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,
#4801
Chilon of Sparta
600 BC - 520 BC (80 years)
Chilon of Sparta was a Spartan and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Life Chilon was the son of Damagetus, and lived towards the beginning of the 6th century BC. Herodotus speaks of him as contemporary with Hippocrates, the father of Peisistratus. Diogenes Laërtius states that he was an old man in the 52nd Olympiad , and that he was elected an ephor in Sparta in the 56th Olympiad . Alcidamas states that he was a member of the Spartan assembly. Diogenes Laërtius even goes so far as to claim that Chilon was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counselors.
Go to Profile#4802
Peter F. Strawson
#82502
Overall Influence
#4803
Mehdi Aminrazavi
#46038
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Mehdi Aminrazavi is an Iranian scholar of philosophy and mysticism. He is the Kurt Leidecker Chair in Asian Studies and a professor of philosophy and religion as well as director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Program at the University of Mary Washington.
Go to Profile#4804
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman
#23213
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman is an English political theorist, academic, social commentator, and Labour life peer in the House of Lords. He is a senior lecturer in Political Theory at London Metropolitan University, Director of its Faith and Citizenship Programme and a columnist for the New Statesman, UnHerd, Tablet and Spiked. He is best known as a founder of Blue Labour, a term he coined in 2009.
Go to Profile#4805
Sebastian Rödl
#69795
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Sebastian Rödl is a German philosopher and professor of practical philosophy at the University of Leipzig. From 2005 to 2012 he was professor of philosophy at the University of Basel. Biography Rödl studied philosophy, musicology, German literature and history in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, completing his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Albrecht Wellmer. His work focuses on the self-conscious nature of human thought and action. His main influence is Hegel, and he sees himself as introducing and restating Hegel's Absolute Idealism in a historical moment that is wrought with mi...
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Uriel da Costa
1585 - 1640 (55 years)
Uriel da Costa was a Portuguese philosopher who was born a New Christian but returned to Judaism and ended up questioning the Catholic and rabbinic traditions of his time. This led him into conflict with both Christian and rabbinic institutions and caused his books to be included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the List of Prohibited Books by the Catholic Church.
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George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll
1823 - 1900 (77 years)
George John Douglas Campbell, 8th and 1st Duke of Argyll , was a British polymath and Liberal statesman. He made a significant geological discovery in the 1850s when his tenant found fossilized leaves embedded among basalt lava on the Island of Mull. He also helped to popularize ornithology and was one of the first to give a detailed account of the principles of bird flight in the hopes of advancing artificial aerial navigation . His literary output was extensive writing on topics varying from science and theology to economy and politics. In addition to this, he served prominently in the admi...
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Charles P. O’brien
#82654
Overall Influence
#4809
André Neher
1914 - 1988 (74 years)
André Neher was a French Jewish scholar and philosopher. Biography Neher was born in Obernai, Bas-Rhin. He was a student at the Collège Freppel in Obernai, then at the Lycée Fustel de Coulange in Strasbourg. He became professor at the Collège Erckmann-Chatrian in Phalsbourg, then at the Lycée Kléber in Strasbourg. During World War II, he lived in Brive-la-Gaillarde, where he was a member of Rabbi David Feuerwerker's community. After the War, he became a professor at the University of Strasbourg in 1948. In 1974, at age 60, Neher moved with his wife, Renée Neher-Bernheim to Jerusalem, Israel.
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Lee Goldman
#52108
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Lee Goldman is an American cardiologist and educator at Columbia University, where he is professor of medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, and dean emeritus of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine. From 2006 to 2020 he served as executive vice president and dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine, chief executive officer of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Harold and Margaret Hatch Professor of the university. Before moving to Columbia, he was chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
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Eli Y. Adashi
#33349
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Eli Y. Adashi is an American physician-scientist-executive who served as the Fifth Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences at Brown University. Adashi is presently a tenured Professor of Medical Science with the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Association of American Physicians . Adashi is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the Hastings Center Ethics Research Institute, and the Royal Society of Medicine.
Go to Profile#4812
Nomy Arpaly
#59652
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Nomy Arpaly is an American philosopher. Her main research interests include ethics, moral psychology, action theory, and free will. She is professor of philosophy at Brown University. Education and career Arpaly received a dual bachelor's from Tel Aviv University in 1992 in philosophy and linguistics, and a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University in 1998. She accepted a position as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for the 1998–9 term, before accepting an Assistant Professorship at Rice University where she stayed until 2003. In 2003, she accepte...
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Mark Sacks
#71460
Overall Influence
1953 - 2008 (55 years)
Mark D. Sacks was a British philosopher best known for his work on Kant, Post-Kantian idealism, and the epistemological tradition in European Philosophy. He was one of the few philosophers in Britain who sought to integrate the Analytic philosophy tradition with Continental philosophy.
Go to Profile#4814
David Corfield
#26292
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David Neil Corfield is a British philosopher specializing in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of psychology. He is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent. Education Corfield studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and later earned his MSc and PhD in the philosophy of science and mathematics at King's College London. His doctoral advisor was Donald A. Gillies.
Go to Profile#4815
Arthur Bernard Cook
1868 - 1952 (84 years)
Arthur Bernard Cook FBA was a British archeologist and classical scholar, best known for his three-part work, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion. Early life and education Arthur Bernard Cook was born in Hampstead, London on 22 October 1868. He was the son of William Henry Cook MD and Harriet Bickersteth His mother's family were leading ecclesiastical scholars of the time, including Edward Bickersteth , Edward Bickersteth and Edward Bickersteth .
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Adèle Mercier
#68985
Overall Influence
Adèle G. Mercier is a Canadian philosopher, currently employed at Queen's University, Kingston, and fellow of LOGOS- Language, Logic and Cognition at the University of Barcelona, Spain. She studied at the University of Ottawa and UCLA .
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Friedrich Hoffmann
1660 - 1742 (82 years)
Friedrich Hoffmann or Hofmann was a German physician and chemist. He is also sometimes known in English as Frederick Hoffmann. Life His family had been connected with medicine for 200 years before him. Born in Halle, he attended the local gymnasium where he acquired that taste for and skill in mathematics to which he attributed much of his later success. Beginning at age 18, he studied medicine at the University of Jena. From there, in 1680, he went to Erfurt, to attend Kasper Cramer's lectures on chemistry. Next year, returning to Jena, he received his doctor's diploma, and, after publishing a thesis, was permitted to teach.
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Wilhelmus Luijpen
1922 - 1980 (58 years)
Wilhelmus Antonius Maria Luijpen, O.S.A. a.k.a. Nicodemus Wim Luijpen was a Dutch philosopher and Catholic priest of the Order of St. Augustine. An existential phenomenologist, Luijpen's works greatly contributed to the spread of Existentialism and phenomenology in Catholic intellectual circles in Europe and in the United States, having influenced generations of Catholic philosophers and theologians. Nicodemus Wim Having studied at Rome, Paris, Leuven and Fribourg, his intellectual and philosophical formation moved away from Neo-Scholasticism to Existential phenomenology through his stud...
Go to Profile#4819
William J. Kraemer
#82788
Overall Influence
#4820
Alan Baker
#50681
Overall Influence
Alan R. Baker is a professor of philosophy in Swarthmore College , specializing in the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of science. He is also a former U.S. shogi champion. Academic career Baker did his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy with first class honours in 1991. He then moved to the U.S. for graduate school, earning a master's degree in 1995 and a Ph.D. in 1999, both in philosophy from Princeton University. His doctoral supervisors were Paul Benacerraf and Gideon Rosen. After working as an assistant professor at ...
Go to Profile#4821
Bertha Reynolds
1887 - 1978 (91 years)
Bertha Capen Reynolds was an American social worker who was influential in the creation of strength-based practice, radical social work and critical social work, among others. Early life and education Bertha Capen Reynolds born in Brockton, Massachusetts, on December 11, 1887 to Mary Reynolds and Franklin Stewart Reynolds. Her father died while she was a young child, and she moved with her mother to Boston to work as a teacher.
Go to Profile#4822
Nicholas C. Ling
#82834
Overall Influence
#4823
Totakacharya
#57948
Overall Influence
Totakacharya 8th century CEhead Meeting Ādi Śaṅkara The states that when Ādi Śaṅkara was at Śṛṅgeri, he met a boy named Giri. Ādi Śaṅkara accepted the boy as his disciple. Giri was a hard-working and loyal disciple of his Guru, Ādi Śaṅkara, though he did not appear bright to the other disciples. One day, Giri was busy plucking flowers for pooja, when Ādi Śaṅkara sat down to begin a lesson on Advaita Vedānta. He however did not start the lesson saying he was waiting for Giri to come back from his chores and singing lessons. At this, Padmapada pointed to a wall and said that it would be the same if Ādi Śaṅkara taught to this dumb object as he taught to Giri.
Go to Profile#4824
Richard P. Wenzel
#82852
Overall Influence
#4825
Martin Cline
#14782
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Martin J. Cline is an American geneticist who is the Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles . He did postdoctoral training in hematology-oncology at the University of Utah and was at the University of California, San Francisco before going to UCLA. His research has been in cell biology, molecular biology, and genetics.
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Feng Youlan
1895 - 1990 (95 years)
Feng Youlan was a Chinese philosopher, historian, and writer who was instrumental for reintroducing the study of Chinese philosophy in the modern era. The name he published under in English was 'Fung Yu-lan,' for which see, for example, the Bodde translation of A History of Chinese Philosophy. This earlier spelling also occurs in philosophical discussions, see for example the work of Wing-tsit Chan.
Go to Profile#4827
Heinz Cassirer
1903 - 1979 (76 years)
Heinrich Walter Cassirer was a Kantianian philosopher, son of a famous German philosopher, Ernst Cassirer. Being Jews, the Cassirer family fled the Nazis in the 1930s. As a refugee scholar, Heinz went to University of Glasgow working with Professor H. J. Paton, who persuaded him to write a book on Kant's third Critique, the Critique of Judgment. Following Paton, he moved to Oxford, lecturing at Corpus Christi College, where his students included Iris Murdoch . He returned to the University of Glasgow in 1946, having been appointed to a permanent lectureship, and remained there until 1960 wh...
Go to Profile#4828
Dio of Alexandria
Dio of Alexandria was an Academic Skeptic philosopher and a friend of Antiochus of Ascalon who lived in the first century BC. Along with being an Academic Skeptic, Dio was an avid believer in the Greek gods and Titans, specifically worshipping the personification of time, Chronos. He was sent by his fellow citizens as ambassador to Rome, to complain about the conduct of their king, Ptolemy XII Auletes. In Rome he was poisoned by the king's secret agents, and the strongest suspicion of the murder fell upon Marcus Caelius. The defence of Caelius in April 56 BC, the Pro Caelio, is considered o...
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José Gil
#42500
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
José Gil is a Portuguese philosopher. In his youth he lived in Lisbon, Portugal, but his experiences under António Salazar's 1933-1974 dictatorship, made him decide to study in a free country. He moved to Paris, France where in 1982 he got his PhD from the University of Paris where he researched on the body as a power field under the supervision of François Châtelet. There he attended Gilles Deleuze's classes whose influence on his thinking was decisive.
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James Braid
1795 - 1860 (65 years)
James Braid was a Scottish surgeon, natural philosopher, and "gentleman scientist". He was a significant innovator in the treatment of clubfoot, spinal curvature, knock-knees, bandy legs, and squint; a significant pioneer of hypnotism and hypnotherapy, and an important and influential pioneer in the adoption of both hypnotic anaesthesia and chemical anaesthesia. He is regarded by some, such as Kroger , as the "Father of Modern Hypnotism"; however, in relation to the issue of there being significant connections between Braid's "hypnotism" and "modern hypnotism" , let alone "identity", Weitzenh...
Go to Profile#4831
Eberhard Arnold
1883 - 1935 (52 years)
Eberhard Arnold was a German theologian and Christian writer. He was the founder of the Bruderhof in 1920. Early life Arnold was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany, the third child of Carl Franklin and Elizabeth Arnold. His father was a doctor of theology and philosophy, and his paternal grandfather was a pastor and missionary of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces. Eberhard Arnold's life as a youth was unconventional. In 1899 at age 16, Arnold experienced an inner change, which he acknowledged as God's acceptance and the forgiveness of sins, and felt a calling t...
Go to Profile#4832
Donald Lowell Price
#82961
Overall Influence
#4833
Edgar Haber
#82974
Overall Influence
#4834
Demetrios P. Papahadjopoulos
#82977
Overall Influence
#4835
Robert M. Berne
#42718
Overall Influence
1918 - 2001 (83 years)
Robert M. Berne was a heart specialist and a medical educator whose textbooks were used by generations of physicians Berne was recognized widely for his seminal research contributions on the role of adenosine in the blood flow to the heart. He served as the editor of the peer-reviewed journal the Annual Review of Physiology from 1983–1988.
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Antti Revonsuo
#29712
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Antti Revonsuo is a Finnish cognitive neuroscientist, psychologist, and philosopher of mind. His work seeks to understand consciousness as a biological phenomenon. He is one of a small number of philosophers running their own laboratories.
Go to Profile#4837
Margaret Atherton
#68882
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Margaret Atherton is an American philosopher and feminist historian who is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy there before her retirement. Atherton's research has focused on philosophers of the early modern period, philosophy of psychology , and the work of women philosophers, as well as teaching the history of modern philosophy.
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Tobias Barreto
1839 - 1889 (50 years)
Tobias Barreto de Meneses was a Brazilian poet, philosopher, jurist and literary critic. He is famous for creating the "Condorism" and revolutionizing Brazilian Romanticism and poetry. He is patron of the 38th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
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Clearchus of Soli
400 BC - 300 BC (100 years)
Clearchus of Soli was a Greek philosopher of the 4th–3rd century BCE, belonging to Aristotle's Peripatetic school. He was born in Soli in Cyprus. He wrote extensively on eastern cultures, and is thought to have traveled to the Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum in modern Afghanistan.
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Brenda Almond
#61789
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Brenda Margaret Almond was a British philosopher, known for her work on philosophy of education and applied ethics. She was an elected member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Biography Almond co-founded the Society for Applied Philosophy in 1982 with her then colleague at Surrey University Anthony O'Hear and co-founded the International Journal of Applied Philosophy in 1983 part of a conscious strategy of moving philosophy away from abstract and abstruse debates towards issues that affect people in their everyday lives. Almond’s writing highlights issues like health and family and social relations.
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Philip P. Wiener
#32039
Overall Influence
1905 - 1992 (87 years)
Philip P. Wiener was an American philosopher who was a specialist on Pragmatism, Charles S. Pierce, Leibnitz, the history and philosophy of science, and the history of ideas. He co-founded the Journal of the History of Ideas.
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Thomas G. Pickering
#75147
Overall Influence
1940 - 2009 (69 years)
Thomas G. Pickering was a British physician and academic. He was a professor of medicine at College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. He was an internationally renowned expert in clinical hypertension and a leader in the fields of hypertension and cardiovascular behavioral medicine. He coined the term "white-coat hypertension" to describe those whose blood pressure was elevated in the doctor's office, but normal in everyday life. He later published the first editorial describing "masked hypertension" . He also discovered and gave his name to the ...
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Robert Misrahi
#42277
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Robert Misrahi was a French philosopher who specialised in the work of 17th Century Dutch thinker Baruch Spinoza. Biography Born in Paris to Turkish-Jewish immigrants, Misrahi studied at the University of Paris , where he became a protege of Jean-Paul Sartre. He was the emeritus professor of ethical philosophy at the Université de Paris I , he has published a number of works on Spinoza and published the essentials of his work on the question of happiness. He has published a number of works in publications including Les Temps modernes, Encyclopædia Universalis, Le Dictionnaire des philosophies...
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Michael Zammit
#70955
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael Zammit is a Maltese philosopher, specialised in Ancient and Eastern philosophy. Life Zammit was born at Valletta in 1954. He studied Philosophy at the University of Malta, acquiring a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1976, and a Master’s degree in 1993. After teaching at various academic centres in and around Malta, in 1983 he began teaching Philosophy at High School level. He joined the academic staff at the University of Malta in 1988 as part of a team preparing for the introduction of a general knowledge introductory course for High Schools called “Systems of Knowledge”, and also for the introduction of an advanced level matriculation exam in philosophy.
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Harry Brighouse
#46539
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Harry Brighouse is a British political philosopher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include the relationship between education and liberalism. His work on this topic has been widely cited by broadsheet newspapers, such as The Independent, and The Guardian.
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Mieczysław Omyła
#70335
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Mieczysław Władysław Omyła is a Polish professor of humanities, logician, philosopher. He is a lecturer in logic and philosophy at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. Education and career
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Ángel Gabilondo
#9301
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Ángel Gabilondo Pujol is a Spanish university professor, currently serving as the 6th Ombudsman of Spain. Between 2009 and 2011, he was Minister of Education in José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Cabinet.
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Johan Robeck
1672 - 1735 (63 years)
Johan Robeck was a Swedish-German theologian and philosopher who justified and committed suicide. Life Robeck was born in Kalmar, Sweden, and raised in the reformed religion. He studied in Uppsala, before going to Hildesheim in Germany, where he converted to Catholicism in 1704. He joined the Jesuits and lived in Rinteln, Westphalia.
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Joseph Alpert
#61047
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Joseph Stephen Alpert is an American cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center. He is also the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Medicine. Education Alpert received his bachelor's degree from Yale University magna cum laude. He later received his medical doctorate from Harvard Medical School, cum laude.
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Fergus Shanahan
#83166
Overall Influence
