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,
#18851
Christian Bohr
1855 - 1911 (56 years)
Christian Harald Lauritz Peter Emil Bohr was a Danish physician, father of the physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr, as well as the mathematician and football player Harald Bohr and grandfather of another physicist and Nobel laureate Aage Bohr. He married Ellen Adler in 1881.
Go to Profile#18852
Josip Franjo Domin
1754 - 1819 (65 years)
Josip Franjo Domin was a Croatian-Hungarian physicist, priest, physician and a pioneer of electrotherapy. Biography Domin was born in Zagreb where he died. He was educated in Zagreb, Vienna, Leoben, Graz. In 1774 he graduated philosophy at the Royal Academy of Sciences and theology in 1776 in Zagreb. In 1777 in Trnava he received a doctorate in mathematics and became a full professor of theoretical and experimental physics, mechanics and economics at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Győr and Pécs . At the Faculty of Arts in Budapest since 1792 he was a physics professor having succeeded Ionnes B.
Go to Profile#18853
Aron Brand
1910 - 1977 (67 years)
Aron Brand-Auraban was an Israeli pediatric cardiologist. He served as chairman of the Israel Medical Association in Jerusalem, and founded the Jerusalem Academy of Medicine. Biography Aron Brand grew up in Koło, where he attended heder and the Jewish gymnasium. His father, Natan, was a grain merchant and miller. In 1925, his father, a fervent Zionist, sent him to Palestine to study at Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. In 1928, he studied philosophy and Jewish studies in Berlin. He studied simultaneously at the University of Berlin and the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums. One of h...
Go to Profile#18854
Seyyed Nassir Ghaemi
#18855
Lorenzo Magalotti
1637 - 1712 (75 years)
Lorenzo Magalotti was an Italian philosopher, author, diplomat and poet. Magalotti was born in Rome into an aristocratic family, the son of Ottavio Magalotti, Prefect of the Pontifical Mail: his uncle Lorenzo Magalotti was a member of the Roman Curia. His cousin Filippo was rector at University of Pisa. The Jesuit Magalotti became the secretary of the Accademia del cimento and a gazetteer of the sciences.
Go to Profile#18856
Mirza Mahdi Ashtiani
1888 - 1952 (64 years)
Mirza Mahdi Ashtiani , a man of wisdom, mystic, man of literature, was a Great Master in the philosophical School of Tehran. Birth and family Mirza Mahdi was born in 1889 in Tehran. His father, Mirza Jafar was the relatives of Hajj Mirza Muhammad Hasan Ashtiani, famous as the Little Mirza, one of the most great men of knowledge in Tehran.
Go to Profile#18857
Rudolf Gerber
1899 - 1957 (58 years)
Rudolf Gerber was a German musicologist. He was professor and director of the musicology department of the University of Gießen and from 1943 professor of musicology at the University of Göttingen.
Go to Profile#18858
William H. Masters
#18859
John Laurens
1754 - 1782 (28 years)
John Laurens was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, best known for his criticism of slavery and his efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for their freedom as U.S. soldiers.
Go to Profile#18860
John Moore
1729 - 1802 (73 years)
John Moore FRSE was a Scottish physician and travel author. He also edited the works of Tobias Smollett. Life He was born on 10 October 1729 in Stirling, the son of Rev Charles Moore of Rowallan and his wife, Marion Anderson. The family moved to Glasgow in his youth and he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to Dr. John Gordon in Glasgow 1745 to 1747.
Go to Profile#18861
Erich Schenk
1902 - 1974 (72 years)
Erich Schenk was an Austrian musicologist and music historian. Personal and scientific life Born in Salzburg , Schenk studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum and then at the University of Munich, where he also received his doctorate in 1925. His habilitation followed in 1930 at the University of Rostock, and four years later he founded the Musicological Institute at that institution in 1934. He remained director of Musicological Institute through 1940.
Go to Profile#18862
Walter Jekyll
1849 - 1929 (80 years)
Walter Jekyll , was an English clergyman who renounced his religion and became a planter in Jamaica, where he collected and published songs and stories from the local African-Caribbean community. Early life Jekyll lived in his youth with his family at 2 Grafton Street, Mayfair, London, the seventh of the seven children of Captain Edward Joseph Hill Jekyll, an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and his wife Julia Hammersley. His sister was the gardener Gertrude Jekyll. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Jekyll was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who borrowed the family ...
Go to Profile#18863
George Lokert
1485 - 1547 (62 years)
George Lokert of Ayr was a Scottish philosopher and theologian who made significant contributions to the study of logic. A pupil of John Mair, he also studied and taught at the University of Paris, and eventually served as prior of the Sorbonne. Returning to Scotland in 1521, he served as Rector of the University of St Andrews .
Go to Profile#18864
Per-olof J. Hasselgren
#18865
Xu Ai
1487 - 1517 (30 years)
Xu Ai was an important Chinese philosopher during the mid-late Ming Dynasty. He was also a magistrate and writer. Biography Xu was born in Maoyan , Yuyao, Shaoxing Fu , Zhejiang Province in 1487. His courtesy name was Yueren , and artist's pseudonym was Hengshan .
Go to Profile#18866
Peter Paul Borg
1843 - 1934 (91 years)
Peter Paul Borg was a Maltese theologian, canonist and minor philosopher. He was mostly interested in the philosophy of law. Life Borg was born in 1843. He became a diocesan priest, and was a Canon of the bishop's Cathedral Chapter. He was a Doctor of Theology and Divinity, and a Doctor of Canon Law. He was a member of the Società Storica e Scientifica di Malta , and for a time also an Apostolic Prefect.
Go to Profile#18867
Francisco Zumel
1540 - 1607 (67 years)
Francisco Zumel was a Spanish philosopher and ecclesiastic. He was superior general of the Mercedarian Order and professor of physics and moral philosophy at the University of Salamanca. He was a Thomist and is most remembered for his polemical writings against the molinistas, the followers of Luis Molina.
Go to Profile#18868
Pierre Cally
1630 - 1709 (79 years)
Pierre Cally was a French Catholic Cartesian philosopher and theologian. Life He was born at Ménil-Hubert-sur-Orne near Falaise, now Orne, France. In 1660 he was appointed professor of philosophy and eloquence in the University of Caen, and in 1675, president of the Collège des Arts in the same city. In 1684 he assumed charge of the parish of Saint-Martin. He was an associate of Pierre Daniel Huet, who converted him to Cartesianism, and Jean Renaud de Segrais. Cally died 31 December 1709.
Go to Profile#18869
Al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi
1000 - 1078 (78 years)
Al-Mu'ayyad fid-din Abu Nasr Hibat Allah b. Abi 'Imran Musa b. Da'ud ash-Shirazi was an 11th-century Isma'ili scholar, philosopher-poet, preacher and theologian of Persian origin. He served the Fatimid Caliph-Imām al-Mustansir Billah as a Da'i in varying capacities, eventually attaining the highest rank of Bab al-Abwab "The Gate of Gates" and Da'i al-du'at "Chief Missionary" in the Fatimid Da‘wah. In his theological and philosophical writings he brought the Isma'ili spiritual heritage to its pinnacle.
Go to Profile#18870
Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet
1816 - 1892 (76 years)
Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet was an English surgeon, histologist and anatomist. He is best known for his research using microscopes to study various human organs, though during his lifetime he pursued a successful career as an ophthalmologist.
Go to Profile#18871
Michael Ian Mackness
#18872
Henry Noble Day
1808 - 1890 (82 years)
Henry Noble Day was an American philosopher. Day, the second son of Col. Noble and Elizabeth Day, and nephew of Yale President Jeremiah Day, was born in the village of New Preston, in Washington, Connecticut, August 4, 1808.
Go to Profile#18873
Hermann Askan Demme
1802 - 1867 (65 years)
Hermann Askan Demme was a German-Swiss physician. Demme was the son of Hermann Gottfried, Generalsuperintendent of Sachsen-Altenburg. At first, he studied philosophy and theology in Jena and Berlin. 1822 he entered the Jenaischen Burschenschaft. He finished his studies 1830 and became assistant to Johann Lukas Schönlein. 1831 he was a military doctor in Warschau, 1832 he visited the United States of America.
Go to Profile#18874
Daniel Callus
1888 - 1965 (77 years)
Daniel Callus was a Maltese historian and philosopher. His main interest was in the history of Medieval philosophy. Life Beginnings Callus was born at Żebbuġ, Malta, on January 20, 1888. Formation Callus joined the Dominicans in 1903 at 15 years of age, and studied with them at Rabat, Malta . In 1906, after receiving his Minor Orders, he was sent to Fiesole, Italy, to pursue his studies there. Four years later, in 1910, he obtained the degree of Lector in Theology and Philosophy from the University of Florence. At the same university Callus undertook studies in philosophy, history of art, an...
Go to Profile#18875
Christian Ruben
1805 - 1875 (70 years)
Christoph Christian Ruben was a German painter. Born in Trier, Ruben studied in Düsseldorf under Peter von Cornelius from 1823, and in 1826 settled in Munich, where he worked on the designs for the new stained glass windows for the Regensburg Cathedral and for a church in Auer. In 1836 he worked on designs for the decoration of Hohenschwangau Castle, and produced oil paintings as well. In 1841 he was appointed director at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he decorated the belvedere with wall paintings. He also painted a hall for the Prince of Salm and three altarpieces for the church in Turnau .
Go to Profile#18876
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
1855 - 1902 (47 years)
'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi was a Syrian author and Pan-Arab solidarity supporter. He was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his time; however, his thoughts and writings continue to be relevant to the issues of Islamic identity and Pan-Arabism. His criticisms of the Ottoman Empire eventually led to Arabs calling for the sovereignty of the Arab Nations, setting the basis for Pan-Arab nationalism. Al-Kawakibi articulated his ideas in two influential books, Tabai al-Istibdad wa-Masari al-Isti’bad and Umm Al-Qura . He died in 1902 of “mysterious” causes. His family alleged that he was po...
Go to Profile#18877
William Shippen Jr.
1736 - 1808 (72 years)
William Shippen Jr. , was the first systematic teacher of anatomy, surgery and obstetrics in Colonial America and founded the first maternity hospital in America. He was the 3rd Director General of Hospitals of the Continental Army.
Go to Profile#18878
Petrus Aureolus
1280 - 1322 (42 years)
#18879
Lorenz Heister
1683 - 1758 (75 years)
Lorenz Heister was a German anatomist, surgeon and botanist born in Frankfurt am Main. Biography From 1702 to 1706 Heister studied at the Universities of Giessen and Wetzlar, afterwards relocating to Amsterdam, where he studied anatomy under Frederik Ruysch . In the summer of 1707, he was an assistant physician in field hospitals at Brussels and Ghent during the War of the Spanish Succession. He then traveled to Leiden, where he studied anatomy under Bernhard Siegfried Albinus and Govert Bidloo , also attending Hermann Boerhaave’s lectures on chemistry and ocular diseases. In 1708 he earned...
Go to Profile#18880
Fritz Köberle
1910 - 1983 (73 years)
Fritz Köberle was an Austrian-Brazilian physician, pathologist and scientist, discoverer of the neurogenic mechanism of the chronic phase of Chagas disease, a human parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan.
Go to Profile#18881
Jacob Clay
1882 - 1955 (73 years)
Jacob Clay was a prominent Dutch physicist who first suggested and provided evidence that cosmic rays are charged particles. Early life Clay was born "Jacob Claij" in Berkhout on 18 January 1882 as the son of Pieter Claij and Neeltje Molenaar. After attending the Erasmiaans Gymnasium, he studied physics at the University of Leiden under Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree in 1908 he married Tettje Clay-Jolles with whom he had a son.
Go to Profile#18882
Richard W. Foltin
#18883
Xiahou Yuan
200 - 219 (19 years)
Xiahou Yuan , courtesy name Miaocai, was a Chinese military general and politician serving under the warlord Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He is known for his exploits in western China in the 210s, during which he defeated Cao Cao's rivals Ma Chao and Han Sui in Liang Province and the surrounding areas, and forced several Di and Qiang tribal peoples into submission. He was killed in action at the Battle of Mount Dingjun while defending Hanzhong Commandery from attacks by a rival warlord Liu Bei. Xiahou Yuan's death was highly dramatised in the 14th-century historical nove...
Go to Profile#18884
William Macewen
1848 - 1924 (76 years)
Sir William Macewen, was a Scottish surgeon. He was a pioneer in modern brain surgery, considered the father of neurosurgery and contributed to the development of bone graft surgery, the surgical treatment of hernia and of pneumonectomy .
Go to Profile#18885
Frederic G. Kenyon
1863 - 1952 (89 years)
Sir Frederic George Kenyon was an English palaeographer and biblical and classical scholar. He held a series of posts at the British Museum from 1889 to 1931. He was also the president of the British Academy from 1917 to 1921. From 1918 to 1952 he was Gentleman Usher of the Purple Rod.
Go to Profile#18886
Jan Stachniuk
1905 - 1963 (58 years)
Jan Stachniuk was a Polish philosopher, an editor-in-chief of the Polish pre-war nationalist journal Zadruga, the creator of the Zadruga Movement, a theoretician and the founder of culturalism. Jan Stachniuk was born on 13 January 1905 in Kovel. In 1930 he finished his education at the College of Commerce in Poznań. During World War II, he fought in the ranks of the Home Army.
Go to Profile#18887
Saʽid Qomi
1640 - 1692 (52 years)
Said Qomi was an Iranian Shia philosopher of Qom's School. Life When Qazi was young, completed his preliminary education in Qom. Since that he worked as judge in Qom he known as Qazi Said. His father taught him medicine and philosophy. He criticized the substantial motion, a theory by Mulla Sadra.
Go to Profile#18888
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
1469 - 1533 (64 years)
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola was an Italian nobleman and philosopher, the nephew of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. His name is typically truncated as Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola. Biography Gianfrancesco was the son of Galeotto I Pico, lord of Mirandola, and Bianca Maria d'Este, the daughter of Niccolò III d'Este.
Go to Profile#18889
Fernand Deschamps
1868 - 1957 (89 years)
Fernand Deschamps was a Belgian intellectual who participated in the great socio-economic and ethical debates in the first half of the twentieth century. Biography At the age of sixteen Deschamps started working in the metal industry Many years later he obtained the title of Doctor of Laws after he passed the examination by the Central Board of State . He continued his studies at the Higher Institute of Philosophy in Leuven and became editor of the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. In 1898, he won the first prize in philosophy and was assigned a scholarship enabling him to spend eighteen months in Germany at the universities of Bonn, Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg.
Go to Profile#18890
Alexander Borodin
1833 - 1887 (54 years)
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian-Russian extraction. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Five", a group dedicated to producing a "uniquely Russian" kind of classical music. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor.
Go to Profile#18891
Hermann Nothnagel
1841 - 1905 (64 years)
Carl Wilhelm Hermann Nothnagel was a German internist born in Alt-Lietzegöricke , near Bärwalde in der Neumark , Neumark, Brandenburg. Career The son of a pharmacist, from 1858 to 1863 Nothnagel studied under Ludwig Traube and Rudolf Virchow at the University of Berlin. From 1865 to 1868 he was an assistant to Ernst Viktor von Leyden at the University of Königsberg where, in 1866, he was habilitated for internal medicine. From 1868 to 1870 he worked as a military physician and lecturer in Berlin and later served in the same roles at Breslau .
Go to Profile#18892
Carolus Clusius
1525 - 1609 (84 years)
Charles de l'Écluse, L'Escluse, or Carolus Clusius , seigneur de Watènes, was an Artois doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th-century scientific horticulturists. Life Clusius was born Charles de l' Écluse in 1526, in Arras , then in the County of Artois, Spanish Netherlands, now northern France . At the urging of his father, who wanted him to enter the law, he commenced his studies in Latin and Greek at Louvain, followed by civil law. His father then gave him some money to move to Marburg to further his legal studies, but after eight months when his mentor mo...
Go to Profile#18893
Augustus Quirinus Rivinus
1652 - 1723 (71 years)
Augustus Quirinus Rivinus , also known as August Bachmann or A. Q. Bachmann, was a German physician and botanist who helped to develop better ways of classifying plants. Life and work Rivinus was born in Leipzig, Germany, and studied at the University of Leipzig , continued his studies in the University of Helmstedt . In 1677, he started lecturing in medicine at the University of Leipzig, in 1691 appointed to two chairs, that of physiology and of botany, and made the curator of the University medical garden. In 1701, he became professor of pathology, in 1719, professor of therapeutics and permanent dean of the Faculty of Medicine.
Go to Profile#18894
Simone Simoni
1532 - 1602 (70 years)
Simone Simoni was an Italian philosopher and physician. After graduating in medicine from the University of Padua, Simoni moved to Geneva, where he became professor of philosophy and engaged in controversy with Jakob Schegk. Expelled by the city for his heretical views, he moved to Paris and subsequently to Leipzig and Heidelberg . In 1581, he became court physician to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague; there were unconfirmed rumours that he had converted to Catholicism.
Go to Profile#18895
Max Friedlaender
1852 - 1934 (82 years)
Max Friedlaender was a German bass singer, music editor, and musicologist. He specialized in German Lieder. Life Friedlaender studied voice with well-known teachers Manuel Garcia in London and Julius Stockhausen in Frankfurt, both of the bel-canto school. From 1881 to 1883 the singer lived and worked at Frankfurt, moving to Berlin in 1883. He received a doctorate from the University of Rostock in 1894 with a dissertation on Franz Schubert and joined the music faculty at Berlin University in 1894.
Go to Profile#18896
Achille Ouy
1889 - 1959 (70 years)
Achille Ouy was a French philosopher and sociologist. Ouy taught philosophy at various lycees, and was involved with the Mercure de France. "A follower of René Worms and Gaston Richard, Ouy "performed many day-to-day tasks that held the R.I.S. and IIS together from 1919 to 1940."
Go to Profile#18897
Giorgio Pullicino
1779 - 1851 (72 years)
Giorgio Pullicino was a Maltese painter, architect, and professor of drawing and architecture at the University of Malta. He is known for his harbour views painted in a number of media, and he is also considered to be one of the first neoclassical architects in Malta. He produced designs for a number of buildings, but the only structure which is definitely proven to have been designed by him is a monumental obelisk known as the Spencer Monument. However, several other buildings including the Monument to Sir Alexander Ball are widely attributed to him.
Go to Profile#18898
Niccolò Cabeo
1586 - 1650 (64 years)
Niccolò Cabeo, SJ was an Italian Jesuit philosopher, theologian, engineer and mathematician. Biography He was born in Ferrara in 1586, and was educated at the Jesuit college in Parma beginning in 1602. He passed the next two years in Padua and spent 1606–07 studying in Piacenza before completing three years of study in philosophy at Parma. He spent another four years studying theology in Parma and another year’s apprenticeship at Mantua. He then taught theology and mathematics in Parma, then in 1622 he became a preacher. For a time he received patronage of the Dukes of Mantua and the Este in Ferrara.
Go to Profile#18899
Ingerid Dal
1895 - 1985 (90 years)
Ingerid Dal was a Norwegian linguist known for her work and research of German, English and the Nordic languages. Early life and education Dal was born in Drammen, Norway. She attended Kristiana University after moving to Oslo at age 19. Following World War I, she moved to Germany where she attended Heidelberg University and studied philology and philosophy. She then attended the University of Hamburg where she continued her studies and, in 1925, presented her thesis on Lask's Kategorienlehre in relation to Kant's philosophy. In 1930, she finished her thesis at the University of Oslo on the o...
Go to Profile#18900
Elias
600 - 600 (0 years)
Elias was a Greek scholar and a commentator on Aristotle and Porphyry. Life No information has been handed down about the life of Elias; all assumptions represented in the research are deductions from circumstantial evidence in his works. That he was at least nominally a Christian is inferred from his Christian name, but has not been proven conclusively. His thinking is influenced by Neoplatonism, the dominant philosophical direction in late antiquity.
Go to Profile