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,
#4501
Vincent Schaefer
#11692
Overall Influence
1906 - 1993 (87 years)
Vincent Joseph Schaefer was an American chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud seeding. On November 13, 1946, while a researcher at the General Electric Research Laboratory, Schaefer modified clouds in the Berkshire Mountains by seeding them with dry ice. While he was self-taught and never completed high school, he was issued 14 patents.
Go to Profile#4502
Axel Buchner
#108745
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#4503
Herman Friedman
#108756
Overall Influence
#4504
David Shoemaker
#77194
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
David Shoemaker is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy and Interim Chair at Cornell University. He is known for his works on moral philosophy. Books Wisecracks: Humor and Morality in Everyday Life, forthcoming with University of Chicago Press 2024Responsibility from the Margins, Oxford University Press 2015Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, Broadview Press, 2009
Go to Profile#4505
Ian Frazer
#5575
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Ian Hector Frazer is a Scottish-born Australian immunologist, the founding CEO and Director of Research of the Translational Research Institute . Frazer and Jian Zhou developed and patented the basic technology behind the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer at the University of Queensland. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute, Georgetown University, and University of Rochester also contributed to the further development of the cervical cancer vaccine in parallel.
Go to Profile#4506
Frank Allen Sloan
#108823
Overall Influence
#4507
Anthony B. Miller
#108836
Overall Influence
#4508
Clare Chambers
#85375
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Clare Chambers is a British political philosopher at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Life Chambers received her DPhil in political theory from the University of Oxford, and she subsequently taught at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics, before moving to the University of Cambridge. She has published on feminism, liberalism, and social construction.
Go to Profile#4509
Joseph H. Ogura
#108839
Overall Influence
#4510
Gary S. Francis
#108874
Overall Influence
#4511
Kim Heungsou
#80142
Overall Influence
1919 - 2014 (95 years)
Kim Heungsou was a Korean painter who was sometimes called the "Picasso of Korea". Jang soo hyun, his partner and executive curator of Kim Heungsou museum died of ovarian cancer in November 2012. Biography Born in Hamheung in Korea under Japanese rule, he graduated from Tokyo Art School . After the independence of the Korean Peninsula, he sat as deputy of Seoul Art high school and lecturer at Seoul National University.
Go to Profile#4512
Kristin Andrews
#94870
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Kristin Alexandra Andrews is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at York University and she holds the York Research Chair in Animal Minds. Early life and education Andrews attended Antioch College and conducted co-op research at the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory in Hawaii. After earning her Bachelor of Arts, she moved to Western Michigan University for her Master's degree where her first article was published in Etica et Animali.
Go to Profile#4513
Frank Miller
#13586
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, comic book writer, and screenwriter known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on Daredevil, for which he created the character Elektra, and subsequent Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.
Go to Profile#4514
Fred Dallmayr
#87885
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Fred Reinhard Dallmayr is an American philosopher and political theorist. He is Packey J. Dee Professor Emeritus in Political Science with a joint appointment in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame . He holds a Doctor of Law from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and a PhD in political science from Duke University. He is the author of some 40 books and the editor of 20 other books. He has served as president of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy ; an advisory member of the scientific committee of RESET – Dialogue on Civilizations ; the executive co-chair of Worl...
Go to Profile#4515
Richard H. Hunt
#108956
Overall Influence
#4516
Fuad Gasimzade
#108981
Overall Influence
Fuad Gasimzade is an Azerbaijani philosopher and academician. His main area of research area was Azerbaijani philosophic public opinion, social philosophy, ontology, epistemology and aesthetics. His doctoral thesis was titled "Fizuli’s outlook”. His monograph "Caravan of sorrow" or "Light in the darkness" was printed in 1968. He wrote more than 20 scientific articles about Fizuli.
Go to Profile#4517
David Shatz
#79593
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
David Shatz is an American philosopher and Ronald P. Stanton University Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University. He is known for his works on philosophy of religion and ethics. Books Peer Review: A Critical Inquiry Jewish Thought in Dialogue: Essays on Thinkers, Theologies, and Moral Theories,
Go to Profile#4518
Elaine K. Perry
#108991
Overall Influence
#4519
David Clement Whitcomb
#108992
Overall Influence
#4520
Charanjit S. Rihal
#109005
Overall Influence
#4521
James Merritt Downey
#109010
Overall Influence
#4522
James A. Shannon
#56017
Overall Influence
1904 - 1994 (90 years)
James Augustine Shannon was an American nephrologist who served as director of National Institutes of Health from August 1, 1955 to August 31, 1968. In 1962 he was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965 and the American Philosophical Society in 1967. A collection of his papers is held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
Go to Profile#4523
Thomas Chang
#11713
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Thomas Ming Swi Chang, is a Chinese-born Canadian inventor, physician, and physiologist. While an undergraduate at McGill University in 1957, Chang invented the world's first artificial cell. Working with improvised materials like perfume atomizers inside his dorm room turned laboratory, Chang managed to create a permeable plastic sack that would effectively carry haemoglobin almost as effectively as a natural blood cell. He went on to complete his B.Sc. , M.D., C.M. , and Ph.D degrees at McGill. Chang's career continued as founder and Director of the Artificial Cells and Organs Research Ce...
Go to Profile#4524
Robert H. Brookline Rubin
#109063
Overall Influence
#4525
Cynthia M. Grund
#102618
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Cynthia M. Grund is an American philosopher and educator who as of August 2016 is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Denmark where she is also Research Director for The Aesthetics of Music and Sound project.
Go to Profile#4526
Keith Stephen. Taber
#109077
Overall Influence
#4527
Arthur Schatzkin
#101645
Overall Influence
1948 - 2011 (63 years)
Arthur Gould Schatzkin was an American nutritional epidemiologist who spent much of his career at the National Cancer Institute. Education Schatzkin earned a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1969. As an undergraduate, Schatzkin was active in Students for a Democratic Society, and after graduation from Yale he went to work for the university as a grounds maintenance worker. He remained an active leftist, including taking part in an occupation on behalf on another worker and speaking at a rally of striking Winchester workers, and in 1969 he was fired, arrested, and tried for his activ...
Go to Profile#4528
Stanley Dudrick
#25957
Overall Influence
1935 - 2020 (85 years)
Stanley John Dudrick was a surgeon who pioneered the use of total parenteral nutrition . Early life and education Dudrick was born in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, the grandson of Polish immigrants. His father was a coal miner and his mother a factory worker. At age seven he decided to become a doctor after seeing the care his mother received during a serious illness. He graduated Franklin and Marshall College in 1957. Graduating cum laude with a degree in biology with honors, he was awarded the Williamson Medal, the highest honor for student achievement. His first research project, done in college, was growing tomato plants and studying the effects of magnesium doses in the soil.
Go to Profile#4529
Pauline Kael
#12988
Overall Influence
1919 - 2001 (82 years)
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions often ran contrary to those of her contemporaries.
Go to Profile#4530
R. Wayne Alexander
#109200
Overall Influence
#4531
Jenny L Donovan
#109223
Overall Influence
#4532
Gaston R. Vantrappen
#109236
Overall Influence
#4533
Catherine Cornille
#38779
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Catherine Cornille is a professor of comparative theology and specializes in theology of religions and interreligious dialogue. She presently holds the Newton College Alumnae Chair of Western Culture in the department of theology at Boston College.
Go to Profile#4534
Hugo Bedau
#79552
Overall Influence
1926 - 2012 (86 years)
Hugo Adam Bedau was the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Tufts University, and is best known for his work on capital punishment. He has been called a "leading anti-death-penalty scholar" by Stuart Taylor Jr., who has quoted Bedau as saying "I'll let the criminal justice system execute all the McVeighs they can capture, provided they'd sentence to prison all the people who are not like McVeigh."
Go to Profile#4535
Zhang Shiying
#101801
Overall Influence
1921 - 2020 (99 years)
Zhang Shiying is a Chinese philosopher. He became a philosophy professor at Peking University in 1952. He began doing research into German Idealism in the 1950s. He emphasized God as a material force in order to justify his analysis into Hegel's theology. In 1972 he published a materialist analysis of Hegel that was translated and commented upon by Alain Badiou. In opposition to the Idealist System, Hegelian Contradiction was interpreted in light of the theory of One Divides Into Two. Since the 1970s he has written works in dialogue with the broader stream of Continental Philosophy, including...
Go to Profile#4536
Christine Koggel
#93004
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Christine Koggel is Professor of Philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is a specialist in development ethics, particularly on the ethics of care. Academic career Before her appointment at Carleton University in 2013, she was Harvey Wexler Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for International Studies at Bryn Mawr College.
Go to Profile#4537
Farouk El-Baz
#5549
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Farouk El-Baz is an Egyptian American space scientist and geologist, who worked with NASA in the scientific exploration of the Moon and the planning of the Apollo program. He was a leading geologist on the program, responsible for studying the geology of the Moon, the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions, and the training of astronauts in lunar observations and photography. He played a key role in the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, and later Apollo missions. He also came up with the idea of touchable Moon rocks at a museum, inspired by his childhood pilgrimage to Mecca where h...
Go to Profile#4538
Kenneth M. Rosen
#109338
Overall Influence
#4539
Ian Edward Smith
#109345
Overall Influence
#4540
Charles L. Schepens
#109352
Overall Influence
#4541
Bryn Arthur Bridges
#109360
Overall Influence
#4542
Lars Iyer
#61731
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Lars Iyer is a British novelist and philosopher of Indian/Danish parentage. He is best known for a trilogy of short novels: Spurious , Dogma , and Exodus , all published by Melville House. Iyer has been shortlisted for both the Believer Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize . He has also written and published two books about Maurice Blanchot.
Go to Profile#4543
Jacques Philippe Caen
#109396
Overall Influence
#4544
Narsing A. Rao
#109408
Overall Influence
#4545
Michela Massimi
#41472
Overall Influence
Michela Massimi is an Italian and British philosopher of science, a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and the president-elect of the Philosophy of Science Association. Her research has involved scientific perspectivism and perspectival realism, the Pauli exclusion principle, and the work of Immanuel Kant.
Go to Profile#4546
Marc S. Ernstoff
#109441
Overall Influence
#4547
Nancy E. Lane
#81366
Overall Influence
Nancy E. Lane is an American rheumatologist. She is an Endowed Professor of Medicine, Rheumatology, and Aging Research at the University of California, Davis and director of the UC Davis Musculoskeletal Diseases of Aging Research Group. She has also sat on the editorial boards of Nature Reviews Rheumatology, Rheumatology, Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, Arthritis & Rheumatology, and The Journal of Rheumatology.
Go to Profile#4548
David B. Wong
#88965
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
David Wong is an American philosopher. He is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. Wong has done work in ethics, moral psychology, comparative ethics, and Chinese philosophy. He is especially well known for his defense of a version of moral relativism.
Go to Profile#4549
Andrzej Nowicki
#62000
Overall Influence
1919 - 2011 (92 years)
Andrzej Rusław Fryderyk Nowicki was a Polish philosopher of culture, a specialist in the history of philosophy and of atheism, in Italian philosophy of the Renaissance and in religious studies and Grand Master of the Grand East of Poland and a connoisseur of the fine arts, poet and diplomat.
Go to Profile#4550
En – Hou Han
#109498
Overall Influence
