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,
#19251
Charles-François Daubigny
1817 - 1878 (61 years)
Charles-François Daubigny was a French painter, one of the members of the Barbizon school, and is considered an important precursor of impressionism. He was also a prolific printmaker, mostly in etching but also as one of the main artists to use the cliché verre technique.
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Klaus Lechner
#19253
Alexander Mavrokordatos
1641 - 1709 (68 years)
Alexander Mavrocordatos was a member of the Greek Mavrocordatos family, the ruler of the island of Mykonos, a doctor of philosophy and medicine of the University of Bologna, and Dragoman of the Porte to Sultan Mehmed IV in 1673 — notably employed in negotiations with the Habsburg monarchy during the Great Turkish War.
Go to Profile#19254
Leon Petrażycki
1867 - 1931 (64 years)
Leon Petrażycki was a Polish philosopher, legal scholar, and sociologist. He is considered an important forerunner of the sociology of law. Life Leon Petrażycki was born into the Polish gentry of the Mogilev Governorate in the Russian Empire. In 1890 he graduated from Kiev University, then spent two years on a scholarship in Berlin, and in 1896 received a doctorate from the University of St. Petersburg. At the latter university, he served from 1897 to 1917 as a professor of the philosophy of law.
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Michael Hissmann
1752 - 1784 (32 years)
Michael Hissmann was a German philosopher, an advocate of French sensualism, and a radical materialist who translated Condillac, Charles de Brosses, and Joseph Priestley into German. Hissmann studied philosophy at Erlangen and Göttingen. From 1778 to 1783 he edited the Magazin für die Philosophie und ihre Geschichte. He became an extraordinary professor at Göttingen in 1782, and a full professor in 1784.
Go to Profile#19256
William of Auvergne
1180 - 1249 (69 years)
William of Auvergne was a French theologian and philosopher who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death. He was one of the first western European philosophers to engage with and comment extensively upon Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy.
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Martin Paul Eccles
#19258
Solomon Steinheim
1789 - 1866 (77 years)
Solomon Ludwig Steinheim was a German physician, poet, and philosopher. Biography Steinheim was born on 6 August 1789 in Altona . He was educated first at the Gymnasium Christianeum, Altona, and pursued his medical studies at the University of Kiel. He had hardly graduated when he found a wide field for his activity in Altona, to where the inhabitants of the sister city of Hamburg, then occupied by the French troops, had fled to escape the Russian blockade, bringing with them typhus fever, which at that time was raging in the Hanseatic town. In 1845 ill health forced him to abandon a medical career and to move to a milder climate.
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Ary Scheffer
1795 - 1858 (63 years)
Ary Scheffer was a Dutch-French Romantic painter. He was known mostly for his works based on literature, with paintings based on the works of Dante, Goethe, Lord Byron and Walter Scott, as well as religious subjects. He was also a prolific painter of portraits of famous and influential people in his lifetime. Politically, Scheffer had strong ties to King Louis Philippe I, having been employed as a teacher of the latter's children, which allowed him to live a life of luxury for many years until the French Revolution of 1848.
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Oskar Minkowski
1858 - 1931 (73 years)
Oskar Minkowski was a German physician and physiologist who held a professorship at the University of Breslau and is most famous for his research on diabetes. He was the brother of the mathematician Hermann Minkowski and father of astrophysicist Rudolph Minkowski.
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Archibald Garrod
1857 - 1936 (79 years)
Sir Archibald Edward Garrod was an English physician who pioneered the field of inborn errors of metabolism. He also discovered alkaptonuria, understanding its inheritance. He served as Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford from 1920 to 1927.
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Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater
1813 - 1883 (70 years)
Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater was an American Presbyterian philosopher. Life He was born in Cedar Hill, New Haven, Connecticut. He started going to Yale University at the age of 14 in 1827 and graduated in 1831. He spent some time after graduating as the head of the classical Department of Mount Hope Institute in Baltimore and then entered Yale Divinity School He was then licensed to preach by the Congregational Association of New Haven in May 1834. Then heading on to the First Congregational Church of Fairfield Connecticut. He remained there for 20 years.
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Samuel Gridley Howe
1801 - 1876 (75 years)
Samuel Gridley Howe was an American physician, abolitionist, and advocate of education for the blind. He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution. In 1824 he had gone to Greece to serve in the revolution as a surgeon; he also commanded troops. He arranged for support for refugees and brought many Greek children back to Boston with him for their education.
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George Cram Cook
1873 - 1924 (51 years)
George Cram Cook or Jig Cook was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, novelist, poet, and university professor. Believing it was his personal mission to inspire others, Cook led the founding of the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod in 1915; their "creative collective" was considered the first modern American theatre company. During his seven-year tenure with the group, Cook oversaw the production of nearly one-hundred new plays by fifty American playwrights. He is particularly remembered for producing the first plays of Eugene O'Neill, along with those of Cook's wife Susan Glasp...
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John Baconthorpe
1290 - 1347 (57 years)
John Baconthorpe, OCarm was a learned English Carmelite friar and scholastic philosopher. Life John Baconthorpe was born at Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, he seems to have been the grandnephew of Roger Bacon . In youth, he joined the Carmelite Order, becoming a friar at Blakeney, near Walsingham. He studied at Oxford and Paris. He became regent master of the theology faculty at Paris by 1323. He is believed to have taught theology at Cambridge and Oxford. Eventually, he became known as doctor resolutus, though the implication of this is unclear.
Go to Profile#19266
Qadi Baydawi
1201 - 1286 (85 years)
Qadi Baydawi was a Persian jurist, theologian, and Quran commentator. He lived during the post-Seljuk and early Mongol era. Many commentaries have been written on his work. He was also the author of several theological treatises.
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John Langalibalele Dube
1871 - 1946 (75 years)
John Langalibalele Dube OLG was a South African essayist, philosopher, educator, politician, publisher, editor, novelist and poet. He was the founding president of the South African Native National Congress , which became the African National Congress in 1923. He was an uncle to Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme, with whom he founded SANNC. Dube served as the president of SANNC between 1912 and 1917. He was brought to America by returning missionaries and attended Oberlin Preparatory Academy.
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Shakib Arslan
1871 - 1946 (75 years)
Shakib Arslan was an Arab writer, poet, historian, politician, and Emir in Lebanon. A prolific writer, he produced some 20 books and 2,000 articles, as well as two collections of poetry and a "prodigious correspondence". He was known as Amir al-Bayān due to his influential writings.
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Valéria Dienes
1879 - 1978 (99 years)
Valéria Dienes was a Hungarian philosopher, dancer, dance instructor, choreographer and one of first Hungarian woman to graduate from university. She is widely considered to be one of the most important Hungarian theorists on movement. She was the recipient of Hungary's highest literary award, the Baumgarten Prize in 1934.
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Daniel Rutherford
1749 - 1819 (70 years)
Daniel Rutherford was a Scottish physician, chemist and botanist who is known for the isolation of nitrogen in 1772. Life Rutherford was born on 3 November 1749, the son of Anne Mackay and Professor John Rutherford . He began college at the age of 16 at Mundell's School on the West Bow close to his family home, and then studied medicine under William Cullen and Joseph Black at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a doctorate in 1772. From 1775 to 1786 he practiced as a physician in Edinburgh.
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Warner Fite
1867 - 1955 (88 years)
Warner Fite was an American philosopher. Biography Warner Fite was born in Philadelphia. He graduated with a BA from Haverford College in 1889 and received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1894. Besides teaching at the University of Chicago , Fite also worked at the University of Texas , Indiana University and Harvard University . He held the chair of Stuart Professor of Ethics at Princeton University from 1917 until his retirement in 1935.
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Max Loreau
1928 - 1990 (62 years)
Max Loreau was a 20th-century Belgian philosopher, poet and art critic. Life and career Born in Brussels, Max Loreau was a professor of modern philosophy at the University of Brussels. He was interested in a number of movements ranging from the Renaissance to Cobra. His work focused on artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Guillaume Corneille, and Asger Jorn. A comprehensive study of the logograms by Christian Dotremont was published in 1975; Loreau also worked with Pierre Alechinsky, who helped him to publish L'Épreuve. He died in 1990.
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Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa
1905 - 1981 (76 years)
Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa was "a significant logician, philosopher of language and epistemologist", and "one of the most outstanding female representatives" of the third generation of the Lwów–Warsaw school. She is "mostly known as the author of the important argumentation against neopositivism of the Vienna Circle as well as one of the main critics of relativistic theories of truth". She was also noted for popularising Tarski's works on semantics.
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Bernard Waeber
#19275
Govert Bidloo
1649 - 1713 (64 years)
Govert Bidloo or Govard Bidloo was a Dutch Golden Age physician, anatomist, poet and playwright. He was the personal physician of William III of Orange-Nassau, Dutch stadholder and King of England, Scotland and Ireland.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 ...
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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, ...
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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 .
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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.
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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 .
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William Gilbert
1544 - 1603 (59 years)
#19290
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
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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 .
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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Barry Lewis Zaret
#19298
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 .
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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."
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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.
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