Search People Result | Academic Influence

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).

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#2401

Michael J. Perry

#17914

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Michael J. Perry is an American legal scholar, specializing in constitutional law, human rights, and law and religion. Career Perry was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He did his undergraduate studies, majoring in philosophy and minoring in theology, at Georgetown University . He studied law at Columbia University School of Law . Perry then served as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein and, a year later, to U.S. Circuit Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler .

#2402

Andrew G. Morrow

#72458

Overall Influence

#2403

Michael E. Chopp

#72465

Overall Influence

#2404

Rena R. Wing

#65819

Overall Influence

Rena R. Wing is recognized for her well-established research on behavioral treatments of obesity. Dr. Wing's research examined positive outcomes for long-term weight loss as well as halting weight gain in individuals who are currently overweight. This led to an important development in Wing's research which was the layout of a lifestyle intervention for those with diabetes, particularly type 2.

#2405

Bob Fischer

#63472

Overall Influence

Robert William Fischer is an American philosopher who specializes in epistemology and ethics . He is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Texas State University, a Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities, and the Director of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals. His books include Modal Justification via Theories, in which he defends his account of "Theory-Based Epistemology of Modality", and The Ethics of Eating Animals, in which he argues that animal agriculture is frequently morally impermissible, but that veganism is nonetheless not morally required.

#2406

Hannah Ginsborg

#68227

Overall Influence

Hannah Ginsborg is Willis S and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Education and career She received a B.A. in Philosophy and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University in 1989. Her education included a year in Paris studying logic and philosophy at the Université de Paris-I, and a year in Berlin affiliated with the Freie Universität. Since 1988 she has been teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2004-2005 she was a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

#2407

Jacques Miller

#19803

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Jacques Francis Albert Pierre Miller AC FRS FAA is a French-Australian research scientist. He is known for having discovered the function of the thymus and for the identification, in mammalian species of the two major subsets of lymphocytes and their function.

#2408

Claude Tresmontant

Claude Tresmontant

#45243

Overall Influence

1925 - 1997 (72 years)

Claude Tresmontant was a French philosopher, Hellenist, and theologian. Biography Claude Tresmontant taught medieval philosophy and philosophy of science at the Sorbonne. He was a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Science. He was given the Maximilien-Kolbe Prize in 1973 and the Grand Prix of the Academy of Moral and Political Science for his complete works in 1987.

#2409

George W. Thorn

#53541

Overall Influence

1906 - 2004 (98 years)

George Widmer Thorn was an American physician whose contributions led to new treatments of kidney diseases and adrenal gland disorders, most notably Addison's disease. Thorn was Chief of Medicine at Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, presently known as Brigham and Women's Hospital. Thorn pioneered the use of cortisone for treating Addison's disease, and devised an early test for this disease, now known as the Thorn test. His research of cortisone and ACTH led to new treatments of other diseases such as hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

#2410

Hans Wigzell

#72712

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

#2411

Jeffrey Nielsen

#65189

Overall Influence

Jeffrey Nielsen is founder of the Democracy House Project, and a published author. He is also a philosophy instructor at Westminster College, Salt Lake City; and Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah. He is perhaps best known for being both a supporter of gay marriage and a practicing Mormon.

#2412

Rubel Shelly

#24371

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Dr. Rubel Shelly is an author, minister, and professor at Lipscomb University. He is the former president of Rochester University . Life Shelly began as an instructor in the department of Religion and Philosophy at Freed-Hardeman University in 1975. In 1978, Shelly began preaching as Senior Minister for the Family of God at Woodmont Hills, formerly known as the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ, in Nashville, Tennessee where he continued until 2005. While preaching at Woodmont Hills, he also taught at Lipscomb University, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and Tennessee State University. ...

#2413

Jeffrey Stout

#43070

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Jeffrey Lee Stout is an American religious studies scholar who is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Princeton University. He is a member of the Department of Religion, and is associated with the departments of Philosophy and Politics, the Center for the Study of Religion, and the Center for Human Values. His works focus on the possibility of ethical discourse in a religiously pluralistic society. He served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2007.

#2414

Eddy Zemach

#65543

Overall Influence

1935 - 2021 (86 years)

Eddy M. Zemach was an Israeli philosopher, born in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine. He was Ahad Ha'am Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1965. His main research interests were aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of language.

#2415

Kay-Tee Khaw

#46276

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Kay-Tee Khaw, is a Singaporean British physician and academic, specialising in the maintenance of health in later life and the causes and prevention of chronic diseases. She has been Professor of Clinical Gerontology at the University of Cambridge since 1989 and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge since 1991.

#2416

Jay Katz

#18349

Overall Influence

1922 - 2008 (86 years)

Jacob "Jay" Katz was an American physician and Yale Law School professor whose career was devoted to addressing complex issues of medical ethics and other ethical problems involving the overlaps of ethics, law, medicine and psychology.

#2417

Jerome Ravetz

#23339

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Jerome Ravetz is a philosopher of science. He is best known for his books analysing scientific knowledge from a social and ethical perspective, focussing on issues of quality. He is the co-author of the NUSAP notational system and of Post-normal science. He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford.

#2418

Andrew Weil

#2380

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Andrew Thomas Weil is an American medical doctor who advocates for integrative medicine including the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Early life and education Early years Andrew Thomas Weil was born in Philadelphia on June 8, 1942, the only child of parents who operated a millinery store, in a family that was Reform Jewish. He graduated from high school in 1959 and was awarded a scholarship from the American Association for the United Nations, giving him the opportunity to go abroad for a year, living with families in India, Thailand, and Greece. From this experience he became convinced that in many ways American culture and science was insular and unaware of non-American practices.

#2419

Carlo Penco

#25972

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Carlo Penco is an Italian analytic philosopher and full professor in philosophy of language at the University of Genoa in Italy. Biography Penco received his Ph.D. in Philosophy Summa cum Laude at the University of Genoa in 1972 with a specialization in the philosophy of science . He studied with Evandro Agazzi in Genoa, with Michael Dummett in Oxford, and later with Robert Brandom at the University of Pittsburgh. He has received various academic awards and fellowships including: CNR Fellow , NATO Fellow at Oxford University and Fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania .

#2420

Peter Wright

#4240

Overall Influence

1916 - 1995 (79 years)

Peter Maurice Wright CBE was a principal scientific officer for MI5, the British counter-intelligence agency. His book Spycatcher, written with Paul Greengrass, became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies. Spycatcher was part memoir, part exposé detailing what Wright claimed were serious institutional failures he investigated within MI5. Wright is said to have been influenced in his counterespionage activity by James Jesus Angleton, counter-intelligence chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency from 1954 to 1975.

#2421

Patricia Greenspan

#63954

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Patricia Greenspan is a professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Greenspan works in analytic philosophy of action, and is known for work on rationality, morality, and emotion that helped to create a place for emotion in philosophy of action and ethics.

#2422

Wlodek Rabinowicz

#59087

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Wlodek Rabinowicz is a Polish-Swedish philosopher and Professor Emeritus at Lund University. Rabinowicz's areas of expertise include ethics, normativityativity, decision theory and utilitarianism. From 1995 to 1998, he was editor-in-chief of Theoria.

#2423

Hans-Herbert Kögler

Hans-Herbert Kögler

#44456

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Hans-Herbert Kögler , is a German-American philosopher. Biography 1960 born in Darmstadt. After finishing the Viktoriaschule in Darmstadt, Kögler studied in Frankfurt philosophy, history of art, and sociology of education. He was supported by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes for a doctoral fellowship as well as a one-year USA-stipend. He completed his doctoral dissertation 1991 under the direction of Jürgen Habermas. During this work he already opened his European point of view to philosophical discussion in the United States with academic stays at Northwestern University , The New School , and Berkeley .

#2424

Roscoe O. Brady

#72926

Overall Influence

#2425

Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji

#54528

Overall Influence

ʿAbd-Al-Razzāq B. ʿAlī B. Al-Hosayn Lāhījī was an Iranian theologian, poet and philosopher. His mentor in philosophy was his father-in-law Mulla Sadra. Life Hailing from Lahijan in Gilan, he spent most of his life in Qom. Abd al-Razzaq was a son-in-law of Mulla Sadra along with Molla Mohsen Fayz Kashani. His son Hasan would become another prominent theologian and philosopher of the Safavid dynasty. Seyyed Hossein Nasr knows him among the intellectual figures in Persia. Abd al-Razzaq was in agreement with Molla Sadra as to the contrast between primacy of quiddity and primacy of existence.

#2426

Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak

Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak

#64097

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Adriaan Theodoor Basilius Peperzak is a Dutch educator, editor and author. Biography Peperzak was born on the island of Java as a Dutch citizen. He studied philosophy at the Franciscan monastery schools in Venray, and theology in La Verna and Weert . He obtained a licentiate in philosophy at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain and a Ph.D. in the Humanities at the University of Paris in Paris. His Ph.D. dissertation Le jeune Hegel et la vision morale du monde , was published in 1960 and republished in 1969.

#2427

Silvio Ceccato

#17801

Overall Influence

1914 - 1997 (83 years)

Silvio Ceccato was an Italian philosopher and linguist. Born in Montecchio Maggiore, he studied law and music. In 1949 he founded the international magazine Methodos, which was published until 1964.

#2428

I. Bernard Weinstein

#51010

Overall Influence

1930 - 2008 (78 years)

I. Bernard Weinstein was an American physician and researcher who studied the effect of pollutants and other environmental factors in causing cancer and headed the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University. He has been credited with helping create the field of molecular epidemiology, which studies how genetic and environmental risk factors are related to the spread of disease in populations.

#2429

Anne Dufourmantelle

#25309

Overall Influence

1964 - 2017 (53 years)

Anne Dufourmantelle was a French philosopher and psychoanalyst. Education and career Dufourmantelle was educated at Brown University and at Paris-Sorbonne University, where she earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1994. She practised psychoanalysis and was a professor at the European Graduate School and a contributor to the French daily newspaper Libération.

#2430

Ian F. Tannock

#73040

Overall Influence

#2431

Quentin Blake

#1806

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.

#2432

Democrates

#49122

Overall Influence

Democrates was a Pythagorean philosopher about whom little is known. It is said that he was the founder of the basic concepts of the modern era of democracy. Apollonius of Tyana authored at least one letter to a Democrates, Epistle 88.

#2433

Lisa Guenther

#58185

Overall Influence

Lisa Guenther is a Canadian philosopher and activist, known for her work on solitary confinement, prison torture, reproductive injustice, and the carceral state. Education and career Cross-appointed to the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies, Lisa Guenther is currently Queen’s National Scholar in Political Philosophy and Critical Prison Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Prior to 2018, she served as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Her first academic position was at the University of Auckland. Guenther receiv...

#2434

Yaşar Nuri Öztürk

#14101

Overall Influence

1951 - 2016 (65 years)

Yaşar Nuri Öztürk was a Turkish Islamic scholar, university professor of Islamic philosophy, lawyer, columnist and a former member of Turkish parliament. He has been described as a Quranist and has given many conferences on Islamic thought, humanity and human rights in Turkey, the USA, Europe, the Middle East and the Balkans. In 1999, members of a violent extremist group called Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front confessed that they had planned an assassination attempt that never took place.

#2435

J. Mark Davis

#73235

Overall Influence

#2436

Mauro Carbone

#35544

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Mauro Carbone is an Italian philosopher. Since 2009, he has been a full professor at the Faculté de Philosophie of the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in Lyon, France. From 2012 to 2017, he has been a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.

#2437

Willet F. Jr. Whitmore

#73302

Overall Influence

#2438

Hamid Vahid-Dastjerdi

#69261

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Hamid Vahid-Dastjerdi also known as Hamid Vahid is an Iranian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy and the Head of the Analytic Philosophy Faculty at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences. He is known for his expertise on epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic. His works have been published in distinguished journals such as Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Synthese, Erkenntnis, European Journal of Philosophy, Kant-Studien, Metaphilosophy and Ratio.

#2439

John Wall

#38329

Overall Influence

John Wall is an American educator and theoretical ethicist who teaches at Rutgers University Camden. He is Director of the Childism Institute and Co-Director of the Children's Voting Colloquium. Research Wall's research focuses on "the groundworks of moral life, particularly their relations to language, power, and childhood" and theoretical work where he argues that "ethical life is fundamentally creative," as well as for his concept of childism, or the empowerment of children by transforming norms".

#2440

Théophile de Giraud

Théophile de Giraud

#59203

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Théophile de Giraud is a Belgian writer, philosopher and activist of French language. Literary work Published in 2000, Giraud's first book, The Impertinence of Procreation, is a plea against human reproduction, using a mixture of humor and provocation. Noted for his many eccentricities, Giraud was listed in the anthology Les Fous Littéraires by the pataphysician André Blavier.

#2441

Gary Legenhausen

#46180

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Gary Carl Legenhausen is an American philosopher who teaches at the Imam Khomeini's Educational and Research Institute, which was directed by Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi. Life He converted to Islam in 1983. He wrote a book entitled Islam and Religious Pluralism in which he advocates "non-reductive religious pluralism". He has been an advocate of interfaith dialogue, and serves on the advisory board of the Society for Religious Studies in Qom. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Rice University .

#2442

Espen Hammer

#33836

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Espen Hammer is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. Focusing on modern European thought from Kant and Hegel to Adorno and Heidegger, Hammer’s research includes critical theory, Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophy, phenomenology, German idealism, social and political theory, and aesthetics. He has also written widely on the philosophy of literature and taken a special interest in the question of temporality.

#2443

Lawrence Steinman

#65615

Overall Influence

Lawrence Steinman is an immunologist and neurologist professor of pediatrics at Stanford University. Since 2015, he has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

#2444

Samuel Zachary Goldhaber

#73446

Overall Influence

#2445

Frederick Schauer

#16452

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Frederick Schauer is an American legal scholar who serves as David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He is also the Frank Stanton Professor emeritus of the First Amendment at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is well known for his work on American constitutional law, especially free speech, and on legal reasoning, especially the nature and value of legal formalism.

#2446

Kamlesh Khunti

#40447

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Kamlesh Khunti is a British physician who is Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester. His research considers diabetes and public health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Khunti studied the impact of COVID-19 on people living with diabetes. He served on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies . He is the director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands.

#2447

Adam Drewnowski

#73554

Overall Influence

#2448

William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple

#5302

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

#2449

Stephen F. Barker

#60239

Overall Influence

1927 - 2019 (92 years)

Stephen Francis Barker was an American Philosopher of Mathematics, a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He was also a faculty member at the University of Southern California, the University of Virginia and Ohio State University.

#2450

Valeria de Paiva

#48362

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Valeria Correa Vaz de Paiva is a Brazilian mathematician, logician, and computer scientist. Her work includes research on logical approaches to computation, especially using category theory, knowledge representation and natural language semantics, and functional programming with a focus on foundations and type theories.

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