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 …
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#4101
Ronald Hoffman
#103119
Overall Influence
#4102
Philip John Barter
#103128
Overall Influence
#4103
Nancy S. Jecker
#44870
Overall Influence
Nancy Ann Silbergeld Jecker is a bioethicist, philosopher, and author. She is Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Bioethics and Humanities, with Adjunct Professorships at the university's Department of Philosophy, School of Law, and Department of Global Health. She also holds visiting professorships at the University of Johannesburg, Gauteng South Africa and the Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for Bioethics
Go to Profile#4104
Michael Bérubé
#16187
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches American literature, disability studies, and cultural studies. He is the author of several books on cultural studies, disability rights, liberal and conservative politics, and debates in higher education. From 2010 to 2017, he was the Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State; from 1997 to 2001 he was the founding director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. He was the 2012 president of the Modern Language Association, and served as vice president from 2010–2011.
Go to Profile#4105
Frederick Lowy
#56977
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Frederick Hans Lowy, is a Canadian medical educator and former President and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University. Life and career Born in Großpetersdorf, Austria in 1933, Lowy moved to Montreal at age 13. After graduating from Baron Byng High School, Lowy studied medicine at McGill University, graduating in 1959. While at McGill University, he assisted Donald Ewan Cameron on Human subject research as part of Cameron's Project MKULTRA research for "KUBARK" manuals. As an undergraduate, he was managing editor of the McGill Daily student newspaper. He was a psychiatric consultant at the Ro...
Go to Profile#4106
Russell Viner
#83540
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Russell Mardon Viner, FMedSci is an Australian-British paediatrician and policy researcher who is Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department for Education and Professor of Adolescent Health at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. He is an expert on child and adolescent health in the UK and internationally. He was a member of the UK Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic and was President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health from 2018 to 2021. He remains clinically active, seeing young people with diabetes each week at UCL Hospitals.
Go to Profile#4107
Theodore Woodward
#17119
Overall Influence
1914 - 2005 (91 years)
Theodore Englar Woodward was an American medical researcher in the field of medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In 1948, he received a Nobel Prize nomination for his role in finding cures for typhus and typhoid fever.
Go to Profile#4108
Russell H. Wiesner
#103207
Overall Influence
#4109
David K. Stevenson
#103233
Overall Influence
#4110
Timothy Madigan
#81874
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Timothy J. Madigan is an American philosopher, author and editor, and a noted humanist. He is particularly notable for having been the Editor of Free Inquiry, a leading journal of secular humanist discussion and commentary.
Go to Profile#4111
Kristóf Nyíri
#78560
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Kristóf Nyíri , is a Hungarian philosopher. He is a member of HAS, was a guest at the University of Leipzig in the Winter Semester of 2006-2007 as Leibniz Professor, directed Communications in the 21st Century: The Mobile Information Society from 2001 to 2010, and is a Professor of Philosophy, in the Department of Technical Education, at Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He has written and edited more than 200 articles, chapters, reports and books .
Go to Profile#4112
Philip Jay Kadowitz
#103261
Overall Influence
#4113
Fred Gifford
#87304
Overall Influence
Fred Gifford Freddy Giff is a professor and the associate chair of the philosophy department at Michigan State University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in 1984 and currently teaches courses on philosophy of technology, ethics and development, ethics and healthcare, and biotechnology.
Go to Profile#4114
Ulrich Laufs
#103272
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
#4115
Jürgen Hescheler
#43227
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Jürgen Karl-Josef Hescheler is a German physician and stem cell researcher. He is director to the Institute for Neurophysiology and a university professor at the University of Cologne. Hescheler has studied the biology of embryonic stem cells since the late 80's, and his publications have garnered an average total of over 1,000 citations per year since the late 2010's. He became the first researcher to accomplish an electrophysiological characterization of stem cells and was also among the first scientists in Germany obtaining permission to do research on human embryonic stem cells.. He is th...
Go to Profile#4116
Erik Thorsby
#51404
Overall Influence
1938 - 2021 (83 years)
Erik Stein Thorsby was a Norwegian physician and professor at the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital. He carried out research in immunology, specializing in transplant immunology. Career Thorsby studied medicine at the University of Oslo and graduated in 1963. In 1969, he earned his doctorate in medicine.
Go to Profile#4117
Intisar-ul-Haque
#64239
Overall Influence
1935 - 1996 (61 years)
Intisar-Ul-Haque was a Pakistani philosopher. He served as the chairman of the Department of Philosophy, at University of Peshawar and held the postdoctoral Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellowship, Germany 1974–76, and Senior Fulbright Fellowship 1984-85. He was the first student from Pakistan to do his Ph.D. in analytical philosophy and logic from Edinburgh in 1966.
Go to Profile#4118
Anoop Misra
#33450
Overall Influence
Anoop Misra is an Indian endocrinologist and a former honorary physician to the Prime Minister of India. He is the chairman of Fortis Centre for Diabetes, Obesity and Cholesterol and heads, National Diabetes Obesity and Cholesterol Foundation . A former Fellow of the World Health Organization at the Royal Free Hospital, UK, Misra is a recipient of the Dr. B. C. Roy Award, the highest Indian award in the medical category. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for his contributions to Indian medicine.
Go to Profile#4119
N. Scott Adzick
#103320
Overall Influence
#4120
Eicke Latz
#103322
Overall Influence
#4121
Ulrich Schrade
#56922
Overall Influence
1943 - 2009 (66 years)
Ulrich Schrade was a Polish philosopher, educationist and ethicist. Born in Patryki. In the years 1961-1966 he studied economics under Boleslaw Kasprowicz at the Higher School of Economics in Sopot, Poland
Go to Profile#4122
Ole Petter Ottersen
#17879
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ole Petter Ottersen is a Norwegian physician and neuroscientist. He serves as the Rector of Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and took office in August 2017. Ottersen has been professor of medicine at the University of Oslo since 1992 and served as the university's directly elected Rector from 2009 to 2017.
Go to Profile#4123
Gunnar E. Carlsson
#103413
Overall Influence
#4124
John Rennie
#14485
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
John Rennie is an American science writer who was the seventh editor in chief of Scientific American magazine. After leaving Scientific American in 2009, he began writing for Public Library of Science Blogs. Rennie has also been involved with several television programs and podcasts as well as multiple writing projects, including his latest position as a deputy editor on the staff of Quanta Magazine.
Go to Profile#4125
Benjamin G. Neel
#103454
Overall Influence
#4126
Jesse Mann
#71971
Overall Influence
1921 - 2016 (95 years)
Jesse Aloysius Mann , a native of Washington, D.C., was an American educator of philosophy. Education Mann graduated from Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. He earned a Ph.D. at the Catholic University of America in 1958.
Go to Profile#4127
Raymond Lund
#95444
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Raymond Douglas Lund is a British anatomist. He was a professor of ophthalmology at the John Moran Eye Center, . He was previously professor of anatomy at the University of Cambridge. He was also a professor at the University of Washington, The Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of Pittsburgh.
Go to Profile#4128
William W. O’neill
#103481
Overall Influence
#4130
Robert Bruce Ware
#23120
Overall Influence
Robert Bruce Ware is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Ware earned an AB in political science from UC Berkeley, an MA in philosophy from UC San Diego, and a D.Phil. from Oxford University. From 1996 to 2013, Ware conducted field research in North Caucasus and has published extensively on politics, ethnography, and religion of the region in scholarly journals and in the popular media. He has been cited as a leading specialist on Dagestan. His recent research has focused upon the philosophy of mathematics and physics.
Go to Profile#4131
Christopher K. Zarins
#103516
Overall Influence
#4132
Leslie Harcold Blumgart
#103517
Overall Influence
#4133
Michael Detlefsen
#87932
Overall Influence
1948 - 2019 (71 years)
Michael Detlefsen was an American philosopher who was a McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His areas of special interest were logic, history of mathematics, philosophy of mathematics and epistemology.
Go to Profile#4134
Stein Kaasa
#103591
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#4135
Avindra Nath
#48722
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Avindra "Avi" Nath , is a physician-scientist who specializes in neuroimmunology. Nath is a senior investigator, and intramural clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in the United States. At NINDS, Nath also leads the Section of Infections of the Nervous System and plans to institute a translational research center. He previously served in several research and administrative positions at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#4136
Gerhold K. Becker
#90486
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Gerhold K. Becker is a German philosopher. Biographical sketch Gerhold K. Becker grew up in Bad Salzschlirf, Hesse, the eldest son of the violinist Josef Becker and his wife Agnes née Goldbach. After graduating from the humanistic high school at Fulda, he studied philosophy and theology at universities in Frankfurt/Main, Heidelberg, and Munich, with, among others, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dieter Henrich, Hermann Krings, Robert Spaemann, Michael Theunissen, Ernst Tugendhat and Heinrich Fries, Alois Grillmeier, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Karl Rahner, Trutz Rendtorff and Eugen Biser, under whose direction he completed a summa cum laude dissertation on the thinking of Ernst Troeltsch.
Go to Profile#4137
Jordi Graupera
#50316
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Jordi Graupera i Garcia-Milà is a Catalan philosopher. He works on self-determination and international relations. He works as a philosophy professor at the Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, teaching on globalization, cultural traditions, and creative thinking. He also works teaching history of social thought at the Open University of Catalonia.
Go to Profile#4138
Muhamed Filipović
#28530
Overall Influence
1929 - 2020 (91 years)
Muhamed Filipović was a Bosnian academic, writer, essayist, theorist and philosopher. As a young man he took part in the communist takeover of power and Yugoslav Partisans in 1945. He worked as a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Sarajevo.
Go to Profile#4139
Djillali Annane
#103644
Overall Influence
#4140
William R. Hiatt
#102860
Overall Influence
1950 - 2020 (70 years)
William R. Hiatt was an American cardiologist. William H. Hiatt was born in Albion, Indiana, on 19 December 1919, educated at Manchester College and the Loyola University School of Dentistry, and moved to Colorado to pursue a career in endodontics and periodontics. He died of cancer on 31 May 1993. Hiatt married Luana Read, with whom he had three children, including William R. Hiatt, who was born on 1 June 1950. William R. Hiatt graduated from Denver Country Day School in 1968, and studied English at Knox College, where he first met his wife Susan Wessels Hiatt. After completing his undergraduate degree in 1972, Hiatt enrolled at the University of Colorado School of Medicine until 1976.
Go to Profile#4141
Ronald Swerdloff
#103658
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
#4142
John Wallace Eaton
#103663
Overall Influence
#4143
Yuan Weishi
#36332
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Yuan Weishi is a Chinese historian and philosopher. Biography Yuan was born in Xingning, Guangdong. He was admitted to Zhongshan University Department of Economics in 1950, and then went to a master program in political economy at Fudan University. He worked as a faculty member at Zhongshan University Department of Philosophy.
Go to Profile#4144
Philip Bohlman
#67543
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Philip Vilas Bohlman is an American ethnomusicologist. Life and career He is the Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago and a visiting professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater . At Chicago, Bohlman is on the resource faculty of the Germanic Studies Department, the Mary Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Center for European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, the Divinity School, and the Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture. Bohlman has held guest...
Go to Profile#4145
Stephen L. Esquith
#94257
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Stephen L. Esquith is a philosophy professor and the Dean of the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. He earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy at Princeton University in 1979 and has taught courses at Michigan State University since 1980. Much of his current work deals with ethical issues in development.
Go to Profile#4146
Joseph Moncada
#92178
Overall Influence
Joseph Moncada was a Dominican theologian, the first Professor of Philosophy at the University of Malta and Rector of the same university. Life Moncada was born in Modica, Italy, and joined the Dominican Order. He was regent of studies at the Dominican college in Sicily. In Malta, he was close to the Grand Masters of the Knights Hospitaller, who engaged him in various offices.
Go to Profile#4147
Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann
#80786
Overall Influence
1934 - 2022 (88 years)
Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann was a German philosopher. He was known for his expertise on Heidegger's thought, having worked with him at the University of Freiburg from 1972 to 1976. Herrmann taught there as professor from 1979 to 1999.
Go to Profile#4148
Gerald B. Appel
#36588
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Gerald B. Appel is an American medical doctor and kidney researcher known both for his celebrity patients and for his scholarly work on the renal manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus and other diseases of the glomeruli . He has also published more than three hundred academic papers and book chapters on diseases of the glomeruli, several with his wife, Alice Sue Appel, Ph.D.
Go to Profile#4149
Olivier Hermine
#103745
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4150
Dariusz Karłowicz
#73546
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Dariusz Karłowicz is a Polish philosopher, university lecturer, columnist, and a book publisher. The president of the St. Nicolas Foundation which is an NGO involved in charitable, educational, and scientific activity. An Editor-in-chief of the Polish philosophical magazine "Political Theology" which analyzes the connections and relationships between philosophy, religion, and politics. Lecturer in political philosophy at the War Studies University in Warsaw. Co-author of a weekly television program "Trzeci Punkt Widzenia" on the channel TVP Kultura . A regular columnist in the weekly Sieci .
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