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,
#16551
Ali ibn Ridwan
988 - 1061 (73 years)
Abu'l Hassan Ali ibn Ridwan Al-Misri was an Arab of Egyptian origin who was a physician, astrologer and astronomer, born in Giza. He was a commentator on ancient Greek medicine, and in particular on Galen; his commentary on Galen's Ars Parva was translated by Gerardo Cremonese. However, he is better known for providing the most detailed description of the supernova now known as SN 1006, the brightest stellar event in recorded history, which he observed in the year 1006. This was written in a commentary on Ptolemy's work Tetrabiblos.
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Firmin Abauzit
1679 - 1767 (88 years)
Firmin Abauzit was a French scholar who worked on physics, theology and philosophy, and served as librarian in Geneva during his final 40 years. Abauzit is also notable for proofreading or correcting the writings of Isaac Newton and other scholars.
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David the Invincible
600 - 600 (0 years)
David the Invincible was a neoplatonist philosopher of the 6th century. David was a pupil of Olympiodorus in Alexandria. His works, originally written in Greek, survive in medieval Armenian translation, and he was given the byname of "invincible" in the Armenian tradition, which considers David himself an Armenian.
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William of Saint-Amour
1202 - 1272 (70 years)
William of Saint-Amour was an early figure in thirteenth-century scholasticism, chiefly notable for his withering attacks on the friars. Biography William was born in Saint-Amour, Jura, then part of the Duchy of Burgundy, in c. 1200. Under the patronage of the Count of Savoy, he was active at the University of Paris from the 1220s, becoming master of arts in 1228. From a reference in a letter by Gregory IX, it is evident that he had become a doctor of Canon law by 1238. By 1250 he had been made master of theology.
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Walda Heywat
1599 - 1692 (93 years)
Walda Heywat , also called Mitku, was an Ethiopian philosopher. He was the beloved student of Zara Yacob, who wrote a well regarded work on the nature of truth and reason. Heywat took his mentor’s work and expanded upon it, turning it into a more practical guide
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Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
1900 - 1986 (86 years)
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov was a Bulgarian philosopher, pedagogue, mystic, and esotericist. A leading 20th-century teacher of Western Esotericism in Europe, he was a disciple of Peter Deunov , the founder of the Universal White Brotherhood.
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Lajos Fülep
1885 - 1970 (85 years)
Lajos Fülep was a Hungarian art historian, philosopher of art, pastor of the Reformed Church in Hungary and university professor. Life and career He was born in to the family of a veterinarian. Fülep received his primary education in the countryside and later returned to Budapest for university studies. During this period he wrote on art and history for various newspaper such as Népszava which made him well known in intellectual circles.
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William Herbert Sweet
#16559
Pierre Scheuer
1872 - 1957 (85 years)
Pierre Scheuer was a Belgian Jesuit priest, metaphysician and mystic. Life and works Scheuer made his first profession in the Society of Jesus in 1901. In 1916 he completed his formation and began teaching.
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Peter Glassen
1920 - 1986 (66 years)
Peter Glassen was a professor of philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1949 until his death in 1986. He was an analytic moral philosopher, publishing several articles in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was also known for his arguments against metaphysical materialism, and spent a year in the psychology department at the University of Saskatchewan.
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Louis Eugène Marie Bautain
1796 - 1867 (71 years)
Louis Eugène Marie Bautain , was a French philosopher and theologian. Life Bautain was born at Paris. At the École Normale he came under the influence of Victor Cousin. In 1816 he adopted the profession of higher teaching, and was soon after called to the chair of philosophy in the University of Strasbourg. He held this position for many years, and gave a parallel course of lectures as professor of the literary faculty in the same city. The reaction against speculative philosophy, which carried away De Maistre and Lamennais, influenced him also.
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Huberto Rohden
1893 - 1981 (88 years)
Huberto Rohden Sobrinho, known as Huberto Rohden, was a Brazilian philosopher, educator and theologist. He was born in São Ludgero. A pioneer of transcendentalism in Brazil who wrote more than 100 works, where he taught ecumenical lecture of spiritual approach towards Education, Philosophy, Science, emphasizing self-knowledge.
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Momtazuddin Ahmed
1903 - 1971 (68 years)
Momtazuddin Ahmed was a Bangladeshi philosopher and educationist. Early life and education Ahmed was born to a Bengali Muslim family from Brahmanbaria in the erstwhile Tippera District of eastern Bengal. He studied in Dhaka University and obtained MA in philosophy in 1927. In 1937 he earned his PhD degree in philosophy from University College London. His research for dissertation was on metaphysics and logic under the advisers John Cook Wilson and Bradley Stamp.
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Louis Claude de Saint-Martin
1743 - 1803 (60 years)
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin was a French philosopher, known as le philosophe inconnu , the name under which his works were published; he was an influential of the mystic and human mind evolution and became the inspiration for the founding of the Martinist Order.
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Hans Eppinger
1879 - 1946 (67 years)
Hans Eppinger Jr. was an Austrian physician of part-Jewish descent who performed experiments upon concentration camp prisoners. Early years Hans Eppinger was born in Prague, the son of the physician Professor Hans Eppinger [Sr] [1848-1916] a son of Heinrich Eppinger , notary and chancellery director in the monastery of Braunau in Bohemia and his wife Aloisia Salomon. Hans Eppinger Sr married Georgine Zetter in Klagenfurt and had two daughters and a son, Hans Eppinger junior. Hans Eppinger Jr received an education in Graz and Strasbourg. In 1903, he became a medical doctor in Graz, working at a medical clinic.
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Piotr Chmielowski
1848 - 1904 (56 years)
Piotr Chmielowski was a Polish philosopher, literary historian and critic. Life After studying at Warsaw's Main School in Russian Poland and at Leipzig University , Chmielowski taught till 1898 in Warsaw private schools. From 1903 he was a professor at Lwów University in Austrian Poland.
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Teo Otto
1904 - 1968 (64 years)
Teo Otto was a Swiss stage designer. He trained in Kassel and Paris and in 1926 taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar. In 1928 he became an assistant at the Berlin Staatsoper. Following the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany, he returned to Switzerland where he was resident designer at the Zürich Schauspielhaus for 25 years.
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Conrad Gessner
1516 - 1565 (49 years)
Conrad Gessner was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his talents and supported him through university, where he studied classical languages, theology and medicine. He became Zürich's city physician, but was able to spend much of his time on collecting, research and writing. Gessner compiled monumental works on bibliography and zoology and was working on a major botanical text at the time of his death from plague at the age of 49. He is regarded as the father of modern scientific bibliography, zoology and botany.
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Eugène Boudin
1824 - 1898 (74 years)
Eugène Louis Boudin was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. His pastels, summary and economic, garnered the splendid eulogy of Baudelaire; and Corot called him the "King of the skies".
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Alf Ahlberg
1892 - 1979 (87 years)
Alf Ahlberg was a Swedish academic, writer, humanist and philosopher. Early life and education Ahlberg was born in 1892 in Laholm, Sweden, the son of Axel Ahlberg and Anna Lindskog, and the brother of the architect Hakon Ahlberg. He studied at Lund University and came to know in particular Sigfrid Lindstrom and Gunnar Aspelin. In the summer, he stayed in Lund to read Schopenhauer in the botanical garden of Lund at the foot of Aagardhs statue. He earned a Master of Business Administration in 1911 and his PhD in 1917 with the thesis, "Material problems of Platonism: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, ...
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René Maheu
1905 - 1975 (70 years)
René Gabriel Eugene Maheu was a French professor of philosophy and the sixth Director-General of UNESCO. He was a close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. He was head of the French Information Office in London and after teaching in Morocco during World War II, he occupied a managerial post in the France-Afrique press agency in Algiers, before joining the Executive Office of the Resident-General in Rabat. In 1946 he entered UNESCO as Chief, Division of Free Flow of Information. In 1949 Jaime Torres Bodet appointed him Director of his Executive Office. In 1954 he became Assistant Director-General and was UNESCO's representative at UN Headquarters from 1955 to 1958.
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Pierre-Sylvain Régis
1632 - 1707 (75 years)
Pierre Sylvain Régis was a French Cartesian philosopher and a prominent critic of Spinoza. Known as a philosopher, he was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences in 1699. Life Born at La Salvetat de Blanquefort, near Agen, he had a classical education, and then went to Paris. He attended the lectures of Jacques Rohault, and became a follower of the philosophy of René Descartes. He then taught the principles of Cartesianism at Toulouse , Aigues-Mortes, Montpellier , and Paris . The prohibition issued against the teaching of Cartesianism put an end to his lectures.
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Shao Yong
1011 - 1077 (66 years)
Shao Yong , courtesy name Yaofu , named Shào Kāngjié was a Chinese cosmologist, historian, philosopher, and poet who greatly influenced the development of Neo-Confucianism across China during the Song dynasty.
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Hugo Junkers
1859 - 1935 (76 years)
Hugo Junkers was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG , was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger- and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and around the world.
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Augustus John
1878 - 1961 (83 years)
Augustus Edwin John was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sargent and Charles Wellington Furse "was over. The age of Augustus John was dawning." He was the younger brother of the painter Gwen John.
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Thomas Beddoes
1760 - 1808 (48 years)
Thomas Beddoes was an English physician and scientific writer. He was born in Shifnal, Shropshire and died in Bristol fifteen years after opening his medical practice there. He was a reforming practitioner and teacher of medicine, and an associate of leading scientific figures. He worked to treat tuberculosis.
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John Wyndham
1903 - 1969 (66 years)
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes. Some of his works were set in post-apocalyptic landscapes. His best known works include The Day of the Triffids , filmed in 1962, and The Midwich Cuckoos , which was filmed in 1960 as Village of the Damned, in 1995 under the same title, and again in 2022 in Sky Max under its original title.
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Karl Rudolf Sohn
1845 - 1908 (63 years)
Karl Friedrich Rudolf Sohn was a German portrait painter in the Academic style. Biography His father was the landscape painter, Karl Ferdinand Sohn. After graduating from the , he was drafted for military service, but was rejected for "physical weaknesses". In 1863, he began studying engineering at the Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe. He completed his studies in 1866, but never practiced as an engineer. He returned to Düsseldorf and, shortly before his father's death, he began to study art with him. From 1867 to 1870, he was a student at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied history painting with Karl Müller and figure painting with Julius Roeting.
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Félicien Challaye
1875 - 1967 (92 years)
Félicien Robert Challaye was a French philosopher, anti-colonialist and human rights activist. Early life Félicien Challaye was born on 1 November 1875 in Lyon, France. He earned the agrégation in Philosophy in 1897.
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James Edwin Creighton
1861 - 1924 (63 years)
James Edwin Creighton was an American idealist philosopher, Cornell academic, founding president of the American Philosophical Association, and president of the American Philosophical Society. Biography Creighton graduated as a Bachelor of Arts from Dalhousie College, Halifax, in 1887, and became a student at the foreign universities of Leipzig and Berlin. Later he came to Cornell University as a graduate student, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy there in 1892. From 1889 to 1892, Dean Creighton was an instructor in philosophy at Cornell, being advanced during the three following years to an associate professorship.
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Ralph Tyler Flewelling
1871 - 1960 (89 years)
Ralph Tyler Flewelling was an American philosopher. Biography Early life He was born on November 23, 1871, near De Witt, Michigan, and educated at the University of Michigan, Alma College . the Garrett Biblical Institute , and Boston University.
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Georg Ernst Stahl
1659 - 1734 (75 years)
Georg Ernst Stahl was a German chemist, physician and philosopher. He was a supporter of vitalism, and until the late 18th century his works on phlogiston were accepted as an explanation for chemical processes.
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Karl von Prantl
1820 - 1888 (68 years)
Karl von Prantl was a German philosopher and philologist. Biography He was born at Landsberg on the Lech. In 1843 he became doctor of philosophy at Munich Observatory, where he was made professor in 1859. He was also a member of the Academies of Berlin and Munich. Strongly in agreement with the Hegelian tradition, he defended and amplified it in Die gegenwärtige Aufgabe der Philosophie and Verstehen und Beurteilen .
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Kurt J Isselbacher
#16585
Jerzy Żuławski
1874 - 1915 (41 years)
Jerzy Żuławski was a Polish literary figure, philosopher, translator, alpinist and patriot whose best-known work is the science-fiction epic, Trylogia Księżycowa , written between 1901 and 1911.
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Nicholas Wiseman
1802 - 1865 (63 years)
Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman was a Cardinal of the Catholic Church who became the first Archbishop of Westminster upon the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850.
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Heinrich Ritter
1791 - 1869 (78 years)
Heinrich August Ritter was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was born in Zerbst, and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Göttingen and Berlin until 1815. In 1824 he became an associate professor of philosophy at Berlin, later transferring to Kiel, where he occupied the chair of philosophy from 1833 to 1837. He then accepted a similar position at the University of Göttingen, where he remained till his death. Friedrich Schleiermacher was a major influence in his thinking.
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Lacydes of Cyrene
300 BC - 205 BC (95 years)
Lacydes of Cyrene , Academic Skeptic philosopher, was head of the Platonic Academy at Athens in succession to Arcesilaus from 241 BC. He was forced to resign c. 215 BC due to ill-health, and he died c. 205 BC. Nothing survives of his works.
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Pope Pius V
1504 - 1572 (68 years)
Pope Pius V, OP , born Antonio Ghislieri , was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 January 1566 to his death, in May 1572. He is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman Rite within the Latin Church, known as Tridentine mass. Pius V declared Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church.
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Christian Gottfried Schütz
1747 - 1832 (85 years)
Christian Gottfried Schütz was a German classical scholar and humanist, known for his contributions in philosophy and philology, and for his work as an academic and literary editor and publisher. Life Christian Gottfried Schütz was the eldest of eight recorded children born to the Protestant minister Gottfried Schütz and his wife, in the village of Dederstädt, a couple of hours walk to the south of Eisleben, in an area administered, under a slightly convoluted arrangement by Saxony. Shortly after his birth his father was appointed to a senior preaching position in nearby Aschersleben, to where the family relocated, and it was here that the boy received his early schooling.
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Johann Joachim Lange
1670 - 1744 (74 years)
Johann Joachim Lange was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher. Lange was born in Gardelegen and educated in Leipzig, Erfurt and Halle. He was influenced by Christian Thomasius and the pietist August Hermann Francke. He became a professor of theology at Halle in 1709, and opposed the philosophy of Christian Wolff. He died in Halle on 7 May 1744.
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Henry Horace Williams
1858 - 1940 (82 years)
Henry Horace Williams was a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1890 to 1940. From 1921 to 1935 he was a Kenan Professor of philosophy at UNC, and from 1936-1940 he was a professor emeritus. After being invited to teach at UNC, he became the first chair of the Mental and Moral Sciences Department, which is today better known as the Department of Philosophy.
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Alexander Mitscherlich
1908 - 1982 (74 years)
Alexander Harbord Mitscherlich was a German psychoanalyst. Life Alexander Mitscherlich grew up in Munich and took up studies in history, the history of art, and philosophy at Munich University. When Mitscherlich's Jewish-born dissertation thesis supervisor Paul Joachimsen died, in 1932, his chair was passed to an antisemite, Karl Alexander von Müller, who declined to take over the dissertation projects begun by his predecessor. This is why Mitscherlich left Munich for Berlin in order to open a bookstore there, where he sold writings critical of the current developments in Germany, bringing him to the attention of the SA.
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Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge
1867 - 1940 (73 years)
Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge was a teacher at various American universities. Woodbridge considered himself a naïve realist, deeply impressed with Santayana. He spent much of his career as a dean at Columbia University, where a residence hall and a professorship in philosophy are named in his honor. He was editor of the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. David and Lillian Swenson, translators of some of the works of Søren Kierkegaard, dedicated Concluding Unscientific Postscript, to Professor Woodbridge.
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Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben
1744 - 1777 (33 years)
Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben was a German naturalist from Quedlinburg. Erxleben was professor of physics and veterinary medicine at the University of Göttingen. He wrote Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre and Systema regni animalis . He was founder of the first and oldest academic veterinary school in Germany, the Institute of Veterinary Medicine, in 1771.
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Marie Laurencin
1883 - 1956 (73 years)
Marie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde as a member of the Cubists associated with the Section d'Or. Biography Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres. She then returned to Paris and continued her art education at the Académie Humbert, where she changed her focus to oil painting. During the early years of the 20th century, Laurencin was an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde. A member of both the circle of Pablo P...
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Nasreddin
1208 - 1284 (76 years)
Nasreddin or Nasreddin Hodja is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from the Balkans to China, and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. There are frequent statements about his existence in real life and even archaeological evidence in specific places, for example, a tombstone in the city of Akşehir, Turkey. At the moment, there is no confirmed information or serious grounds to talk about the specific date or place of Nasreddin's birth, so the question of the reality of his existence remains open.
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Karl Friedrich Köppen
1808 - 1863 (55 years)
Karl Friedrich Köppen was a German teacher and political journalist. He was one of the Young Hegelians. Life Köppen was from a born in a pastor's family in Altmark. He studied theology at the University of Berlin from 1827 to 1831, but later turned to religio-critical Hegelianism. After his studies and military service in 1833, he taught at the secondary school Dorotheenstädtischer. In 1837, he met Karl Marx, with whom he developed a close friendship.
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Huang Zongxi
1610 - 1695 (85 years)
Huang Zongxi , courtesy name Taichong , was a Chinese naturalist, political theorist, philosopher, and soldier during the latter part of the Ming dynasty into the early part of the Qing. Biography Huang was a native of Yuyao in Zhejiang province. He was the son of Huang Zunsu, an official of the Ming court and an adherent of the Donglin Movement who died in prison after opposing the powerful eunuch Wei Zhongxian.
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Thomas Munro
1897 - 1974 (77 years)
Thomas Munro was an American philosopher of art and professor of art history at Western Reserve University. He served as Curator of Education for the Cleveland Museum of Art for 36 years . Biography Munro was educated at Amherst College and received his B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University, where he was influenced by philosopher and educator John Dewey. Munro served as a sergeant with the psychological services of the Army Medical Corps before returning to Columbia to get his Ph.D. in 1920.
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