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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.

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#3951

Basil Mitchell

#31876

Overall Influence

1917 - 2011 (94 years)

Basil George Mitchell was an English philosopher and at one time Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. Mitchell argued for the place of religious belief in public debate and criticized liberal humanism.

#3952

Marcia Tiburi

#53481

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Márcia Angelita Tiburi is a Brazilian plastic artist, professor of philosophy, literary critic, and writer. Her main areas of research are ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of knowledge. In 1990, she obtained a degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and in 1996 in Arts from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, a master's degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul with an emphasis on contemporary philosophy.

#3953

Sextus of Chaeronea

Sextus of Chaeronea

#29626

Overall Influence

Sextus of Chaeronea was a philosopher, a nephew or grandson of Plutarch, and one of the teachers of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Biography The Suda identifies Sextus of Chaeronea as being a student of Herodotus of Tarsus and being the same person as Sextus Empiricus, in which case Sextus would be a Pyrrhonist. Diogenes Laertius also says that Sextus Empiricus was a student of Herodotus. A Latin translation of Outlines of Pyrrhonism ascribe them to Sextus of Chaeronea.

#3954

Luigi Guido Grandi

Luigi Guido Grandi

1671 - 1742 (71 years)

Dom Guido Grandi, O.S.B. Cam. was an Italian monk, priest, philosopher, theologian, mathematician, and engineer. Life Grandi was born on 1 October 1671 in Cremona, Italy and christened Luigi Francesco Lodovico. When he was of age, he was educated at the Jesuit college there. After he completed his studies there in 1687, he entered the novitiate of the Camaldolese monks at Ferrara and took the name of Guido. In 1693 he was sent to the Monastery of St. Gregory the Great, the Camaldolese house in Rome, to complete his studies in philosophy and theology in preparation for Holy Orders. A year later, Grandi was assigned as professor of both fields at the Camaldolese Monastery of St.

#3955

Graham Nerlich

#58181

Overall Influence

1929 - 2022 (93 years)

Graham Nerlich was an Australian philosopher. He was an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, and his expertise was in the areas of philosophy; existence of God; meaning of life; mind and body; ethics; and philosophy of science.

#3956

Ato Sekyi-Otu

#34049

Overall Influence

Ato Sekyi-Otu is a Ghanaian political philosopher. He was born at Saltpond, Ghana in 1941 and until 1971 was known as Daniel Sackey Walker. He was educated at Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, where he was Head Prefect in 1960-61 and completed his Cambridge Higher School Certificate in 1961 with distinctions in Greek and Latin. He went to Harvard and received an A.B. in Government in 1966. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Toronto where he worked with the renowned Canadian political theorist C.B. Macpherson and received his PhD in 1971.

#3957

Anita Silvers

#41505

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Anita Silvers was an American philosopher, focusing on medical ethics, bioethics, feminism, disability studies, philosophy of law, and social and political philosophy. She "was a leading voice in the interpretation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, arguing that disability rights should be viewed the same as other civil rights and not as an accommodation or as a social safety net issue".

#3958

Eric Cassell

#13223

Overall Influence

1928 - 2021 (93 years)

Eric Jonathan Cassell was an American physician and bioethicist. Early life and education Eric Jonathan Goldstein was born on August 29, 1928, in New York City. He and his brother changed their surname to Cassell to render it closer to their grandfather's name, which was changed at Ellis Island. He received a BS from Queens College, City University of New York, in 1950, an MA from Columbia University, also in 1950, and an MD from New York University School of Medicine in 1954.

#3959

Ken Mogi

#11590

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Kenichirō "Ken" Mogi is a Japanese scientist. He is a senior researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories and a visiting professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. According to the profile posted at his personal blog, his mission is "to solve the so-called mind-brain problem."

#3960

Roxana Mehran

#20906

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Roxana Mehran is an Iranian-American cardiologist and Mount Sinai Endowed Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is known for her work in interventional cardiology.

#3961

Gustave Belot

1859 - 1929 (70 years)

Gustave Belot was a French philosopher and educational administrator. Gustave Belot was born 7 August 1859 at Strasbourg, the son of a professor in the faculty of letters at Lyons. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1878, taking the philosophy agrégation in 1881, and becoming a provincial philosophy instructor at Brest and elsewhere. In 1899 he succeeded Lucien Lévy-Bruhl as professor of philosophy at the lycée Louis-le-Grand. In 1911 he was appointed Inspector of the Paris Academy, and in 1913 he became Inspector-General of Secondary Instruction. He died in Paris on 21 December 1929....

#3962

Paul E. Marik

#27400

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Paul Ellis Marik is a medical doctor and former professor of medicine who until his resignation in January 2022 served as chair of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, and was also a critical care doctor at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. His research interests include sepsis and tissue oxygenation. In August 2023 the American Board of Internal Medicine informed Marik his certification was to be revoked for spreading misinformation.

#3963

Lucio Colletti

#60476

Overall Influence

1924 - 2001 (77 years)

Lucio Colletti was an Italian Western Marxist philosopher. Colletti started to be known outside Italy because of a long interview with him that Marxist historian Perry Anderson published in the New Left Review in 1974.

#3964

Paul Foulquié

1893 - 1983 (90 years)

Paul Foulquié was a French thinker and philosopher known for his books on metaphysics, epistemology, existentialism and psychology. His works have been translated into different languages. Bibliography L'existentialisme Precis de philosophie La volonté La dialectique La psychologie contemporaine Psychologie Dictionnaire de la langue philosophique by Foulquié Paul Diccionario de Pedogogia Dictionnaire de la langue pédagogique by Paul Foulquié and Quadrige Précis de philosophie Tome III Métaphysique l'action. Cours de philosophie Alain Précis de philosophie à l'usage des candidats au baccalau...

#3965

Ulrich Libbrecht

Ulrich Libbrecht

#30473

Overall Influence

1928 - 2017 (89 years)

Ulrich Libbrecht was a Belgian philosopher and author in the field of comparative philosophy. His magnum opus consists of four books in Dutch - called "Introduction to Comparative Philosophy". An abbreviated version of these works in English, entitled "Within the Four Seas... Introduction to Comparative Philosophy" was published by Peeters Ed. This book explains how a comparative model, based on the paradigm-free axes of energy and information, accommodates the current world-views of Taoism, Buddhism and Rationalism – representing the Chinese, Indian and Western heritage - and shows how scie...

#3966

Stephen E. Braude

#27120

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Stephen E. Braude is an American philosopher and parapsychologist. He is a past president of the Parapsychological Association, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and a professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

#3967

Ferrante de Gemmis

1732 - 1803 (71 years)

Ferrante de Gemmis was an Italian philosopher and literary man. Biography Ferrante de Gemmis was born in Terlizzi, near Bari. His parents were the Baron Tommaso de Gemmis and Francesca Bruni. He was educated in Naples where he graduated in law. He inherited the properties of his uncle Minister Ferrante Maddalena. De Gemmis was a friend of the philosopher and political economist Antonio Genovesi. He founded an Academy in Terlizzi becoming the primary exponent of Illuminism in the region of Apulia. He refused to become a judge so he could continue writing about philosophy even though he wrote i...

#3968

Alfred Delp

1907 - 1945 (38 years)

Alfred Delp was a German Jesuit priest and philosopher of the German Resistance. A member of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Falsely implicated in the failed 1944 July Plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler, Delp was arrested and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1945.

#3969

Christopher Gauker

#66352

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Christopher Gauker is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Salzburg. He is known for his works on philosophy of language. Life Gauker grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and attended the University of Chicago, where Donald Davidson directed his bachelor's thesis. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh, where Wilfrid Sellars directed his dissertation. Before coming to Salzburg, he was a professor at the University of Cincinnati.

#3970

Bernhard Alexander

Bernhard Alexander

1850 - 1927 (77 years)

Bernhard Alexander was a Hungarian writer of Jewish background, and a professor of philosophy and aesthetics. Life and career Bernhard Alexander was born Alexander Márkus in Pest on 13 April 1850, and educated in his native city, later attending German universities, where he pursued studies in the fields of philosophy, aesthetics and pedagogy. On his return to Hungary he was appointed to a teaching post in a Realschule in Budapest, and in 1878 was admitted as a docent into the faculty of philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Budapest, where he became a full professor in 1895.

#3971

Louis de Bonald

Louis de Bonald

1754 - 1840 (86 years)

Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald was a French counter-revolutionary philosopher and politician. He is mainly remembered for developing a theoretical framework from which French sociology would emerge.

#3972

John Arbuthnot

1667 - 1735 (68 years)

John Arbuthnot FRS , often known simply as Dr Arbuthnot, was a Scottish physician, satirist and polymath in London. He is best remembered for his contributions to mathematics, his membership in the Scriblerus Club , and for inventing the figure of John Bull.

#3973

He Guanghu

#24791

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

He Guanghu is a Chinese scholar of philosophy of religion and Christian theology. He is considered one of the leading "cultural Christians" in China, intellectuals who see Christian culture as a key to rebuilding Chinese civilization.

#3974

Franco Volpi

#46967

Overall Influence

1952 - 2009 (57 years)

Franco Volpi , was a philosopher, historian of philosophy and a professor at Padua University, who wrote regularly to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Volpi was an expert in German philosophy; in particular, Martin Heidegger and Arthur Schopenhauer. He investigated the relation between nihilism and the nothing, and between philosophy and current psychology. In one of his works, he stated that "real philosophical questions have a history but have no answer." For him, nihilism undermines truth, weakens religion, and dissolves dogmatism.

#3975

George Dalgarno

1616 - 1687 (71 years)

George Dalgarno was a Scottish intellectual interested in linguistic problems. Originally from Aberdeen, he later worked as a schoolteacher in Oxford in collaboration with John Wilkins, although the two parted company intellectually in 1659.

#3976

Apollodorus of Seleucia

150 BC - Present (2176 years)

Apollodorus of Seleucia , or Apollodorus Ephillus, was a Stoic philosopher, and a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon. Apollodorus is famous for describing Cynicismism as "the short path to virtue", and he may have been the first Stoic after the time of Zeno and Aristo to systematically attempt to reconcile Stoicism with Cynicism. The lengthy account of Cynicism given by Diogenes Laërtius, which is presented from a Stoic point of view, may be derived from Apollodorus, and it is possible that he was the first Stoic to promote the idea of a line of Cynic succession from Socrates to Zeno .

#3977

Mark Musen

#40189

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Mark Alan Musen is a Professor of Biomedical Informatics and of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University, and Division Director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research. Musen's research focuses on open science, data stewardship, intelligent systems, and biomedical decision support. Since the late 1980s, Musen has led the development of Protégé, which is currently the most "widely used domain-independent, freely available, platform-independent technology for developing and managing terminologies, ontologies, and knowledge bases" in a range of application domains.

#3978

Pope Alexander VI

Pope Alexander VI

1431 - 1503 (72 years)

Pope Alexander VI was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503. Born into the prominent Borgia family in Xàtiva under the Crown of Aragon , Rodrigo studied law at the University of Bologna. He was ordained deacon and made a cardinal in 1456 after the election of his uncle as Pope Callixtus III, and a year later he became vice-chancellor of the Catholic Church. He proceeded to serve in the Curia under the next four popes, acquiring significant influence and wealth in the process. In 1492, Rodrigo was elected pope, taking the name Ale...

#3979

Edward Kelley

1555 - 1590 (35 years)

Sir Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot , was an English Renaissance occultist and scryer. He is known for working with John Dee in his magical investigations. Besides the professed ability to see spirits or angels in a "shew-stone" or mirror, which John Dee so valued, Kelley also said that he possessed the secret of transmuting base metals into gold, the goal of alchemy, as well as the philosopher's stone itself.

#3980

Dominique Janicaud

#43340

Overall Influence

1937 - 2002 (65 years)

Dominique Janicaud was a French philosopher, known for his critical approach to the philosophy of Heidegger. He was the director of its Center for the History of Ideas at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis until 1998, when he was succeeded by André Tosel.

#3981

John Grierson

1898 - 1972 (74 years)

John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Flaherty's Moana.

#3982

Christian Lotz

#56625

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Christian Lotz is a German-American professor of philosopher at Michigan State University. Lotz's work primarily focuses on 19th and 20th Century European philosophy , continental aesthetics, critical theory, Marxism, and contemporary European political philosophy.

#3983

Clinton Heylin

#5255

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Clinton Heylin is an English author. Heylin has written extensively about popular music, especially on the life and work of Bob Dylan. Education Heylin attended Manchester Grammar School. He studied history at Bedford College, University of London, followed by an MA in history at the University of Sussex.

#3984

Thomas Spencer Baynes

Thomas Spencer Baynes

1823 - 1887 (64 years)

Thomas Spencer Baynes was an English philosopher. Life Baynes was born in Wellington, Somerset to a Baptist minister. He intended to study for Baptist ministry, and was at a theological seminary at Bath with that view but, being strongly attracted to philosophical studies, left it and went to Edinburgh, where he became the favourite pupil of Sir William Hamilton, of whose philosophical system he continued an adherent.

#3985

Heinrich Besseler

1900 - 1969 (69 years)

Heinrich Besseler was a German musicologist born in Hörde. He is particularly known for his colossal work, Die Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance , which provided a new perspective on historical musicology by taking a history-of-ideas approach to music history.

#3986

Telauges

#32331

Overall Influence

Telauges was a Samian Pythagorean philosopher and, according to tradition, the son of Pythagoras and Theano. Little is known about his life and works other than a scattering of remarks from much later writers.

#3987

Maitreya-nātha

270 - 350 (80 years)

Maitreya-nātha is a name whose use was pioneered by Buddhist scholars Erich Frauwallner, Giuseppe Tucci, and Hakuju Ui to distinguish one of the three founders of the Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy, along with Asanga and Vasubandhu. Some scholars believe this Maitreya to be a historical person in India. The traditions themselves have held that it is referring to Maitreya, the future buddha.

#3988

Michael Northcott

#44836

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Michael Stafford Northcott is Professor Emeritus of Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for his contributions to environmental theology and ethics. Life Born in London on 13 May 1955 to James and Betty Northcott, Michael Northcott was raised in Kent, England, and attended schools in Beckenham and Cranbrook. He was married in 1977 to Jill Benz, with whom he has two daughters and a son.

#3989

K. Satchidananda Murty

K. Satchidananda Murty

#51439

Overall Influence

1924 - 2011 (87 years)

Kotha Satchidananda Murty was an Indian philosopher and professor. Murty served as the Professor of Philosophy, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam and Vice-Chancellor of Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati in the state of Andhra Pradesh, South India. He specialized in Buddhist philosophy and contributed extensively to Mahayana Buddhism. His treatise on the teachings of Nagarjuna is well acclaimed.

#3990

Naomi Alderman

#11215

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Naomi Alderman is an English novelist, game writer, and television executive producer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel The Power, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017 and has been adapted into a television series for Amazon Studios.

#3991

Tomoko Masuzawa

#8071

Overall Influence

Tomoko Masuzawa is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and History at the University of Michigan. In 1979, she received her MA in religious studies at Yale University. Masuzawa received her PhD in Religious Studies from University of California Santa Barbara in 1985. European intellectual history , discourses on religion, history of religion, and psychoanalysis are Masuzawa’s fields of study.

#3992

Panagiotis Kondylis

Panagiotis Kondylis

#34518

Overall Influence

1943 - 1998 (55 years)

Panagiotis Kondylis was a Greek philosopher, intellectual historian, translator and publications manager who principally wrote in German, in addition to translating most of his work into Greek. He can be placed in a tradition of thought best exemplified by Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli and Max Weber.

#3993

Werner Marx

#63863

Overall Influence

1910 - 1994 (84 years)

Werner Marx was a German philosopher and expert on Heidegger's thought. He taught at the University of Freiburg. Works The Meaning of Aristotle's "Ontology", Den Haag 1954Heidegger und die Tradition. Eine problemgeschichtliche Einführung in die Grundbestimmungen des Seins, Stuttgart 1961 Die Bestimmung der Philosophie im Deutschen Idealismus, Stuttgart 1964 Absolute Reflexion und Sprache, Frankfurt am Main 1967Verstehen und Auslegen, Freiburg 1967Das Spiel. Wirklichkeit und Methode, Freiburg i. Br. 1967Vernunft und Welt. Zwischen Tradition und anderem Anfang, Den Haag 1970 Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes, Stuttgart 1971 Einführung in Aristoteles' Theorie vom Seienden, Freiburg i.

#3994

Robert F. Spetzler

#70610

Overall Influence

#3995

Reinhart Maurer

#33503

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Reinhart Klemens Maurer is a philosopher and professor from Xanten, Germany. Maurer studied philosophy, German and English at the universities of Münster, Kiel and Vienna. In 1964, he made his Ph.D. Maurer later wrote his post-doctoral research in 1969 at the University of Stuttgart under the supervision of Robert Spaemann. Between 1962 and 1975, he was a research assistant and then a lecturer at the Institute for Philosophy and Pedagogy at the University of Stuttgart and from 1975 to 1997, he served as a professor at the Institute for Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin .

#3996

Richard McKirahan

#56371

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Richard D. McKirahan Jr. is an American philosopher and Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He is known for his works on Pre-Socratics.

#3997

David Efird

#47478

Overall Influence

1974 - 2020 (46 years)

David Hampton Efird was an American philosopher and Anglican priest. As an academic, he specialised in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion. Efird worked at the University of York from 2002. He was a lecturer between 2002 and 2007, and was a senior lecturer from 2007 until his death. He was head of two of York's colleges: Provost of Vanbrugh College, York from 2008 to 2013, and Principal of James College, York from 2013 to 2020.

#3998

Dean Towle Mason

#70686

Overall Influence

#3999

Petrus de Ibernia

1101 - 1201 (100 years)

Petrus de Ibernia, also known as Peter of Ireland, was a 13th-century writer and lecturer who is believed to have taught logic and natural philosophy to Thomas Aquinas. Peter of Ireland is mentioned by the Aquinas' biographers Wilhelm of Tocco and Peter Calo.

#4000

Vincent Dole

#40430

Overall Influence

1913 - 2006 (93 years)

Vincent Dole was an American doctor, who, along with his wife, Marie Nyswander , developed the use of methadone to treat heroin addiction. Dole and Nyswander, in establishing methadone maintenance treatment , improved treatment options in addiction medicine which for a century had been based on the conventional view that narcotic addiction was the result of an intractable moral defect. His work resulted in the partial re-legalization of opioid maintenance in the United States. For this contribution he was a recipient of the 1970 Canada Gairdner International Award, and the 1988 Albert Laske...

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