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,

#4301

Raphael Woolf

#94887

Overall Influence

Raphael Woolf is a British philosopher and Professor in the Department of Philosophy at King's College London. He is known for his expertise on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Books Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman Sceptic, Routledge, 2015Rereading Ancient Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows, edited by Verity Harte and Raphael Woolf, Cambridge University Press, 2018Aristotle: Eudemian Ethics, edited by Brad Inwood and Raphael Woolf, Cambridge University Press, 2013

#4302

Allison McGeer

#79867

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Allison Joan McGeer is a Canadian infectious disease specialist in the Sinai Health System, and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and is a partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. McGeer has led investigations into the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto and worked alongside Donald Low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGeer has studied how SAR...

#4303

Guy Boivin

#106219

Overall Influence

#4304

Julian Tudor Hart

#106246

Overall Influence

#4305

J. A. Perea Egido

#106286

Overall Influence

#4306

Paul Williams

#35613

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Paul Williams is Emeritus Professor of Indian and Tibetan Philosophy at the University of Bristol, England. Until his retirement in 2011 he was also director for the University's Centre for Buddhist Studies, and is a former president of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies.

#4307

Thomas Michael Scalea

#106300

Overall Influence

#4308

Tamler Sommers

#92005

Overall Influence

Tamler Sommers is an American philosopher and writer. He is the son of the American philosopher Fred Sommers and the stepson of Christina Hoff Sommers. Sommers specializes in ethics and free will, and has commented on the ethics of the Alex Rodriguez performance-enhancing drugs scandal. His book Why Honor Matters examines the nature of honor in American discourse and defends several aspects of honor cultures. He currently co-hosts the podcast Very Bad Wizards with David A. Pizarro.

#4309

Thomas Rolland Fleming

#106317

Overall Influence

#4310

Heribert Schunkert

#106321

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

#4311

Charlie S. Decarli

#106327

Overall Influence

#4312

Mohamed r. Daha

#106329

Overall Influence

#4313

Umberto Veronesi

#106330

Overall Influence

#4314

Kathleen Akins

#62524

Overall Influence

Kathleen Akins is Professor of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University. She is James S. McDonnell Centennial Fellow in Philosophy of Science and a Burnaby Mountain Endowed Research Professor. Her primary area of research is Neurophilosophy, with her research goal as of 1999 being fostering better exchange between philosophy and neuroscience to see what can be revealed about "the nature of mind and its relation to the world."

#4315

José María Valverde

José María Valverde

#40737

Overall Influence

1926 - 1996 (70 years)

José María Valverde Pacheco was a Spanish poet, essayist, literary critic, philosophy historian, and Spanish translator. Biography Valverde was born in Extremadura, but spent his childhood and teenage years in Madrid. While still a student at the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu he published his first book, Man of God: Psalms, elegies and prayers, which was funded by the Institute. Although Damaso Alonso tempted him to study philology, Valverde pursued Philosophy; his doctorate included a thesis on Wilhelm von Humboldt's philosophy of language. That same year he married Pilar Gefaell, with whom he ...

#4316

Yehuda Elkana

#33000

Overall Influence

1934 - 2012 (78 years)

Yehuda Elkana was a historian and philosopher of science, and a former president and rector of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Life and career Born as László Fröhlich to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents in Yugoslavia, Elkana moved with his family to Szeged in 1944. That same year, Elkana and his parents were dispatched to Auschwitz. His family escaped the gas chambers when the Nazis transferred them to Austria as corvée labourers for the reconstruction of war-torn cities. In 1948, at the age of 14, he immigrated to Israel. He took up residence in Kibbutz HaZore'a, but health problems impeded Elkana from performing physical tasks.

#4317

Ruy Fausto

#69047

Overall Influence

1935 - 2020 (85 years)

Ruy Fausto was a Brazilian philosopher who taught at the University of São Paulo. Fausto was born in São Paulo, and received his Ph.D. from University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne in 1981. He was given the title of emeritus professor in 1998, by the University of São Paulo. With his thesis Marx: Lógica e Política , he was considered one of the main Brazilian marxist theorists. He was the brother of historian Boris Fausto and pathologist Nelson Fausto. He died on May 1, 2020, in Paris, France, after having a heart attack.

#4318

Grant R. Wilkinson

#106369

Overall Influence

#4319

Timothy E. Quill

#70365

Overall Influence

Timothy E. Quill is an American physician specialising in palliative care at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York. He is also a board member of the Death with Dignity National Center in Portland, Oregon. Quill was the lead plaintiff in a case that eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States in 1997, Vacco v. Quill, in which the Court decided that a state law against physician-assisted suicide was constitutional.

#4320

Loreta Anilionytė

#80738

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Loreta Anilionytė is a Lithuanian philosopher, writer and translator. She is an associate Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of the Lithuanian University of Educology and a Ph.D. of Lithuanian Culture Research Institute . She graduated from Vilnius University, Lithuanian language and literature. In 1991 she received her Ph.D. in history of German philosophy and ethics . There are many published works including scientific articles and books, a novel, and essays, in her bibliography.

#4321

Marcus Raskin

#7994

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

Marcus Goodman Raskin was an American progressive social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher. He was the co-founder, with Richard Barnet, of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He was also a professor of public policy at The George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

#4322

John Francis Burke

#106390

Overall Influence

#4323

Omri Boehm

#97223

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Omri Boehm is an Israeli philosopher and associate professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He is known for his interpretation of the Binding of Isaac , work on Kant, and writing on Israel and Zionism.

#4324

James. D. Cherry

#106440

Overall Influence

#4325

Gerhardt Hindricks

#106454

Overall Influence

#4326

Richard Norman

#73585

Overall Influence

Richard J. Norman, BA , PhD , is a British academic, philosopher and humanist. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Kent, and a patron of Humanists UK. Life Norman formerly taught philosophy at the University of Kent, where his areas of interest were mainly moral and political philosophy, including both theoretical and practical ethics.

#4327

Heiner Wedemeyer

#106461

Overall Influence

#4328

Werner Stegmaier

#87732

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Werner Stegmaier is a German philosopher. He was the founding director of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Greifswald after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the German reunification. From 1994 until 2011, he was chair of philosophy with a focus on practical philosophy. His main field of research is the philosophy of orientation. He first published it in the German Philosophie der Orientierung ; its English translation has been published as What is Orientation? A Philosophical Investigation . To promote the ideas of this philosophical approach, the Hodges Foundation for Philosophical Orientation was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2018.

#4329

Warren J Manning

#106478

Overall Influence

#4330

John Arthur

#79449

Overall Influence

1946 - 2007 (61 years)

John Arthur was an American professor of philosophy and an expert in legal theory, constitutional theory, social ethics, and political philosophy. He taught at Binghamton University for 18 years. Early life and education John Arthur, son of L. James Arthur and Elizabeth Gleason Arthur, grew up in Denver, Colorado. Arthur earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and history at Cornell College and his master's degree in political sociology and PhD in philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

#4331

Denis Moreau

#75857

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Denis Moreau is a French philosopher. Life Studies Born in Bordeaux, Moreau is a former student of the École normale supérieure de Paris and member of the Institut universitaire de France. He taught at the Paris 12 Val de Marne University, then at the University of Nantes where he is currently professor of history of modern philosophy and philosophy of religion.

#4332

Stephan Achenbach

#106546

Overall Influence

#4333

Friederike Moltmann

Friederike Moltmann

#86397

Overall Influence

Friederike Moltmann is a linguist and philosopher. She has done pioneering work at the intersection of philosophy and linguistics, especially on the interface between metaphysics and natural language semantics, but also on the interface between philosophy of mind and mathematics. She is an important proponent of natural language ontology. She is currently Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris.

#4334

Michal Kosinski

Michal Kosinski

#14166

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Michal Kosinski is an associate professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, a computational psychologist, and a psychometrician. He studies the psychological processes in Large Language Models , as well as AI and Big Data to model and predict human behavior.

#4335

G. Prof. Dr. Med. Plewig

#106601

Overall Influence

#4336

Richard E. Chaisson

#106602

Overall Influence

#4337

Ian Greer

#33110

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Professor Sir Ian Andrew Greer is a medical doctor who is the President and Vice Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast and formerly Vice-President of the University of Manchester and Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences. He was Regius Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Glasgow 2001−2007, Dean at Hull York Medical School 2007–2010, then Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool 2010−2015.

#4338

Barry J. Hoffer

#106609

Overall Influence

#4339

Paul Nelson

#30206

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Paul A. Nelson is an American philosopher, noted for his advocacy of the pseudosciences of young earth creationism and intelligent design. Biography Nelson is the grandson of the creationist author and Lutheran minister Byron Christopher Nelson and edited a book of his grandfather's writings. He is married to Suzanne Nelson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University.

#4340

Hugh Christian Watkins

Hugh Christian Watkins

#39831

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Hugh Christian Watkins is a British cardiologist. He is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, an associate editor of Circulation Research, and was Field Marshal Alexander Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the University of Oxford between 1996 and 2013.

#4341

Denise J. Jamieson

#77158

Overall Influence

Denise J. Jamieson is an American gynecologist. She is the University of Iowa Vice President for Medical Affairs and the Tyrone D. Artz Dean of the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. She is a former medical officer in the United States Public Health Service.

#4342

Mario Tronti

#87454

Overall Influence

1931 - 2023 (92 years)

Mario Tronti was an Italian philosopher and politician, considered one of the founders of the theory of operaismo in the 1960s. An active member of the Italian Communist Party during the 1950s, he was, with Raniero Panzieri, amongst the founders of the Quaderni Rossi review from which he split in 1963 to found the Classe Operaia review. This evolving journey progressively distanced him from the PCI, without him ever formally leaving, and engaged him in the radical experiences of operaismo. Such experience, considered by many to be the matrix of Italian Autonomist Marxism in the 1960s, was ...

#4343

Theodore Brown Rasmussen

#106661

Overall Influence

#4344

Stephen Friend

#66943

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Stephen H. Friend is co-founder and director of Sage Bionetworks. Formerly Senior Vice-president at Merck & Co. Friend co-founded Rosetta Inpharmatics with Leland H. Hartwell and Leroy Hood in 1996. Much of his research has focused on cancer.

#4345

Pauli Pylkkö

#65518

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Pauli Pylkkö is a Finnish philosopher. He was a student of Jaakko Hintikka, and later a professor and a researcher in both the United States and Finland. Pylkkö has addressed such topics as logic, semiotics, philosophy of language, and cognitive science. Pylkkö has published several works focused specifically on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and his works have examined the often problematic relationships between language and subjectivity, nationalism, the limits of scientific rationality, and the semiotic and linguistic mechanics of fascism. His work has also aroused interest in theologi...

#4346

Nancy Frankenberry

#54539

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Nancy K. Frankenberry is an American philosopher of religion, currently John Phillips Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College.

#4347

Hans Herrman Strupp

#55551

Overall Influence

1921 - 2006 (85 years)

Hans Hermann Strupp was born in Frankfurt, Germany and died in the U.S. He moved from Nazi Germany to the U.S. and he pursued a PhD in Psychology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. where the Department of Psychiatry granted him with a Certificate in Applied Psychiatry for Psychologists. One of the founders of this school was Harry Stack Sullivan whose work had a large impact on Strupp's academic career and thinking. Hans became a Full Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Department of Psychology in 1966 and was named Distinguished Professor in 1976.

#4348

Laurence F. Prescott

#106699

Overall Influence

#4349

Arnall Patz

#33386

Overall Influence

1920 - 2010 (90 years)

Arnall Patz was an American medical doctor and research professor at Johns Hopkins University. In the early 1950s, Patz discovered that oxygen therapy was the cause of an epidemic of blindness among some 10,000 premature babies. Following his discovery, there was a sixty percent reduction in childhood blindness in the United States. He also conducted pioneering research in the 1960s into the use of lasers in the treatment of retinal disorders. He received the Lasker Award in 1956 for his research into the causes and prevention of blindness and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 for...

#4350

David Naylor

#18935

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Christopher David Naylor, is a Canadian physician, medical researcher and former president of the University of Toronto. He is ICES scientist emeritus and founding CEO. In 2016, he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

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