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).
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#4701
Vladimir Hütt
#56854
Overall Influence
1936 - 1997 (61 years)
Vladimir Hütt was an Estonian philosopher. He was born in Leningrad, Russia RFSR and move to Estonia after the annexation of Estonia by the USSR. Hütt, a physicist by education, mostly dealt with philosophy of physics, scientific world-view and the theory of cognition. His works followed the Marxist line of thought that was official in the USSR. Most of Hütt's works were published in Russian. In 1979 Hütt published a monographic overview entitled "Philosophical Problems of Physics in Soviet Estonia in 30 Years 1948–1978", where he expounded his philosophical ideas about the complementarity and objectivity in physical knowledge.
Go to Profile#4702
Kimberley Brownlee
#90252
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Kimberley Brownlee is a Canadian philosopher. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Ethics at the University of British Columbia. Previously, she was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. She is known for her works on conscience, conviction, civil disobedience, the ethics of sociability, ideals, virtue, practical reason, and human rights. Brownlee is a winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize.
Go to Profile#4703
Lisa Kemmerer
#98484
Overall Influence
Lisa Kemmerer is an American academic who has written on animal ethics and environmental ethics. She is an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Montana State University Billings, and is the author or editor of nine books.
Go to Profile#4704
Robert Lechler
#54172
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Sir Robert Ian Lechler, is a British nephrologist, immunologist, and academic. He specialises in transplantation tolerance and immunology. Since 2004, he has been Professor of Immunology at King's College London. Since 2009, he has been executive director of King's Health Partners.
Go to Profile#4705
Mark Emberton
#78622
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mark Emberton is a urologist and prostate cancer research specialist using novel imaging techniques and minimally invasive treatments to improve diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. Emberton is Professor of Interventional oncology at University College London and Dean of its Faculty of Medical Sciences. and is Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon at University College Hospital. He serves as Founding Pioneer of the charity Prostate Cancer UK.
Go to Profile#4706
Wan-yee J. Lau
#111584
Overall Influence
#4707
Helmut Wautischer
#78703
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Helmut Wautischer is an Austrian philosopher. He is currently a senior philosophy lecturer at Sonoma State University. He received his Bachelor's degree from the Bundeshandelsakademie Klagenfurt and a PhD in philosophy from Karl-Franzens University of Graz where he studied with Rudolf Haller and Ernst Topitsch. He was influenced by the writings of Carlos Castaneda and received a Fulbright scholarship for research on this subject at UCLA, leading to his dissertation, Methodology and Knowledge. Proposing an Expanded Science of Man. He has published essays in scholarly journals, such as Polylog,...
Go to Profile#4708
Lars Farde
#111591
Overall Influence
#4709
Peter Gottfried Kremsner
#81187
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Peter Gottfried Kremsner is a specialist in tropical medicine and Full Professor at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Since 1992 he has been leading the Centre de Recherches Médicales de Lambaréné , Gabon, now as president.
Go to Profile#4710
Lauri Ellen Markowitz
#111617
Overall Influence
#4711
Leonard John Deftos
#111695
Overall Influence
#4712
David Weinberger
#7667
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
David Weinberger is an American author, technologist, and speaker. Trained as a philosopher, Weinberger's work focuses on how technology — particularly the internet and machine learning — is changing our ideas, with books about the effect of machine learning’s complex models on business strategy and sense of meaning; order and organization in the digital age; the networking of knowledge; the Net's effect on core concepts of self and place; and the shifts in relationships between businesses and their markets.
Go to Profile#4713
Clifford Y. Ko
#111708
Overall Influence
#4714
Raymond J. Gibbons
#111709
Overall Influence
#4715
Frédéric Gros
#79551
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Frédéric Gros is a French philosopher. He is a specialist in the work of Michel Foucault. His 2008 book Marcher, une philosophie is a bestseller in France and has been translated into several languages. An English translation by John Howe, titled A Philosophy of Walking, was published by Verso in 2014.
Go to Profile#4716
Kenneth D. Aldape
#111754
Overall Influence
#4717
Tomasz Kitliński
#26594
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Tomasz Kitliński is a Polish political philosopher, cultural and social analyst, and civic activist. He is a lecturer and trade unionist at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University and an author of books , articles, petitions and letters of protest. In his research and teaching, he deals with contemporary society, culture and politics, intellectual history, literary and critical theory, art practice, religious studies and social anthropology. In his activism, he champions women's, LGBT, labour and refugee rights and participation.
Go to Profile#4718
Andrew H. Miller
#111784
Overall Influence
#4719
John H. McClendon
#94815
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John H. McClendon III is a professor in the department of philosophy at Michigan State University. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Kansas, and taught at Binghamton University, Eastern Illinois University, University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana, Bates College, and the University of Missouri before coming to Michigan State University. His areas of focus include African philosophy, marxist philosophy, philosophy of African-American studies, and the history of African-American philosophers.
Go to Profile#4720
David A. Kessler
#10315
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
David Aaron Kessler is an American pediatrician, attorney, author, and administrator serving as Chief Science Officer of the White House COVID-19 Response Team since 2021. Kessler was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from November 8, 1990, to February 28, 1997. He co-chaired the Biden-Harris transition’s COVID-19 Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021 and was the head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government program to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines and other treatments, from January to February 2021.
Go to Profile#4721
Francis L. Delmonico
#43919
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Francis L. Delmonico, MD, FACS is a surgeon, clinical professor and health expert in the field of transplantation. He serves on numerous committees and is affiliated with various leading organizations and institutions. He is the chief medical officer of the New England Organ Bank and Professor of Surgery, Part-Time at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where he is emeritus director of renal transplantation. He served as president of The Transplantation Society from 2012 to 2014, an international non-profit organization based in Montreal, Canada that works with international transplantation physicians and researchers.
Go to Profile#4722
Harold T. Dodge
#111829
Overall Influence
#4723
David Sabiston
#35849
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
David Coston Sabiston, Jr., M.D.,, F.A.C.S. was an early innovator in cardiac surgery. In 1962, he performed a seminal procedure that paved the way for modern coronary-bypass surgery, grafting a vein from a patient's leg to bypass a blocked coronary artery during open-heart surgery. The patient died from unrelated complications, but Sabiston's technique and other surgeons' improvements on it led to the development of surgical coronary revascularization as it exists today.
Go to Profile#4724
Erastus of Scepsis
#70422
Overall Influence
Erastus of Scepsis and his brother Coriscus were students of Plato. He was also a friend of Aristotle. Scepsis is located about fifty kilometers from Assos in Asia Minor, to which Aristotle and Xenocrates traveled after Plato's death.
Go to Profile#4725
Michael Farthing
#37341
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael John Godfrey Farthing is British emeritus professor at the University of Sussex, where he was previously its vice-chancellor . His early academic career was in medicine, specialising in gastroenterology.
Go to Profile#4726
Pierre Lévy
#16162
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Pierre Lévy is a Tunisian-born French philosopher, cultural theorist and media scholar who specializes in the understanding of the cultural and cognitive implications of digital technologies and the phenomenon of human collective intelligence.
Go to Profile#4727
Mario Maggi
#111883
Overall Influence
#4728
G. Ian Franco Gensini
#111890
Overall Influence
#4729
Jussi Vahtera
#111901
Overall Influence
#4730
Garbis Kortian
#81862
Overall Influence
1938 - 2009 (71 years)
Garbis Kortian was a philosopher and political theorist. Kortian was born to an Armenian family in Kessab, Mandatory Syria on February 15, 1938. He acquired his PhD in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1966; his dissertation was on Wilhelm von Humboldt. Kortian taught at Université de Montréal from 1968 to 1995 and, sporadically, at UC Berkeley, McGill University, Université Laval, Balliol College, Oxford, and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He was one of the founders of the Zoryan Institute, a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada. He died in Vienna, Austria. He spoke Armenian, French, German, and English.
Go to Profile#4731
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
#7610
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
Go to Profile#4732
Kii-Ming Lo
#36879
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Kii-Ming Lo , born November 4, 1954, in Keelung, is a Taiwanese musicologist. Life Kii-Ming Lo was born on November 4, 1954, in Keelung, Taiwan. After initial studies of textile technology at Fu Jen Catholic University , which she completed with a bachelor's degree, she went to Germany in order to study musicology. From 1980 to 1988 she studied musicology , sinology and ethnology at Heidelberg University. She received her doctorate in 1989 under the supervision of Ludwig Finscher with the dissertation »Turandot« auf der Opernbühne , which since then has become a reference book on the subject [Frankfurt / Bern 1996].
Go to Profile#4733
Alison Hills
#111757
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Alison Hills is a British philosopher who specializes in moral philosophy and animal ethics. Hills is Professor of Philosophy at St John's College, Oxford. She obtained her PhD in philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge. She lectured in philosophy at Bristol University from 2003 to 2006 and joined St John's in 2006.
Go to Profile#4734
Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara
#79793
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara Scabia is an Italian logician and philosopher of science, known for her work on quantum logic and quasi-set theory. She is a professor emerita at the University of Florence.
Go to Profile#4735
Stephan A. Mayer
#99913
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Stephan A. Mayer is an American neurologist and critical care physician who currently serves as Director of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology Services for the Westchester Medical Center Health System. Mayer is most noted for his research in subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage, acute ischemic stroke, cardiac arrest, coma, status epilepticus, brain multimodality monitoring, therapeutic temperature modulation, and outcomes after severe brain injury. He has gained media attention for popularizing the concept that physicians have historically underestimated the brain’s resilience and capacity for recovery.
Go to Profile#4736
Friedhelm Krummacher
#96950
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Friedhelm Krummacher is a German musicologist. Life Born in Berlin, Krummacher is the second oldest son of . He studied musicology after his private music teacher examination in 1957, philosophy and German studies in Berlin, Marburg and Uppsala and was awarded a doctorate in 1964 with repertoire studies on the older church music in Berlin by Adam Adrio. From 1965 to 1972 he worked as an assistant at the Erlangen seminary with Martin Ruhnke, where he habilitated in 1972 with studies on chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. He remained there as a private lecturer until 1975, when, after...
Go to Profile#4737
Jean‐claude Roujeau
#111996
Overall Influence
#4738
Vigdis Songe-Møller
#112014
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Vigdis Songe-Møller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bergen. Songe-Møller's Philosophy without Women was a feminist exploration of ancient philosophy. Her own experience as a pregnant woman – for whom "the Parmenidean idea of all things existing ultimately as one and self-identical is, to say the least, far from self-evident" – led her to investigate connections between "the Greek philosophers' ideals of unity, self-identity and eternity and their attitudes towards sexuality, reproduction and sexual difference."
Go to Profile#4739
Jeremy Neil Ruskin
#112022
Overall Influence
#4740
John G. Nutt
#112031
Overall Influence
#4741
Sara Dolnicar
#101355
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Sara Dolnicar is a social scientist trained in Austria who researches market segmentation, sustainable tourism, and Airbnb. Since 2013, she has been a research professor of Tourism at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. She has been recognised by the Republic of Slovenia for her research achievements.
Go to Profile#4742
Timothy Hla
#112056
Overall Influence
#4743
Albert A. Bühlmann
#26984
Overall Influence
1923 - 1994 (71 years)
Albert Alois Bühlmann was a Swiss physician who was principally responsible for a number of important contributions to decompression science at the Laboratory of Hyperbaric Physiology at the University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. His impact on diving ranged from complex commercial and military diving to the occasional recreational diver. He is held in high regard for his professional ethics and attention to his research subjects.
Go to Profile#4744
Matthias Schwab
#107410
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Matthias Schwab is a German doctor and university lecturer. He is director of the Dr. Margarete Fischer-Bosch-Institute of Clinical Pharmacology located on the campus of the Robert-Bosch-Hospital in Stuttgart, an institution of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, and holder of the Chair of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Tübingen as well as Medical Director of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital Tübingen.
Go to Profile#4745
Donald S. Coffey
#87686
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Donald Straley Coffey was the Catherine Iola and J. Smith Michael distinguished professor of urology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and subsequently professor emeritus. He had a primary appointment in urology and secondary appointments in oncology, pharmacology and pathology.
Go to Profile#4746
Hans‐georg Gadamer
#112092
Overall Influence
#4747
Louis Michael Seidman
#17277
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Louis Michael Seidman is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., a widely read constitutional law scholar and major proponent of the critical legal studies movement. Seidman's 2012 work is On Constitutional Disobedience, where Seidman challenges the viability of political policy arguments made in reference to constitutional obligation.
Go to Profile#4748
Judith Axler Turner
#112140
Overall Influence
#4749
Antonio Gotto
#20363
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Antonio M. Gotto, Jr. was Dean of Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He was succeeded by Laurie H. Glimcher in January 2012. Prior to his appointment in 1997, Gotto was chairman of the department of internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine for 20 years, where he collaborated extensively with Michael DeBakey. Gotto is best known for his research into blood lipids. As administrator, he presided over an enormous growth at Cornell, an affiliation with Houston Methodist Hospital when it separated from Baylor, and a deepening of Cornell's longtime affiliation with New York Hospit...
Go to Profile#4750
Edward W. Hook
#100230
Overall Influence
1924 - 1998 (74 years)
Edward Watson Hook, Jr was an academic physician and international expert in infectious diseases. He attended Wofford College, Yale University, and Emory University School of Medicine, receiving his medical degree in 1949. After completing his residency and two years of fellowship in bacteriology at Emory University and four years of residency at the University of Minnesota and at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, he joined the Johns Hopkins Infectious Diseases group in 1956. At Johns Hopkins, Ed worked primarily on the influenza virus and salmonella infection.
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