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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#17251
Egon Friedell
1878 - 1938 (60 years)
Egon Friedell was a prominent Austrian cultural historian, playwright, actor and Kabarett performer, journalist and theatre critic. Friedell has been described as a polymath. Before 1916, he was also known by his pen name Egon Friedländer.
Go to Profile#17252
Joseph Bell
1837 - 1911 (74 years)
Joseph Bell FRCSE was a Scottish surgeon and lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in the 19th century. He is best known as an inspiration for the literary character, Sherlock Holmes.
Go to Profile#17253
Grigore Tocilescu
1850 - 1909 (59 years)
Grigore George Tocilescu was a Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, member of Romanian Academy. He was a professor of ancient history at the University of Bucharest, author of Marele Dicționar Geografic al României , general secretary of the Romanian Ministry of Teaching and multiple times senator, with conservative political views. Tocilescu is one of the first Romanian historians who focused on the study of civilizations in ancient Dacia. As a folklorist he collaborated on the publication of a folkloristics compendium.
Go to Profile#17254
Stjepan Gradić
1613 - 1683 (70 years)
Stjepan Gradić, also known as Stefano Gradi was a polymath, philosopher, scientist and a patrician of the Republic of Ragusa. Biography Stijepo's parents were Miho Gradi and Marija Benessa . He was born in Ragusa , Republic of Ragusa, where he was first schooled. He moved to Rome by the order of his uncle, a vicar general of Ragusa, Petar Benessa. In Rome and in Bologna he studied philosophy, theology, law and mathematics. His mathematics professor in Rome was Bonaventura Cavalieri and in Bologna his mathematics professor was Benedetto Castelli. He became a priest in 1643, the year he returned home and soon became abbot of the Benedictine abbey of St.
Go to Profile#17255
Eleonora Ziemięcka
1819 - 1869 (50 years)
Eleonora Ziemięcka - was a Polish philosopher and publicist. She is often considered to be Poland's first female philosopher. She wrote Thoughts on the Education of Women, and edited the journal Pielgrzym . She has been described as an "anti-Hegelian" and a conservative.
Go to Profile#17256
Jacques Maroger
1884 - 1962 (78 years)
Jacques Maroger was a painter and the technical director of the Louvre Museum's laboratory in Paris. He devoted his life to understanding the oil-based media of the Old Masters. He emigrated to the United States in 1939 and became an influential teacher. His book, The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the Masters, has been criticized by some modern writers on painting who say that the painting medium Maroger promoted is unsound.
Go to Profile#17257
Silas Weir Mitchell
1829 - 1914 (85 years)
Silas Weir Mitchell was an American physician, scientist, novelist, and poet. He is considered the father of medical neurology, and he discovered causalgia and erythromelalgia, and pioneered the rest cure.
Go to Profile#17258
Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi
1270 - 1340 (70 years)
Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi was a Jewish poet, physician, and philosopher; born at Béziers . His Occitan name was En Bonet, which probably corresponds to the Hebrew name Tobiah; and, according to the practices of Hachmei Provence, he occasionally joined to his name that of his father, Abraham Bedersi.
Go to Profile#17259
Liu Shipei
1884 - 1919 (35 years)
Liu Shipei was a philologist, Chinese anarchist, and revolutionary activist. While he and his wife, He Zhen were in exile in Japan he became a fervent nationalist. He then saw the doctrines of anarchism as offering a path to social revolution while remaining intent on preserving China's cultural essence, especially Taoism and the records of China's pre-imperial history. In 1909 he unexpectedly returned to China to work for the Manchu Qing government and after 1911 supported Yuan Shikai's attempt to become emperor. After Yuan's death in 1916 he joined the faculty at Peking University. He died ...
Go to Profile#17260
Frank Hugh Foster
1851 - 1935 (84 years)
Frank Hugh Foster, Ph. D., D.D. was an American clergyman of the Congregational church. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard in 1873. In his activities, he was assistant professor of mathematics in the United States Naval Academy, graduated at Andover Theological Seminary , served as pastor at North Reading, Massachusetts, studied at Göttingen and Leipzig , and from 1882 to 1884 was professor of philosophy in Middlebury College. In 1884 he was appointed professor of Church history in the Oberlin Theological Seminary; from 1892 to 1902, he served at Berkeley, ...
Go to Profile#17261
Friedrich Calker
1790 - 1870 (80 years)
Friedrich Calker , German philosopher, was educated in Jena. For a short time, he was a lecturer in Berlin. In 1818, he was called to an extraordinary professorship in the newly founded University of Bonn, becoming an ordinary professor in 1826. He substantially echoed the ideas of his teacher Jakob Fries. His two major works are Urgesetzlehre des Wahren, Guten und Schönen und Denklehre .
Go to Profile#17262
Charles Morris, Baron Morris of Grasmere
1898 - 1990 (92 years)
Charles Richard Morris, Baron Morris of Grasmere, was an academic philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds. Early life and education Morris was born in Sutton Valence, Kent. He was educated at Tonbridge School and at Trinity College, Oxford from which he received a BA, later converted to MA.
Go to Profile#17263
Ernst Hallier
1831 - 1904 (73 years)
Ernst Hallier was a German botanist and mycologist. As a young man he was trained as a gardener, later studying botany at the universities of Berlin, Jena and Göttingen. From 1858 he served as an instructor at the Pharmaceutical Institute in Jena, where in 1860 he obtained his habilitation. In 1865 he became an associate professor, resigning his professorship 19 years later .
Go to Profile#17264
William Gilbert
1544 - 1603 (59 years)
#17265
Arnaldus de Villa Nova
1240 - 1311 (71 years)
Arnaldus de Villa Nova was a physician and a religious reformer. He is credited with translating a number of medical texts from Arabic, including works by Ibn Sina Avicenna, Abu-l-Salt, and Galen. Biography
Go to Profile#17266
Hermodorus
400 BC - Present (2426 years)
Hermodorus , an Ephesian who lived in the 4th century BC, was an original member of Plato's Academy and was present at the death of Socrates. He is said to have circulated the works of Plato , and to have sold them in Sicily. Hermodorus himself appears to have been a philosopher, for we know the titles of two works that were attributed to him: On Plato , and On Mathematics .
Go to Profile#17267
Giovanni Battista Doni
1595 - 1647 (52 years)
Giovanni Battista Doni was an Italian musicologist and humanist who made an extensive study of ancient music. He is known, among other works, for having renamed the note "Ut" to "Do" in solfège. In his day, he was a well-known lawyer, classical scholar, critic and musical theorist, and from 1640 to 1647 he occupied the Chair of Eloquence at the University of Florence and was a prominent member of the city's Accademia della Crusca, the premier academic philologic society of Florence and Italy at the time. They had published the first Italian-language dictionary and grammar in 1612.
Go to Profile#17268
Helen Wodehouse
1880 - 1964 (84 years)
Helen Marion Wodehouse was a British philosopher and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. She was also the first woman to hold a professorial chair at the University of Bristol. Life and education Helen Wodehouse was born on 12 October 1880 in Bratton Fleming, North Devon. She was one of four children of the Reverend Philip John Wodehouse , and his wife, Marion Bryan Wallas, meaning Helen and P.G. were cousins. She was educated at Notting Hill High School in London, where her aunt Katharine Wallas was teaching mathematics and in 1898 she won an exhibition to Girton College, Cambridge to read mathematics.
Go to Profile#17269
Peter of Auvergne
1240 - 1304 (64 years)
Peter of Auvergne was a French philosopher and theologian. Life He was a canon of Paris; some biographers have thought that he was Bishop of Clermont, because a Bull of Boniface VIII of the year 1296 names as canon of Paris a certain Peter of Croc , already canon of Clermont; but it is more likely that they are distinct. Peter of Auvergne was in Paris in 1301, and, according to several accounts, was a pupil of Thomas Aquinas. In 1279, while the various nations of the University of Paris were quarrelling about the rectorship, Simon de Brion, papal legate, appointed Peter of Auvergne to that of...
Go to Profile#17270
Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl
1823 - 1897 (74 years)
Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl was a German professor, journalist, novelist, and folklorist. Academic career Riehl was born in Biebrich in the Duchy of Nassau and died in Munich. Riehl was born into a settled middle-class background, was a professor at the University of Munich, and later in life a curator of Bavarian antiquities.
Go to Profile#17271
Antoine Frédéric Spring
1814 - 1872 (58 years)
Antoine Frédéric Spring was a German-born, Belgian physician and botanist. He studied botany and medicine at the University of Munich, obtaining his PhD in 1835 and his medical doctorate during the following year. From 1839 to 1872 he was a professor at the University of Liège, initially in the fields of physiology and anatomy, later teaching classes in pathology and internal medicine.
Go to Profile#17272
Barry Lewis Zaret
#17273
Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer
1858 - 1945 (87 years)
Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer FRS was a German physician and bacteriologist. Pfeiffer was born to Otto Pfeiffer, a German pastor of the local Evangelical parish, and Natalia née Jüttner, in Treustädt, Province of Posen , and died in Bad Landeck .
Go to Profile#17274
Karl, Freiherr von Prel
1839 - 1899 (60 years)
Karl Ludwig August Friedrich Maximilian Alfred, Freiherr von Prel, or, in French, Carl Ludwig August Friedrich Maximilian Alfred, Baron du Prel , was a German philosopher and writer on mysticism and the occult. In the literature it has become customary to refer to him under various abbreviated French forms of his name, usually "Carl Du Prel," "Baron Carl Du Prel," or simply "Baron Du Prel."
Go to Profile#17275
Johann Nepomuk Oischinger
1817 - 1876 (59 years)
Johann Nepomuk Paul Oischinger was a German Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher who was a native of Witzmannsberg, Bavaria. Oischinger studied theology and philosophy at the University of Munich, where he had as instructors Franz Xaver von Baader , Joseph Görres , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Ignaz von Döllinger , Heinrich Klee , Johann Adam Möhler and Franz Xaver Reithmayr . In 1841 he received his ordination in Regensburg, and shortly afterwards returned to Munich, where he worked as a private scholar and journalist for the remainder of his career.
Go to Profile#17276
Constance Naden
1858 - 1889 (31 years)
Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden was an English writer, poet and philosopher. She studied, wrote and lectured on philosophy and science, alongside publishing two volumes of poetry. Several collected works were published following her death at the young age of 31. In her honour, Robert Lewins established the Constance Naden Medal and had a bust of her installed at Mason Science College . William Ewart Gladstone considered her one of the nineteenth century's foremost female poets.
Go to Profile#17277
Austin Duncan-Jones
1908 - 1967 (59 years)
Austin Ernest Duncan-Jones was a British philosopher, with a primary focus on meta-ethics. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham from 1951 until his death. He was president of the Aristotelian Society for 1960-61.
Go to Profile#17278
Wang Gen
1483 - 1541 (58 years)
Wang Gen , was a Ming dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher who popularized the teachings of Wang Yangming. Wang gen was the founder of the Taizhou School .
Go to Profile#17279
Antoninus
400 - 400 (0 years)
Antoninus was a Neoplatonist philosopher who lived in the 4th century. He was a son of Eustathius and Sosipatra, and had a school at Canopus, Egypt. He was an older contemporary of Hypatia who lived and worked nearby in Alexandria. He devoted himself wholly to his pupils, but he never expressed any opinion upon divine matters, and although Eunapius attributes this to Antoninus' piety, he also points out that Antoninus refrained from theurgic rites "perhaps because he kept a wary eye on the imperial views and policy which were opposed to these practices." His moral conduct is described as exemplary.
Go to Profile#17280
Eustathius of Cappadocia
300 - 362 (62 years)
Eustathius of Cappadocia , was a Neoplatonist and Sophist, and a pupil of Iamblichus and Aedesius, who lived at the beginning of the 4th century CE. When Aedesius was obliged to quit Cappadocia, Eustathius was left behind in his place. Eunapius, to whom alone we are indebted for our knowledge of Eustathius, declares that he was the best man and a great orator, whose speech in sweetness equalled the songs of the Sirenss. His reputation was so great, that when the Persians besieged Antioch, and the empire was threatened with a war, the emperor Constantius II was prevailed upon to send Eustathius...
Go to Profile#17281
János Vaszary
1867 - 1939 (72 years)
János Miklós Vaszary was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist. Biography He was born into a prominent Catholic family in Kaposvár. His uncle was Kolos Ferenc Vaszary, the Archbishop of Esztergom. His art studies began at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts under János Greguss. In 1887, he went to Munich, where he studied with Gabriel von Hackl and Ludwig von Löfftz. After seeing an exhibition of paintings by Jules Bastien-Lepage, he moved to Paris in 1899 and enrolled at the Académie Julian. Although he later became involved with Simon Hollósy and the artists' colony in Nagybánya and deve...
Go to Profile#17282
Herbert Charles Sanborn
1873 - 1967 (94 years)
Herbert Charles Sanborn was an American philosopher, academic and one-time political candidate. He was the chair of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1921 to 1942, and he served as the president of the Nashville German-American Society. He founded and coached the Vanderbilt fencing team. He ran for the Tennessee State Senate unsuccessfully in 1955. He was opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, and he published antisemitic pamphlets.
Go to Profile#17283
Gaetano da Thiene
1387 - 1465 (78 years)
Gaetano da Thiene was an Italian Renaissance philosopher and physician who was born and lived in Padua. Biography A student of Paul of Venice, Gaetano, like his teacher, held an Averroist interpretation of Aristotle's teachings. He worked towards a compromise between that position and Christian doctrines on the personal immortality of the soul, and in later life he abandoned Averroism entirely.
Go to Profile#17284
Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff
1807 - 1882 (75 years)
Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff was a German physician and biologist. Biography He lectured on pathological anatomy at Heidelberg and held professorships in anatomy and physiology at Giessen and Munich, where he was appointed to the chair of anatomy and physiology in 1854. In 1843, Theodor von Bischoff was elected as member of the German Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#17285
Eugenio Rignano
1870 - 1930 (60 years)
Eugenio Vittorio Rignano was a Jewish Italian philosopher. Biography He was born in Livorno to Giacomo Rignano and Fortunata Tedesco, into a Jewish family. Rignano edited the journal Rivista di scienza, later known as Scientia . His book The Psychology of Reasoning influenced the social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard. His book Man Not a Machine was replied to by Joseph Needham's Man A Machine . In 1897 he married Costanza "Nina" Sullam, also from a Jewish family.
Go to Profile#17286
George Washburn
1833 - 1915 (82 years)
George Washburn was an American educator, Christian missionary, and second president of Robert College. Biography George Washburn was born on March, 1, 1833 in Middleboro, Massachusetts. His father Philander Washburn was a manufacturer and his mother Elizabeth Homes was a housewife. He attended Pierce Academy in his hometown of Middleboro and Phillips Academy in Andover, and graduated from Amherst College in 1855. Spending a year traveling Europe and the Middle East, he then attended Andover Theological Seminary in 1859 for one year.
Go to Profile#17287
André Bazin
1918 - 1958 (40 years)
André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist. Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.
Go to Profile#17288
Krystyn Lach-Szyrma
1791 - 1866 (75 years)
Krystyn Lach Szyrma was a professor of philosophy at Warsaw University. He was also a writer, journalist, translator and political activist. Life Szyrma was professor of philosophy at Warsaw University from 1824 to 1831. He left no philosophical writings.
Go to Profile#17289
William Pepper
1843 - 1898 (55 years)
William Pepper Jr. , was an American physician, leader in medical education in the nineteenth century, and a longtime Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1891, he founded the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Go to Profile#17290
Richard Lindner
1901 - 1978 (77 years)
Richard Lindner was a German-American painter. Biography Richard Lindner was born in Hamburg, Germany. His mother Mina Lindner was American and born in New York as the daughter of German parents. In 1905, the family moved to Nuremberg, where Lindner's mother was owner of a custom-fitting corset business and Richard Lindner grew up and studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule , now the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg. From 1924 to 1927, he lived in Munich and began studies there at the Kunstakademie in 1925. In 1927, Lindner moved to Berlin and stayed there until 1928, when he returned to Munich to become art director of a publishing firm.
Go to Profile#17291
John Webster
1610 - 1682 (72 years)
John Webster , also known as Johannes Hyphastes, was an English cleric, physician and chemist with occult interests, a proponent of astrology and a sceptic about witchcraft. He is known for controversial works.
Go to Profile#17292
Giovanni Battista Scaramelli
1687 - 1752 (65 years)
Giovanni Battista Scaramelli was an Italian Jesuit, ethicist, and ascetical writer. Biography He was born at Rome and died at Macerata in 1752. He entered the Society of Jesus on 21 September 1706. He devoted himself to preaching and the ministry for fifteen years.
Go to Profile#17294
Robert Desgabets
1610 - 1678 (68 years)
Robert Desgabets was a French Cartesian philosopher and Benedictine prior, born in Ancemont. He published two book-length philosophical works in his lifetime, in 1671 and in 1675. In July 1658, Desgabets introduced the concept of blood transfusion or xenotransfusion at a meeting of Henri Louis Habert de Montmor's scientific society, which would later become the French Academy of Sciences. He would later publish in 1668.
Go to Profile#17295
Stefano degli Angeli
1623 - 1697 (74 years)
Stefano degli Angeli was an Italian mathematician, philosopher, and Jesuate. He was member of the Catholic Order of the Jesuats . In 1668 the order was suppressed by Pope Clement IX. Angeli was a student of Bonaventura Cavalieri. From 1662 until his death he taught at the University of Padua.
Go to Profile#17296
Antonio Rocco
1586 - 1652 (66 years)
Antonio Rocco was an Italian priest and philosophy teacher , and a writer. Ever since 1888 when he was identified as its anonymous author, he is best known for his satirical homosexual text, L'Alcibiade, fanciullo a scola, written in 1630 and published in 1652.
Go to Profile#17297
Francis Glisson
1597 - 1677 (80 years)
Francis Glisson was a British physician, anatomist, and writer on medical subjects. He did important work on the anatomy of the liver, and he wrote an early pediatric text on rickets. An experiment he performed helped debunk the balloonist theory of muscle contraction by showing that when a muscle contracted under water, the water level did not rise, and thus no air or fluid could be entering the muscle.
Go to Profile#17298
Niccolò Giani
1909 - 1941 (32 years)
Niccolò Giani was an Italian Fascist philosopher and journalist who was the founder of Fascist mysticism. Biography After attending the "Dante Alighieri" High School in Trieste he moved to Milan, where in 1928 he enrolled in the Faculty of Law, graduating in 1931. While at the University of Milan he also joined the Fascist University Groups . On 4 April 1930 Giani announced the imminent founding of the School of Fascist Mysticism, which he opened in Milan a few weeks later along with Arnaldo Mussolini. In 1931 Giani became director of the school, a post he left at the end of the following yea...
Go to Profile#17299
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș
1872 - 1952 (80 years)
Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaș was a Romanian art historian, ethnographer, museologist and cultural journalist, also known as local champion of art conservation, Romanian Police leader and pioneer radio broadcaster. Tzigara was a member of the Junimea literary society, holding positions at the National School of Fine Arts, the University of Bucharest and lastly the University of Cernăuți. During his youth, he was secretary to Carol I, the King of Romania. Close to the royal family, he also served as head of the Carol I Academic Foundation, where he set up a large collection of photographic plates.
Go to Profile#17300
Thomas Lawrence
1711 - 1783 (72 years)
Thomas Lawrence was an English physician and biographer, who became President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1767. Life The second son of Captain Thomas Lawrence, R.N., by Elizabeth, daughter of Gabriel Soulden of Kinsale, and widow of a Colonel Piers, Lawrence was born in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, on 25 May 1711. He was grandson of another Dr. Thomas Lawrence , a royal physician who was nephew of Henry Lawrence. Accompanying his father when appointed to the Irish station about 1715, he was for a time at school in Dublin. His mother died in 1724, and his father then left the navy and settled with his family at Southampton.
Go to Profile