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,
#18701
Rudolf Boehm
1844 - 1926 (82 years)
Rudolf Albert Martin Boehm was a German pharmacologist, known for his work in the field of experimental pharmacology. He studied medicine at the universities of Munich and Würzburg, and in 1868–70 served as an assistant to Franz von Rinecker at the Juliusspital in Würzburg. In 1871 he obtained his habilitation under Adolf Fick, then during the following year was named a professor of pharmacology, dietetics and history of medicine at the University of Dorpat. Later on, he worked as professor of pharmacology at the universities of Marburg and Leipzig , where on four separate occasions he was named dean to the medical faculty.
Go to Profile#18702
Christian Martin Frähn
1782 - 1851 (69 years)
Christian Martin Joachim Frähn , German and Russian numismatist and historian, was born at Rostock, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Frähn began his Oriental studies under Tychsen at the university of Rostock, and afterwards continued them at Göttingen and Tübingen. He became a Latin master in Pestalozzi's famous institute in 1804, taught at Rostock as a Privatdozent in 1806, and in the following year was chosen to fill the chair of Oriental languages in the Russian university of Kazan. Though in 1815 he was invited to succeed Tychsen at Rostock, he preferred to go to St Petersburg, where he became director of the Asiatic museum and councillor of state.
Go to Profile#18703
Jeong Do-jeon
1342 - 1398 (56 years)
Jeong Do-jeon , also known by his art name Sambong , was a prominent Korean scholar-official during the late Goryeo to the early Joseon periods. He served as the first Chief State Councillor of Joseon, from 1392 until 1398 when he was killed by the Joseon king Yi Bang-won. Jeong Dojeon was an adviser to the Joseon founder Yi Seong-gye and also the principal architect of the Joseon dynasty's policies, laying down the kingdom's ideological, institutional, and legal frameworks which would govern it for five centuries.
Go to Profile#18704
William Beebe
1877 - 1962 (85 years)
Charles William Beebe was an American naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author. He is remembered for the numerous expeditions he conducted for the New York Zoological Society, his deep dives in the Bathysphere, and his prolific scientific writing for academic and popular audiences.
Go to Profile#18705
Thomas Cauchi
1501 - 1601 (100 years)
Thomas Cauchi was a minor Maltese philosopher who specialised in law. Life Little is known about the private life of Thomas Cauchi. Neither his dates of birth and death nor his birthplace in Malta are identified as yet. He might have lectured at the Collegium Melitense see in Valletta. He surely lectured in Messina, Sicily. Unfortunately, most of the works of Cauchi are as yet lost. At least three are known to have existed, all dealing with the philosophy of law. Of these just one is still extant, which is the third volume of what is thought to have been a triad. Unfortunately, no known portr...
Go to Profile#18706
Robert Livingston Rudolph
1865 - 1930 (65 years)
Robert Livingston Rudolph was an American bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. He was the first bishop to be raised with the church. Rudolph also served as Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Christian Ethics at the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church in Philadelphia for twenty-seven years before his death. Together Rudolph and his son, Robert Knight Rudolph, trained men for the gospel ministry at this institution for a total of seventy-four years. Rudolph was widely recognized as an outstanding preacher, teacher, scholar and bishop.
Go to Profile#18707
Noël Coward
1899 - 1973 (74 years)
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".
Go to Profile#18708
Armas Salonen
1915 - 1981 (66 years)
Armas Immanuel Salonen was a Finnish Assyriologist. Salonen graduated from high school in 1933. He studied at the University of Helsinki under professor Knut Tallqvist. Having obtained his bachelor's degree in 1936, he continued his studies in Germany and later on in the US, where he joined the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 1947. There he participated in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary project under professor A. Leo Oppenheim, focusing on etymological references.
Go to Profile#18709
Nicola Antonio Stigliola
1546 - 1623 (77 years)
Nicola Antonio Stigliola was an Italian philosopher, printer, architect, and medical doctor. He was a friend of Tommaso Campanella and Giordano Bruno and a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. He was an adherent of Copernican heliocentrism and of Bruno's ideas on Hermeticism and magic. He believed in the complex Pythagorean and Brunian cosmologies, including the view that the planets and stars were like the earth, covered in plants and animals: "Stigliola said to me...that it seemed irrational to him that bodies so much larger than the earth and the space between the center of the earth to th...
Go to Profile#18710
Charles Mackinnon Douglas
1865 - 1924 (59 years)
Charles Mackinnon Douglas was a Scottish philosopher, agriculturist and Member of Parliament who represented North West Lanarkshire from 1899 to 1906. Education and academia Douglas was born in Edinburgh, and was educated at Edinburgh Academy, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Freiburg. He graduated the University of Edinburgh with first-class honours in philosophy in 1892 and later earned a doctorate from the same institution. He lectured at the university on moral philosophy for seven years. He was the author of studies of English philosopher John Stuart Mill, and co-author...
Go to Profile#18711
Willemina Ogterop
1881 - 1974 (93 years)
Willemina Ogterop was a Dutch-American artist and stained glass window designer of almost 500 windows in 80 locations. Biography Ogterop was born in Maastricht in the Netherlands in 1881. After migrating to California in 1918 with her husband and four children, she worked in the Cummings Art Glass Studio in San Francisco as their principal designer from 1928 to 1953, designing nearly 500 stained glass windows, and creating more than 200 works of art in other media.
Go to Profile#18712
Raman Viswanathan
1899 - 1982 (83 years)
Raman Viswanathan was an Indian chest physician, medical mycologist and pulmonologist, considered by many as the father of Chest Medicine in India. He was the founder director of Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, a postgraduate medical institute based in Delhi. An elected fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, Royal College of Physicians of London, Indian National Science Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom, he was a recipient of several honors including the Forlanini Medal by Italian Tuberculosis Association and the Eugeno Morelli Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, Italy.
Go to Profile#18713
Thomas Bewick
1753 - 1828 (75 years)
Thomas Bewick was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery, making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating children's books. He gradually turned to illustrating, writing and publishing his own books, gaining an adult audience for the fine illustrations in A History of Quadrupeds.
Go to Profile#18714
Peter Lauremberg
1585 - 1639 (54 years)
Peter Lauremberg was a writer, professor and rector at the University of Rostock in the seventeenth century. Life Son of another professor, Wilhelm Lauremberg, Peter Lauremberg was born in Rostock in 1585, and like his father before him he studied medicine and astronomy at Rostock, where he earned his Master's degree in 1607. The following year he began his medical studies at Leiden. He travelled in Belgium and France, tutoring, and in 1611 took out his Doctor of Medicine in Paris. His first university appointment was at the University of Montauban where he taught philosophy.
Go to Profile#18715
David Neumark
1866 - 1924 (58 years)
David Neumark was a German-American rabbi and professor of Jewish philosophy. He authored several notable works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish law, and served as a professor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Go to Profile#18716
Nicholas Tatonetti
Nicholas Tatonetti is an American bioscientist who is Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Chief Officer of Cancer Data Science at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University. His lab develops data mining approaches to understand clinical and molecular data.
Go to Profile#18717
Marin Cureau de la Chambre
1594 - 1669 (75 years)
Marin Cureau de la Chambre was a French physician and philosopher born in Saint-Jean-d'Assé, a village near Le Mans. Details of his youth and where he attended school are unknown. He was initially a physician in Le Mans, and around 1630 moved to Paris, where he became a friend and physician to Pierre Séguier . Afterwards, he was a médecin ordinaire to Louis XIV. Reportedly the monarch was impressed by Cureau de la Chambre's ability to judge human character based on physical appearance.
Go to Profile#18718
Lorenzo Scupoli
1530 - 1610 (80 years)
Francesco Scupoli , better known by his religious name Lorenzo Scupoli, was a Neapolitan Roman Catholic priest, most notable for his authorship of The Spiritual Combat , an important work in 16th century Catholic spirituality.
Go to Profile#18719
Rahel Hirsch
1870 - 1953 (83 years)
Rahel Hirsch was a German physician and professor at the Charité medical school in Berlin. In 1913 she became the first woman in the Kingdom of Prussia to be appointed a professor of medicine. Biography Rahel Hirsch was born on 15 September 1870 in Frankfurt am Main, one of eleven children of Mendel Hirsch . Mendel Hirsch was the director of the girls' school of the Jewish religious community in Frankfurt am Main. Mendel's fatherRahel's paternal grandfatherwas the eminent rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
Go to Profile#18720
Sadr ad-Din Dashtaki
1425 - 1498 (73 years)
Sayyid Sadr Al-Din Dashtaki or Sayyed Sanad was an Iranian Shia philosopher and theologian. He counts as the founder of the Shiraz school of philosophy. Birth Sadr Al din was born in Dashtah, a region near Shiraz. His complete name was Sayyid Muhammad b. Mansur Al Husayni Al Dashtaki. He was born in Shiraz on second of 829/19 June. He counted as the first in the Dastaki family who confessed apparently to shiism sect. According to Pourjavady, it seems that he was a Zaydi. He also challenged with Jalāl-al-Dīn Davānī on the legality of Shia.
Go to Profile#18721
Eugene Allen Noble
1865 - 1948 (83 years)
Eugene Allen Noble was an American academic and Methodist minister. He served as president of three institutions: Centenary University from 1902 to 1908, Goucher College from 1908 to 1911, and Dickinson College from 1911 to 1914. He was also an administrator at the Juilliard School.
Go to Profile#18722
John Brown
1810 - 1882 (72 years)
John Brown was a Scottish physician and essayist known for his three-volume Horae Subsecivae , containing essays and papers on art, medical history and biography. Best remembered are his dog story "Rab and his Friends" and his essays "Pet Marjorie" , on Marjorie Fleming, the ten-year-old prodigy and alleged "pet" of Walter Scott, "Our Dogs", "Minchmoor", and "The Enterkine". Brown was half-brother to the organic chemist Alexander Crum Brown.
Go to Profile#18723
William Boyd
1885 - 1979 (94 years)
William Boyd, FRCPath, was a Scottish-Canadian physician, pathologist, academic, and author known for his medical textbooks. Biography William was born in Portsoy, Scotland, the sixth child of Dugald Cameron Boyd and Eliza Marion Boyd. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he graduated M.B. Ch.B. in 1908, M.D. in 1911, and went on to become trained and accredited as a neurologist, psychiatrist, and pathologist. Boyd worked as an attending physician and nominal pathologist at the Derby County Asylum in the English Midlands from 1909–1912, and at Winwick Hospital from 1912–1913. He was a pathologist at Wolverhampton Royal Infirmary from 1913 to August 1914.
Go to Profile#18724
Myia
600 BC - 560 BC (40 years)
Myia was a Pythagorean philosopher and, according to later tradition, one of the daughters of Theano and Pythagoras. Life Myia was married to Milo of Croton, the famous athlete. She was a choir leader as a girl, and as a woman she was noted for her exemplary religious behaviour. Lucian, in his In Praise of a Fly, states that he could say many things about Myia the Pythagorean were it not for the fact that her history is known to everyone.
Go to Profile#18725
Euphrates the Stoic
35 - 118 (83 years)
Euphrates was an eminent Stoic philosopher, who lived c. 35–118 AD. Biography According to Philostratus, Euphrates was a native of Tyre, and according to Stephanus of Byzantium, of Epiphania in Syria; whereas Eunapius calls him an Egyptian.
Go to Profile#18726
Marc Mitscher
1887 - 1947 (60 years)
Marc Andrew "Pete" Mitscher was a pioneer in naval aviation who became an admiral in the United States Navy, and served as commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force in the Pacific during the latter half of World War II.
Go to Profile#18727
Isaac ibn Latif
1210 - 1280 (70 years)
Isaac ibn Latif was a Jewish philosopher, who lived most of his life in Toledo. In 1238 he published his first work, a treatise named sha'ar ha-shama'yim , a commentary on Koheles . Artscroll's Koheles cites from his work.
Go to Profile#18728
John McKellar Stewart
1878 - 1953 (75 years)
John McKellar Stewart , generally referred to as J. McKellar Stewart, was professor of philosophy at the University of Adelaide and its vice-chancellor from 1945 to 1948. History McKellar Stewart was a son of Alexander Stewart and his wife Lillias Stewart, née McKellar.Alexander Stewart left Scotland for Australia with his parents in 1852. and operated a farm at Ballangeich, around 30 km north of Warrnambool, Victoria.Lillias McKellar left Scotland for Australia aboard Christina in company with one John McKellar, arriving in Sydney in April 1839.Stewart was employed as trainee teacher at Warrnambool State School, then taught at Charlton then Benalla.
Go to Profile#18729
Max Thedy
1858 - 1924 (66 years)
Max Thedy was a German painter, designer and engraver. He is sometimes erroneously referred to as Marc Thedy. Biography He was the youngest of twelve children born to Johann Valentin Thedy, a Verwaltungsaktuar and his wife, Theresia. After his parents' premature deaths, he was taken in by the family of the Hamburg painter, Georg Friedrich Louis Reinhardt and encouraged to pursue a career in art.
Go to Profile#18730
Albert Wojciech Adamkiewicz
1850 - 1921 (71 years)
Albert Wojciech Adamkiewicz was a Polish pathologist born in Żerków. Biography Adamkiewicz earned his medical doctorate in 1873 from the University of Breslau where he was a student-assistant to physiologist Rudolf Peter Heinrich Heidenhain. From 1879 until 1892, he was chief of general and experimental pathology at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.
Go to Profile#18731
Julius Wolff
1836 - 1902 (66 years)
Julius Wolff was a German surgeon. Biography Julius Wolf was born on 21 March 1836 in Märkisch Friedland, and received his doctorate in 1861 in the field of surgery under Bernhard von Langenbeck at Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin. In 1861 he settled down after the state examination as a general practitioner in Berlin. He participated as a surgeon in three military campaigns .
Go to Profile#18732
Fyodor Lesh
1840 - 1903 (63 years)
Fyodor Alexandrovich Lesh, alternatively spelled as Lösch , was a Russian Empire medical doctor. He is credited with identifying Amoeba coli in 1875. This species was later classified in the genus Entamoeba.
Go to Profile#18733
Francis Barnes
1744 - 1838 (94 years)
Francis Barnes was an English philosopher and a Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy. Early life and education Barnes was born in Bolton-le-Sands, Lancashire the son of Joseph Barnes a yeoman farmer. He attended local schools at Kellett and Silverdale, but his teachers noticed his abilities and he won a place at Eton College. His family were not wealthy and it was said that he travelled to Eton seated behind his father on one of the farm's horses. After finishing his schooling he went up to King's College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1764 at the age of twenty.
Go to Profile#18734
Diodotus the Stoic
100 BC - 59 BC (41 years)
Diodotus was a Stoic philosopher, and was a friend of Cicero. Biography Diodotus lived for most of his life in Rome in Cicero's house, where he instructed Cicero in Stoic philosophy and especially Logic. Although Cicero never fully accepted Stoic philosophy, he always spoke of Diodotus with fondness, and ranked him equal to other philosophers of his era such as Philo of Larissa, Antiochus and Posidonius.
Go to Profile#18735
Charles William Mayo
1898 - 1968 (70 years)
Charles William Mayo was an American surgeon and a member of the board of governors of the Mayo Clinic beginning in 1933. He was the son of Mayo Clinic co-founder Charles Horace Mayo and Edith Mayo.
Go to Profile#18736
Hans-Heinz Dräger
1909 - 1968 (59 years)
Hans-Heinz Dräger , complete name Hans-Heinz Gerhard Kurt Dräger, was a German-American musicologist. He died in November 1968 at age 58. Life and career Born in Stralsund, Dräger attended the secondary school in Stralsund from 1920 to 1931. From 1931 to 1937, he studied musicology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin with Friedrich Blume, Curt Sachs, Arnold Schering, Georg Schünemann and Erich Schumann. In addition, he studied art history with and , philosophy with Max Dessoir and Nicolai Hartmann and German literature with Herrmann.
Go to Profile#18737
Victor Cherbuliez
1829 - 1899 (70 years)
Charles Victor Cherbuliez was a Swiss, and then French novelist and author. He was born at Geneva, Switzerland and died at Combs-la-Ville. He was the eleventh member elected to occupy seat 3 of the Académie Française in 1881.
Go to Profile#18738
Hermann Schloffer
1868 - 1937 (69 years)
Hermann Schloffer was an Austrian surgeon. He studied medicine at the University of Freiburg and University of Graz, where in 1892 he earned his medical doctorate. He spent several years in Prague as a surgical assistant and associate professor, and in 1903-1911 was a surgeon and professor at the University of Innsbruck. Afterwards he was a professor at Charles University in Prague.
Go to Profile#18739
Georgy Fedotov
1886 - 1951 (65 years)
Georgy Petrovich Fedotov was a Russian religious philosopher, historian, essayist, author of many books on Orthodox culture, regarded by some as a founder of Russian "theological culturology". Fedotov left Soviet Russia under duress for France in 1925, then in 1939 emigrated to the United States where he taught at St. Vladimir Orthodox Seminary, New York, and continued publishing books up until his death in 1951.
Go to Profile#18740
David ben Abraham ha-Laban
1201 - Present (825 years)
David ben Abraham ha-Laban was a French religious philosopher and kabalist who lived after 1200. His grandfather, Judah, was rabbi of Coucy-le-Château. David was the author of Masoret ha-Berit , on the existence, the unity, and the attributes of God, and also on creation and its purpose . The fact that the work exists in several manuscript copies shows that it was much read.
Go to Profile#18741
Anton Margaritha
1490 - 1542 (52 years)
Anton Margaritha was a sixteenth-century Jewish Hebraist and convert to Christianity. He was a possible source for some of Martin Luther's conception of Judaism. Biography Anton Margaritha's father, Jacob Margolioth, was a Rabbi in Ratisbon, Germany. Anton converted in 1522, being baptized at Wasserburg am Inn, and later became a Lutheran. He suffered imprisonment and then expulsion from Augsburg due to complaints from the Jewish community there and action by Charles V.
Go to Profile#18742
Eduard Bendemann
1811 - 1889 (78 years)
Eduard Julius Friedrich Bendemann was a German-Jewish painter. Biography Bendemann was born in Berlin. His father, Anton Heinrich Bendemann, was a Jewish banker. His mother, Fanny Eleonore Bendemann née von Halle, was a daughter of the Jewish banker Joel Samuel von Halle. His father monitored his education closely and it would have naturally led him to some sort of technical occupation, but his talent and propensity towards art resulted in his being allowed to pursue other interests. After he completed elementary school, he enrolled in the Wilhelm von Schadow's school in Düsseldorf. In 1828 he painted a portrait of his grandmother which attracted some attention.
Go to Profile#18743
Curt Sachs
1881 - 1959 (78 years)
Curt Sachs was a German musicologist. He was one of the founders of modern organology . Among his contributions was the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which he created with Erich von Hornbostel. Biography Born in Berlin, Sachs studied piano, music theory and composition as a youth in that city. However, his doctorate from Berlin University in 1904 was on the history of art, with his thesis on the sculpture of Verrocchio. He began a career as an art historian, but promptly became more devoted to music, eventually being appointed director of the Staatliche Instrumentensammlung, a large collection of musical instruments.
Go to Profile#18744
Adrian Zingg
1734 - 1816 (82 years)
Adrian Zingg was a Swiss painter. Life Adrian Zingg received his professional training with his father, the steel cutter Bartolomäus Zingg, then became an apprentice with the engraver . In 1757 he worked in Bern, painting vedute with Johann Ludwig Aberli. Together with the medalist Johann Caspar Mörikofer , he travelled to Paris in 1759, where Zingg worked for seven years with the engraver Johann Georg Wille.
Go to Profile#18745
Hattie Alexander
1901 - 1968 (67 years)
Hattie Elizabeth Alexander was an American pediatrician and microbiologist. She earned her M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1930 and continued her research and medical career at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Alexander became the lead microbiologist and the head of the bacterial infections program at Columbia-Presbyterian. She occupied many prestigious positions at Columbia University and was well honored even after her death from liver cancer in 1968. Alexander is known for her development of the first effective remedies for Haemophilus influenzae infection, as well as being one of the first scientists to identify and study antibiotic resistance.
Go to Profile#18746
Hieronymus David Gaubius
1705 - 1780 (75 years)
Hieronymus David Gaubius was a German physician and chemist. Life He was a native of Heidelberg. He studied medicine and sciences at the Universities of Harderwijk and Leiden, where he was a pupil of Hermann Boerhaave and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus . He earned his degree at Leiden in 1725 with a thesis on psychosomatic medicine called . After graduation he continued his training in Paris, and then practiced medicine in Amsterdam and Deventer.
Go to Profile#18747
Henry P. Armsby
1853 - 1921 (68 years)
Henry Prentiss Armsby was an American agricultural chemist, animal nutritionist, and academic administrator. He served as Vice Principal and Acting Principal of the Storrs Agricultural School , associate director of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station , and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Institute of Animal Nutrition at the Pennsylvania State University.
Go to Profile#18748
Alexander Kolisko
1857 - 1918 (61 years)
Alexander Kolisko was a pathologist who was born in Vienna, Austrian Empire. He was the father of anthroposophist Eugen Kolisko . Biography In 1881 Kolisko earned his medical doctorate from the University of Vienna, subsequently working as an assistant to Hans Kundrat at the pathological anatomy institute at the university. Later, he was a prosector at the Leopoldstädter Kinderspital in Vienna. In 1898 he succeeded Eduard von Hofmann as a professor of forensic medicine, and in 1916 was successor to Anton Weichselbaum as professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Vienna.
Go to Profile#18749
Theodor Thjøtta
1885 - 1955 (70 years)
Theodor Thjøtta was a Norwegian physician. He specialized in bacteriology and serology, and was a professor at the University of Oslo from 1935 to his death. Personal life He was born in Sandnes as a son of shoemaker Abraham Thjøtta and Rakel Tjølsen . In 1921 he married watchmaker's daughter Alfhild Helene Michelet .
Go to Profile#18750
Emil Mattiesen
1875 - 1939 (64 years)
Emil Karl Gustav Alfred Mattiesen was a Baltic Germans musician, music pedagogue, composer and philosopher. He composed lieder, song cycles, ballads, chamber music and organ music, but is better known for standard works in German on parapsychology. He was a professor of church music at the University of Rostock from 1929.
Go to Profile