the Swiss city of Porrentruy, where their name was spelled "Hölzlet". He attended the grammar schools in Brno and, after graduation, following family tradition, trained as a miller. After extensive travels throughout Silesia and Moravia, he entered the University of Vienna, where he studied medicine from 1834 to 1838, then spent a year at the University of Padua.
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Dionysius of Lamptrai
Dionysius of Lamptrai was an Epicurean philosopher, who succeeded Polystratus as the head of the Epicurean school at Athens . He died and was succeeded by Basilides.
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Hieronymus Medices
1569 - 1622 (53 years)
Hieronymus Medices , was a Roman Catholic philosopher and interpreter of the works of Thomas Aquinas; b. 1569 in Camerino, Umbria, the origin of his surname de Medicis a Camerino. He was clothed with the Dominican habit at Ancona. He first distinguished himself as professor of philosophy and theology in various houses of the Province of Lombardy, whence he was advanced to a professorship in the more important theological school at Bologna. He was approved by the general chapter of his Order held in Paris, 1611, and raised to the mastership and doctorate. He was then performing the duties of ge...
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Alonso Gutiérrez
1504 - 1584 (80 years)
Alonso Gutiérrez, also known as Alonso de la Vera Cruz was a Spanish philosopher and Augustinian, who took the religious name da Vera Cruz. He became a major intellectual figure in New Spain, where he worked from 1535 to 1562, and from 1573 to his death, and in the history of Mexico.
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Carl Gussenbauer
1842 - 1903 (61 years)
Carl Gussenbauer was an Austrian surgeon. Biography Gussenbauer was a native of Obervellach. He received his medical doctorate in 1867 from the University of Vienna, and after graduation worked as an assistant to Theodor Billroth. Later on, he served as professor at the universities of Liège and Prague . In 1894 he returned to Vienna, where he succeeded Billroth as director of the second surgical university clinic.
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Frederick Dickins
1838 - 1915 (77 years)
Frederick Victor Dickins was a British naval surgeon, barrister, orientalist and university administrator. He is now remembered as a translator of Japanese literature. Life Dickins was born at 44 Connaught Terrace in Paddington, London to Thomas Dickins and Jane Dickins. He first visited Japan as a medical officer on HMS Coromandel in 1863. For three years he was at Yokohama in charge of medical facilities there. During this time he was in contact with Japanese doctors and culture, and also Ernest Satow who became a lifelong correspondent and friend. He began publishing English translations of Japanese classical works at this time.
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Seeley G. Mudd
1895 - 1968 (73 years)
Seeley Greenleaf Mudd, M.D. was an American physician, professor, and major philanthropist to academic institutions. Early life Mudd was born in Denver, Colorado in 1895, and was the son of noted mining engineer Seeley W. Mudd and Della Mullock Mudd. His brother, Harvey Seeley Mudd, was a miner, businessman, and philanthropist. He was eight when his family moved to Los Angeles, California. He attended Stanford University for two years before transferring to Columbia University, where he received a B.A in 1917 and a B.S. degree in mining engineering. He later attended Harvard Medical School where he received his M.D.
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Miyoshi Kiyotsura
847 - 919 (72 years)
Miyoshi Kiyotsura was a Japanese Confucian scholar, now most notable for his opprobrium of Buddhism. Life Kiyotsura was a scholar and professor of literature, eventually becoming the Daigaku-no-kami and writing a biography of Fujiwara no Yasunori. He also enjoyed a distinguished career in politics, as both a provincial governor and later as the State Chancellor, dying while holding this office. In 914, Kiyotsura authored the Memorial of Opinion , the purpose of which was to make the Emperor Daigo aware of the deterioration of both the morality of the Imperial Court's nobles and of public finances.
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Moritz Kaposi
1837 - 1902 (65 years)
Moritz Kaposi was a physician and dermatologist from the Austro-Hungarian Empire who discovered the skin tumor that received his name . Biography Early life and name Born in Kaposvár, Hungary, Austrian Empire, to a Jewish family, originally his surname was Kohn; but, with his conversion to the Catholic faith, he changed it to Kaposi in 1871, in reference to his town of birth. One purported reason behind this is that he wanted to marry a daughter of current dermatology chairman, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, and advance in the society, which he could not have done being of Jewish faith. This se...
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Ferdinand Gottlieb von Gmelin
1782 - 1848 (66 years)
Ferdinand Gottlieb von Gmelin was a German physician. He was a nephew of botanist Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin . In 1802 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Tübingen, then following graduation, took a study trip through Germany, Italy and France. In 1805 he became an associate professor, and from 1810 onward, was a full professor of natural sciences and medicine at Tübingen. In 1823 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown.
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Frieda Fraser
1899 - 1994 (95 years)
Frieda Fraser was a Canadian physician, scientist and academic who worked in infectious disease, including research on scarlet fever and tuberculosis. After finishing her medical studies at the University of Toronto in 1925, she completed a two-year internship in the United States, studying and working in Manhattan and Philadelphia. Afterward, she conducted research in the Connaught Laboratories concentrating on infectious disease, making important contributions in the pre-penicillin age to isolation of the strains of streptococci likely to lead to disease. From 1928, she lectured in the Dep...
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John Christopher Schwab
1865 - 1916 (51 years)
John Christopher Schwab was a librarian and a historian of political economy. He was the son of Gustav Schwab, of the firm of Oelrichs & Company, and was named for his great-grandfather, a privy counsellor of Stuttgart, Germany. His paternal grandparents were Gustav Schwab, a German poet of note, and Sophie Schwab. His mother was Catherine Elizabeth, daughter of Laurence Henry and Henrietta Margaretta Von Post. Through her, he was descended from Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, the chief founder of the Lutheran Church in America.
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William Weston Patton
1821 - 1889 (68 years)
William Weston Patton , was an abolitionist, academic administrator, and scholar. He served as the fifth president of Howard University, and one of the contributors to the words of "John Brown's Body". He was the son of Rev. William Patton and the grandson of Anglo-Irish Congregationalist immigrant and Revolutionary War soldier Major Robert Patton.
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