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).

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#3251

Jerry Balmuth

#79098
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Jerome "Jerry" Balmuth was an American philosopher and the Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Emeritus, at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Early life Balmuth developed his interest in philosophy after high school, when he enrolled in a philosophy night course at the City College of New York. In 1944 he joined the United States Army and was assigned to a Signal Corps unit. He subsequently attended officer candidate school and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, transferring to the military police. In 1948 he was discharged at the rank of first lieutenant.
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#3252

Maurice Tubiana

#89196
Overall Influence
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#3253

Morgan Carpenter

#11986
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Morgan Carpenter is a bioethicist, intersex activist and researcher. In 2013, he created an intersex flag, and became president of Intersex Human Rights Australia . He is now a co-executive director. In 2015, he cofounded a project to mark Intersex Awareness Day.
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#3254

Clara D. Bloomfield

#37929
Overall Influence
1942 - 2020 (78 years)
Clara Derber Bloomfield , was an American physician and cancer researcher. Her work focused on the genetic changes that are present in certain types of blood cancers, and how those can be utilized to improve treatment for the affected patients.
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#3255

Paul Kleihues

#89250
Overall Influence
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#3256

James W. Lance

#55298
Overall Influence
1926 - 2019 (93 years)
James Waldo Lance AO, CBE , often referred to as James Lance and James W. Lance, was an Australian neurologist. He was the founder of the School of Neurology at the University of New South Wales and president of the International Headache Society in 1987–89, and a "world authority on the diagnosis and treatment" of headache and migraine.
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#3257

Kim Allan Eagle

#89278
Overall Influence
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#3258

Georg Kühlewind

#48648
Overall Influence
1924 - 2006 (82 years)
Georg Kühlewind, birth name György Székely was a Hungarian philosopher, writer, lecturer and meditation teacher, who worked from the tradition of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science. Setting aside his early interest in music and psychology, he pursued a successful professional career as a physical chemist. Meanwhile, he continued to deepen his spiritual practice and insights. A prolific author , Kühlewind spent much time traveling the world, lecturing and leading workshops and seminars in meditation, psychology, epistemology, child development, anthroposophy, and esoteric Christianity. He was ...
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#3259

Peter T. Scardino

#89294
Overall Influence
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#3260

Y. Karunadasa

Y. Karunadasa
#35073
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Yakupitiyage Karunadasa is a Sri Lankan scholar in Buddhist Studies. His main areas of specialization are Early Buddhism and Theravada Abidhamma. Education and career Y. Karunadasa obtained a First Class Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Ceylon in 1958, a Ph.D. from the University of London in 1963, and was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Kelaniya in 2002. He is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Kelaniya, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and as the Director of its Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies. He has also served as the...
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#3261

Elsa Dorlin

#46432
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Elsa Dorlin is a French philosopher and professor in the department of political science at University of Paris 8 Vincennes/St. Dénis. Dorlin earned her PhD in philosophy in 2004 at University of Paris 4 – Sorbonne. Her dissertation, "Au chevet de la Nation : sexe, race et médecine : XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles" was supervised by Pierre-François Moreau.
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#3262

Don Poldermans

#37784
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Don Poldermans is a Dutch former cardiovascular medicine researcher who was fired for scientific misconduct and ethics concerns over informed consent. He was employed by Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where he was the head of the perioperative cardiac care unit. In addition, he was a member of the European Society of Cardiology Committee for Practice Guidelines and he acted as the Chairperson of the Task Force for the European Society of Cardiology.
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#3263

Raili Kauppi

#84084
Overall Influence
1920 - 1995 (75 years)
Raili Kauppi , professor of philosophy at the University of Tampere. She was an internationally recognized scholar of Leibniz and intensional logic. Main publications:Über die Leibnizsche Logik mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Problems der Intension und Extension, Acta Philosophia Fennica, Fasc. XII, Helsinki, 1960.Einführung in die Theorie der Begriffsysteme, Acta Universitatis Tamperensis, Ser A, vol 15, Tampere, 1967.
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#3264

Catherine Otto

#52398
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Catherine Mary Otto is an echocardiography specialist who serves as J. Ward Kennedy-Hamilton Endowed Chair in Cardiology at the University of Washington Medical Center. She has authored echocardiography textbooks. The major fields she works in are valvular heart disease, adult congenital heart disease, and echocardiography.
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#3265

Michael H. Criqui

#89396
Overall Influence
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#3266

Gary Varner

#72513
Overall Influence
1957 - 2023 (66 years)
Gary Edward Varner was an American philosopher specializing in environmental ethics, philosophical questions related to animal rights and animal welfare, and R. M. Hare's two-level utilitarianism. At the time of his death, he was an emeritus professor in the department of philosophy at Texas A&M University; he had been based at the university since 1990. He was educated at Arizona State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison; at Madison, where he was supervised by Jon Morline, he wrote one of the first doctoral theses on environmental ethics. Varner's first monograph was In Nature's Interests?, which was published by Oxford University Press in 1998.
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#3267

Werner Seeger

#89454
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
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#3268

Nikolai Bogduk

#89476
Overall Influence
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#3269

Mervyn Singer

#89498
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
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#3270

Michael Craig-Martin

Michael Craig-Martin
#11879
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Sir Michael Craig-Martin is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is an Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. His memoir and advice for the aspiring artist, On Being An Artist, was published by London-based publisher Art / Books in April 2015.
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#3271

Susan Mendus

#71345
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Susan Lesley "Sue" Mendus, , FLSW is a Welsh academic specialising in political philosophy. She is currently Professor Emerita of Political Philosophy at the University of York. She was Vice-President of the British Academy between 2008 and 2012.
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#3272

Ernest Fortin

#43828
Overall Influence
1923 - 2002 (79 years)
Ernest L. Fortin, A.A. was a professor of theology at Boston College. While engaged in graduate studies in France, he met Allan Bloom, who introduced him to the work of Leo Strauss. Father Fortin worked at the intersection of Athens and Jerusalem.
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#3273

Jonathan E. Bennett

#89545
Overall Influence
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#3274

Adnan Kastrati

#89565
Overall Influence
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#3275

Mark Keane

Mark Keane
#30713
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Mark T. Keane is a cognitive scientist and author of several books on human cognition and artificial intelligence, including Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook , Advances in the Psychology of Thinking , Novice Programming Environments , Advances in Case-Based Reasoning ., Case-Based Reasoning: Research & Development .
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#3276

Neven Sesardić

#8828
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Neven Sesardić is a Croatian philosopher known for his writings on heritability and race who worked most of his career as a professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. Life and career He grew up in communist Yugoslavia. From 1977 to 1983 he worked as a lecturer at the University of Zagreb, and, from then, until 1989 he was assistant professor at the same university. In the 1980s he was listed as an "internal enemy" of the Yugoslav regime.
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#3277

Nelson Maldonado-Torres

#57770
Overall Influence
Nelson Maldonado-Torres is a Puerto Rican philosopher and professor in Philosophy at University of Connecticut-Storrs. He received his PhD from Brown University in Religious Studies. His work has been influential in contributing to ideas about decoloniality decolonizing epistemology, and in critiquing Western liberalism and Eurocentrism. He is influenced by the works of Frantz Fanon, Emmanuel Levinas, and Enrique Dussel.
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#3278

Emeran A Mayer

#89604
Overall Influence
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#3279

Yoshio Yazaki

#89649
Overall Influence
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#3280

John M. Goldman

#89664
Overall Influence
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#3281

Alan Winfield

#32739
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Alan Winfield is a British engineer and educator. He is Professor of Robot Ethics at UWE Bristol, Honorary Professor at the University of York, and Associate Fellow in the Cambridge Centre for the Future of Intelligence. He chairs the advisory board of the Responsible Technology Institute, University of Oxford.
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#3282

Norman Shumway

#4354
Overall Influence
1923 - 2006 (83 years)
Norman Edward Shumway was a pioneer of heart surgery at Stanford University. He was the 67th president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the first to perform an adult human to human heart transplantation in the United States.
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#3283

Wallace Matson

#71256
Overall Influence
1921 - 2012 (91 years)
Wallace I. Matson was an American philosopher and a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his works on the existence of God. Biography Matson was Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Washington 1950–1955. Matson was an atheist. In 1978, he debated Thomas B. Warren on the existence of God.
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#3284

Richard Holton

#72599
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Richard Holton is a British philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Peterhouse. He is known for his works on moral psychology and action theory. Holton is a Fellow of the British Academy.
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#3285

Koneru Ramakrishna Rao

#32141
Overall Influence
1932 - 2021 (89 years)
Koneru Ramakrishna Rao was an Indian philosopher who served as Chancellor of GITAM , and as Chairman of GITAM school of Gandhian Studies, psychologist, parapsychologist, educationist, teacher, researcher and administrator. The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2011.
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#3286

Peter Osborne

#68018
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Peter Osborne is a British philosophy teacher who is Professor of Modern European Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy , Kingston University, London. He is a former editor of the journal Radical Philosophy.
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#3287

William Schweiker

#52246
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
William Schweiker is an American theological ethicist. He is the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on globalization as an ethical problem, hermeneutic philosophy, theological humanism, the history of ethics, and comparative religious ethics.
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#3288

Ary L. Goldberger

#69021
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Ary Louis Goldberger is a physician-educator, whose collaborative research work is at the interface of biomedicine and complexity science . He holds a BA from Harvard College and an MD from Yale Medical School. He did his clinical training in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease at Yale–New Haven Hospital and at the University of California, San Diego, respectively. He currently serves as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and was one of the Core Founding Faculty of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
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#3289

Federico Ferrari

Federico Ferrari
#77999
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Federico Ferrari is an Italian philosopher and art critic. He teaches Philosophy of Art at Brera Academy, in Milan, Italy. Career Under the influence of Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy he has published many essays on philosophy, as well as literature. He has written two books with Jean-Luc Nancy: the first on the subject of nude, the second on the iconography of the writer. More recently, he has focused on the ontological state of the image, the deconstruction of the museum in postmodernity, and the question of art and/or in time. In 2011 he theorized the aesthetics of "Arte Essenziale", which manifested itself in the show held at Collezione Maramotti and at Frankfurter Kunstverein .
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#3290

Liu Gangji

#75287
Overall Influence
1933 - 2019 (86 years)
Liu Gangji was a Chinese aesthetician, calligrapher, historian, painter, and philosopher. He was considered a founder of the study of the history of Chinese aesthetics. He was a distinguished professor and Director of the Institute of Aesthetics of Wuhan University. He also served as Vice President of the China Aesthetics Society.
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#3291

Walter Herzog

#89960
Overall Influence
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#3292

David A. Prince

#89967
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
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#3293

Daniel Innerarity

Daniel Innerarity
#49940
Overall Influence
Daniel Innerarity Grau is a Spanish philosopher and essayist. Biography Daniel Innerarity is a professor of political and social philosophy, Ikerbasque researcher at the University of the Basque Country, director of the Instituto de Gobernanza Democrática and Chair Artificial Intelligence and Democracy at the School of Trasnational Governance . Former fellow of the Fundación Alexander von Humboldt at the University of Munich, visiting professor at the University of Paris 1-Sorbonne former Chair of Intercultural Studies at Georgetown University, distinguished Visiting Chair at the Catholic...
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#3294

Andreas Kemmerling

#86483
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Andreas Kemmerling is a German philosopher. He works in the analytic tradition. Life Kemmerling studied philosophy from 1968 to 1972 in Marburg, Frankfurt am Main and Munich. In 1976 he got a doctor degree. After his so-called "Habilitation" in 1981 in Bielefeld he was visiting professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. From 1983 until 1999 he was professor in Munich. Since 1999 he is professor at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg.
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#3295

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Madalyn Murray O'Hair
#12954
Overall Influence
1919 - 1995 (76 years)
Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an American activist supporting atheism and separation of church and state. In 1963, she founded American Atheists and served as its president until 1986, after which her son Jon Garth Murray succeeded her. She created the first issues of American Atheist Magazine and identified as a "militant feminist".
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#3296

István Aranyosi

#39308
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
István Aranyosi is a Hungarian philosopher and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bilkent University. He is best known for his works on philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Books The Peripheral Mind: Philosophy of Mind and the Peripheral Nervous System, Oxford University Press, 2013God, Mind and Logical Space: A Revisionary Approach to Divinity, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
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#3297

Margaret Bent

#27055
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Margaret Bent CBE , is an English musicologist who specializes in music of the late medieval and Renaissance eras. In particular, she has written extensively on the Old Hall Manuscript, English masses as well as the works of Johannes Ciconia and John Dunstaple.
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#3298

Lars Wallentin

#78017
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Lars Wallentin is a Swedish physician and cardiologist. In 1998 he was the first recipient of the Nordic Medical Prize, the second largest medical award in the Nordic countries. He was elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2007. He has been described by the European Heart Journal as "an international superstar cardiologist."
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#3299

Jelica Šumič Riha

#63280
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Jelica Šumič Riha is a Slovenian philosopher, political theorist, and translator, associated with the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis. Biography Riha studied philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, graduating in 1983. Initially member of the League of Communists of Slovenia, she left the party in October 1988, together with 32 other left wing intellectuals, as a protest against the Ljubljana trial, when four civilians were arrested by judged by a Yugoslav military court. In 1989, she was one of the co-founders of the Debate Club 89, which became the intellectual core of the Liberal Demo...
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#3300

James Gustafson

#56205
Overall Influence
1925 - 2021 (96 years)
James M. Gustafson was an American theological ethicist. He received an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University in 1985. He has held teaching posts at Yale Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies , the University of Chicago as professor of theological ethics in the Divinity School , and Emory University as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Humanities and Comparative Studies. He retired in 1998 after 43 years of teaching and research, after being Woodruff Professor of Comparative Studies and of Religion in the Emory College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
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