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,
#3901
Cristina Lafont
#36964
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Cristina Lafont is Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Biography Lafont graduated 'cum laude' with a Licenciatura in philosophy from the Universidad de Valencia in 1987. From there, she moved to Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt , where she obtained her PhD in philosophy 'summa cum laude' in 1992 under the supervision of Jürgen Habermas. At the same university, she was awarded the Habilitation in the year 2000. Cristina Lafont has held numerous positions as a distinguished lecturer or visiting professor in the English-speaking, Spanish-speaking and German-speaking academic world.
Go to Profile#3902
Hannele Yki-Järvinen
#69195
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Hannele Yki-Järvinen is a Finnish endocrinologist, who specialises in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the treatment of type 2 diabetes. She is Professor of Medicine at the Department of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland. She is also Head of the Division of Diabetes at the Helsinki University Central Hospital. She received the 1995 Young Scientist Anders Jahre Award. She was also the recipient of the Minkowski Award in 1993. Yki-Järvinen was an assistant professor at the University of Texas from 1994 to 2000. She was then an Academy Professor at the Academy of Finland from 1995 t...
Go to Profile#3903
Thelma Z. Lavine
#48311
Overall Influence
1915 - 2011 (96 years)
Thelma Zeno Lavine , was an American philosopher, professor, and writer, specializing mainly in the areas of 19th and 20th century, especially the writing of John Dewey. She taught courses that highlighted the correlation between philosophy and other topics such as economics, history, literature, and contemporary American culture
Go to Profile#3904
Elijah ben Joseph Chabillo
#47503
Overall Influence
Eli ben Joseph Chabillo was a Spanish philosopher who lived in Monzón, Aragon, in the second half of the fifteenth century. He was an admirer of the Christian scholastics, and studied Latin in order to translate into Hebrew some of their works, especially those dealing with psychology. The works which he partly translated and partly adapted were the followingBy Thomas AquinasQuæstiones Disputatæ, Quæstio de AnimaDe Animæ Facultatibus , published by Adolf Jellinek in Philosophie und Kabbala, Leipzig, 1854De UniversalibusShe'elot Ma'amar be-Nimtza ube-Mahut questions on Thomas Aquinas' treati...
Go to Profile#3905
Mahmoud Khatami
#28624
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Mahmoud Khatami is an Iranian philosopher. Life Mahmoud Khatami grew up in Tehran. Showing an early interest in humanities, he attended the Seminary of Islamic Studies, which gained him the traditional degree of Ijtihad, the highest level in Islamic religious and theological learning. Concurrently, he attended the University of Tehran to pursue his secular education for the BA, MA and MS degrees. He also received two PhD degrees in philosophy from Iranian institutions, one in 1987 and one in 1992. Afterwards, he furthered his education in England, where he was awarded a further PhD in the fie...
Go to Profile#3906
Athir al-Din al-Abhari
1200 - 1264 (64 years)
Athīr al‐Dīn al‐Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar ibn al‐Mufaḍḍal al‐Samarqandī al‐Abharī, also known as Athīr al‐Dīn al‐Munajjim was an Iranian muslim polymath, philosopher, astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. Other than his influential writings, he had many famous disciples.
Go to Profile#3907
Christopher Janaway
#61492
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Christopher Janaway is a philosopher and author. He earned degrees from the University of Oxford. Before moving to Southampton in 2005, Janaway taught at the University of Sydney and Birkbeck, University of London. His recent research has been on Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and aesthetics. His 2007 book Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy focuses on a critical examination of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. Janaway currently lectures at the University of Southampton, which in the past has included a module focusing on Nietzsche's Genealogy. That module is no...
Go to Profile#3908
Andrés Ortiz-Osés
#28183
Overall Influence
1943 - 2021 (78 years)
Andrés Ortiz-Osés was a Spanish philosopher. He was the founder of symbolic hermeneutics, a philosophical trend that gave a symbolic twist to north European hermeneutics. He was born in Tardienta, studied theology in Comillas and Rome, and then moved to The Institute of Philosophy in Innsbruck where he earned a Ph.D. in hermeneutics.
Go to Profile#3909
Douglas V. Steere
#42343
Overall Influence
1901 - 1995 (94 years)
Douglas Van Steere was an American Quaker ecumenist. Biography He served as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College from 1928 to 1964 and visiting professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1962. Steere organized Quaker post-war relief work in Finland, Norway and Poland, was invited to participate as an ecumenical observer in the Second Vatican Council and co-founded the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality. He authored, edited, translated and wrote introductions for many books on Quakerism, as well as other religions and philosophy.
Go to Profile#3910
Oscar Ratnoff
#36008
Overall Influence
1916 - 2008 (92 years)
Oscar Davis Ratnoff was an American physician who conducted research on the process of coagulation and blood-related disorders. Ratnoff discovered the substance later known as Factor XII and was one of the primary contributors to the delineation of the exact sequence that makes up the clotting cascade. He also made notable research contributions to the understanding of the complement system and to the detection and treatment of hemophilia.
Go to Profile#3911
Michael R. Heim
#46056
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael R. Heim is an American author and educator. Known as "the philosopher of cyberspace", Heim's three scholarly books - Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing , The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality , and Virtual Realism - have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. He taught at Missouri Western University in the 1980s, was an online lecturer for Connected Education in the mid-1980s, and taught at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, 1995–2002. Heim is currently a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine.
Go to Profile#3912
Geert Lovink
#19464
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Geert Lovink is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, whose goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and open dialogue. As theorist, activist and net critic, Lovink has made an effort in helping to shape the development of the web.
Go to Profile#3913
Gustav Kafka
1883 - 1953 (70 years)
Gustav Kafka was an Austrian philosopher, psychologist. One of Kafka's most outstanding contributions to the realms of psychology have been his critique of fundamentals and methods, such as his criticism of behaviorism, and other articles in which he revealed new points of view based on concrete investigation.
Go to Profile#3914
Daniel W. Nebert
#50648
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Daniel Walter Nebert is an American physician-scientist. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. His research has revolved around the central theme of gene–environment interaction.
Go to Profile#3915
Ernesto Buonaiuti
1881 - 1946 (65 years)
Ernesto Buonaiuti was an Italian historian, philosopher of religion, Catholic priest and anti-fascist. He lost his chair at the University of Rome owing to his opposition to the Fascists. As a scholar in History of Christianity and religious philosophy he was one of the most important exponents of the modernist current.
Go to Profile#3916
Charles Seeger
1886 - 1979 (93 years)
Charles Louis Seeger Jr. was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger , Peggy Seeger , and Mike Seeger ; and brother of the World War I poet Alan Seeger and children's author and educator Elizabeth Seeger .
Go to Profile#3917
Stanley Sadie
#3867
Overall Influence
1930 - 2005 (75 years)
Stanley John Sadie was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Along with Thurston Dart, Nigel Fortune and Oliver Neighbour he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation.
Go to Profile#3918
Piotr Lenartowicz
#21446
Overall Influence
1934 - 2012 (78 years)
Piotr Lenartowicz was a Polish philosopher, vitalist, professor of philosophy at the Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education Ignatianum, jesuit. Life Lenartowicz was born in Warsaw, Poland, the son of Wiesław Lenartowicz and Krystyna Schneider. He completed his medical studies at School of Medicine in Warsaw in 1958. In 1961 he obtained a doctorate in neurophysiology at the School of Medicine in Warsaw. Studied philosophy
Go to Profile#3919
Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster
1869 - 1966 (97 years)
Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster was a German academic, educationist, pacifist and philosopher, known for his public opposition to Nazism. His works primarily dealt with the development of ethics through education, sexology, politics and international law.
Go to Profile#3920
Carolyn Abbate
#18712
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Carolyn Abbate is an American musicologist, described by the Harvard Gazette as "one of the world’s most accomplished and admired music historians". She is currently Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University. From her earliest essays she has questioned familiar approaches to well-known works, reaching beyond their printed scores and composer intentions, to explore the particular, physical impact of the medium upon performer and audience alike. Her research focuses primarily on the operatic repertory of the 19th century, offering creative and innovative approaches to understanding these works critically and historically.
Go to Profile#3921
Bruno Nettl
#16283
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Bruno Nettl was an ethnomusicologist who was central in defining ethnomusicology as a discipline. His research focused on folk and traditional music, specifically Native American music, the music of Iran and numerous topics surrounding ethnomusicology as a discipline.
Go to Profile#3922
Edward M. Hundert
#23359
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Edward M. Hundert is the Dean for Medical Education and the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Professor in Residence of Global Health and Social Medicine and Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, where he is also Associate Director of the Center for Bioethics at HMS . Hundert is a member of the TIAA Board of Trustees of TIAA-CREF.
Go to Profile#3923
Alan Montefiore
#51104
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Alan Claude Robin Goldsmid Montefiore is a British philosopher and Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a co-founder and Emeritus President of the Forum for European Philosophy, as well as Joint President of the Wiener Library, and a former Chair of Council of the Froebel Educational Institute.
Go to Profile#3924
Michael Hauser
#61275
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Michael Hauser is a Czech philosopher, translator and founder of the civic organization Socialist Circle , which he also chaired until 2014. He became a member of the Council of Česká televize in March 2014.
Go to Profile#3925
Miloš N. Đurić
1892 - 1967 (75 years)
Miloš N. Đurić , was a Serbian classical philologist, hellenist, classical translator, philosopher, university professor and a full member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Đurić's textbooks and translations of classic literary works such as the Iliad, the Odyssey and Poetics are still in use. According to Dr. Ksenija Maricki Gađanski, Đurić's numerous contributions to Serbian culture puts him on a scale of earlier Serbian enlighteners such as Saint Sava and Dositej Obradović.
Go to Profile#3926
Jacob Lorhard
1561 - 1609 (48 years)
Jacob Lorhard was a German philosopher and pedagogue based in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Biography Lorhard was born in Münsingen, in the Duchy of Württemberg. He studied at the University of Tübingen. In 1603 he became Rector of the Gymnasium in St. Gallen. In 1606 he published Ogdoas scholastica, which contains the word "ontologia" – probably appearing for the first time ever in a book. He uses "Ontologia" synonymously with "Metaphysica". The following year he received the offer of becoming Professor of Theology at the University of Marburg from Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Kassel. Rudolph Göckel was also professor in Marburg in logic, ethics, and mathematics at this time.
Go to Profile#3927
Fabien Eboussi Boulaga
#31994
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Fabien Eboussi Boulaga was a Cameroonian philosopher. Biography Born in 1934 in Bafia, Eboussi Boulaga earned his high school diploma from the Akono Minor Seminary , before joining the Society of Jesus in 1955. He was ordained as a priest in 1969, and became an official member of the Society of Jesus in 1973. He became known as a polemical figure, for example in his book Bantou problématique , and in his theological stance, notably in La démission , which caused an outcry in ecclesiastical circles; this latter publication called for the organised departure of missionaries. Three years later,...
Go to Profile#3928
Caner Taslaman
#35157
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Caner Taslaman is a Turkish academic, professor of religious philosophy, Quran researcher and writer known for his works on the Big Bang theory and the structure of the Quran. He is a professor of philosophy at the Yıldız Technical University.
Go to Profile#3929
Charles Augustus Strong
1862 - 1940 (78 years)
Charles Augustus Strong was an American philosopher and psychologist. He spent the earlier part of his career teaching in the United States, but after his wife died, in 1906 he settled with their daughter in Italy, near Florence. Between 1918 and 1936 he wrote most of his works there.
Go to Profile#3930
Donniel Hartman
#42765
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Donniel Hartman is an Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbi and author. He is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. Biography Donniel Hartman has a doctorate in Jewish philosophy from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Master of Arts in political philosophy from New York University, and a Master of Arts in religion from Temple University. He has rabbinic ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute.
Go to Profile#3931
Sandie Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker
1879 - 1952 (73 years)
Alexander Dunlop Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker, , known as Sandie Lindsay, was a Scottish academic and peer. Lindsay worked at a number of universities, beginning his career as a fellow in moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and as an assistant lecturer at Victoria University of Manchester. He the moved to Balliol College, Oxford where he had been elected a fellow in 1906. He served in the British Army during the First World War. He was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow from 1922 to 1924, before returning to the University of Oxford as master of Balliol College 1924.
Go to Profile#3932
Lynne Mca. Reid
#69633
Overall Influence
#3933
Amelia Earhart
1897 - 1939 (42 years)
Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.
Go to Profile#3934
Herman Tønnessen
#65309
Overall Influence
1918 - 2001 (83 years)
Herman Tønnessen was a Norwegian–Canadian philosopher and writer. Having studied with Arne Næss, in the years following the end of World War II he was affiliated with the Norwegian Institute for Social Research.
Go to Profile#3935
Bart Staels
#69698
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#3936
Gary R. Mar
#42593
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Gary R. Mar is an American philosopher and logician specializing in logic, the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and linguistics, philosophy of science, computational philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and Asian American philosophy. Professor Mar is a member of the Philosophy Department at Stony Brook University. Gary Mar was the last student to have a Ph.D. directed by Alonzo Church. He is co-author with Donald Kalish and Richard Montague of the second edition of Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning.
Go to Profile#3937
Barry C. Smith
#49478
Overall Influence
Barry C. Smith is a British philosopher and director of the Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study at University of London. He also co-directs the Centre for the Study of the Senses. He has previously been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and at the École Normale Supérieure, and was the writer and presenter of the BBC World Service radio series, The Mysteries of the Brain. He has also done several interviews with Philosophy Bites.
Go to Profile#3938
Andrew P. Feinberg
#69730
Overall Influence
#3939
Hugh J. Silverman
#44700
Overall Influence
1945 - 2013 (68 years)
Hugh J. Silverman was an American philosopher and cultural theorist whose writing, lecturing, teaching, editing, and international conferencing participated in the development of a postmodern network. He was executive director of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature and professor of philosophy and comparative literary and cultural studies at Stony Brook University , where he was also affiliated with the Department of Art and the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. He was program director for the Stony Brook Advanced Graduate Certificate in Art and Philosophy.
Go to Profile#3940
Graham Teasdale
#20979
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Sir Graham Michael Teasdale is an English neurosurgeon and the co-developer of the neurologic assessment tool known as the Glasgow Coma Scale. He is an Honorary Professor in Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow Medical School.
Go to Profile#3941
Emmanuel Faye
#42854
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Emmanuel Faye is a philosopher and historian of French philosophy. A specialist in the Renaissance and Descartes, he has also published several critical studies on Heidegger and his reception. Biography
Go to Profile#3942
Hélène de Beauvoir
#29770
Overall Influence
1910 - 2001 (91 years)
Henriette-Hélène de Beauvoir was a French painter. She was the younger sister of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Her art was exhibited in Europe, Japan, and the US. She married Lionel de Roulet. When Hélène de Beauvoir lived in Goxwiller, a village near Strasbourg, she became president of the center for battered women. She continued painting until she was 85. Her paintings were related to feminist philosophy and women's issues.
Go to Profile#3943
John O'Neill
#33008
Overall Influence
John F. O'Neill is a philosopher. He is professor of political economy at the University of Manchester. He has published on subjects related to political economy and philosophy, philosophy and environmental policy, political theory, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science.
Go to Profile#3944
Georg Stenger
#68758
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Georg Stenger is a German philosopher and professor and chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Vienna. He is known for his works on structural ontology, intercultural philosophy, Heidegger's philosophy and also his contributions to Heidegger Gesamtausgabe. Stenger is the president of Society of Intercultural Philosophy.
Go to Profile#3945
Manzoor Ahmad
#11600
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Manzoor Ahmed, DSc is a Pakistani scientist and philosopher of science. He is a professor of philosophy and is currently serving as rector of Usman Institute of Technology in Karachi, Sindh Province. He has international prestige for publishing articles, books, and leading edge research on the field of Philosophy of science, particularly the philosophy of space and time.
Go to Profile#3946
Peter Hotez
#11304
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Peter Jay Hotez is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical disease control. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics, and University Professor of Biology at Baylor College of Medicine.
Go to Profile#3947
Jean-Michel Berthelot
#26260
Overall Influence
1945 - 2006 (61 years)
Jean-Michel Berthelot was a French sociologist, philosopher, epistemologist and social theorist, specialist in philosophy of social sciences, history of sociology, sociology of education, sociology of knowledge, sociology of science and sociology of the body.
Go to Profile#3948
Karl Vorländer
1860 - 1928 (68 years)
Karl Vorländer was a German neo-Kantian philosopher who taught in Solingen. He published various studies and editions of the works of Immanuel Kant, including studies of the relation between Kantian thought and socialist thought, and of the influence of Kant on the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His 1924 biography of Kant became a classic of Kant scholarship for much of the twentieth century.
Go to Profile#3949
Richard P. Mayeux
#3950
Cassius Longinus
213 - 273 (60 years)
Cassius Longinus was a Greek rhetorician and philosophical critic. Born in either Emesa or Athens, he studied at Alexandria under Ammonius Saccas and Origen the Pagan, and taught for thirty years in Athens, one of his pupils being Porphyry. Longinus did not embrace the Neoplatonism then being developed by Plotinus, but continued as a Platonist of the old type and his reputation as a literary critic was immense. During a visit to the east, he became a teacher, and subsequently chief counsellor to Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. It was by his advice that she endeavoured to regain her independence from Rome.
Go to Profile