Field
Philosophy
212 figures, most prominent first.
Karl Marx
German-born philosopher
1818 – 1883
Noam Chomsky
American linguist and activist
b. 1928
Ayn Rand
Russian-born American writer and public philosopher
1905 – 1982
Baruch Spinoza
philosopher of God and nature
1632 – 1677
- GS
George Soros
Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist
b. 1930
Hannah Arendt
on totalitarianism and evil
1906 – 1975
Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon)
codified Jewish law
c. 1138 – 1204
Ludwig Wittgenstein
wrote two philosophies, refuted one
1889 – 1951
Emma Goldman
anarchist agitator
1869 – 1940
Rosa Luxemburg
revolutionary who warned about revolutions
1871 – 1919
Niels Bohr
the quantum atom
1885 – 1962
Karl Popper
Austrian-British philosopher of science and social and po
1902 – 1994
- MA
Madeleine Albright
United States Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001
1937 – 2022
Paul Krugman
American economist
b. 1953
Peter Singer
Australian moral philosopher
b. 1946
Theodor W. Adorno
German philosopher, sociologist and theorist
1903 – 1969
- AB
Antony Blinken
American lawyer and diplomat and former United States Sec
b. 1962
Herbert Marcuse
German philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist
1898 – 1979
Jacques Derrida
French philosopher
1930 – 2004
- JB
Judith Butler
American feminist gender studies philosopher
b. 1956
Leo Strauss
History of Political Philosophy scholar
1899 – 1973
Walter Benjamin
German cultural critic
1892 – 1940
Herbert A. Simon
American political scientist, economist, sociologist
1916 – 2001
Simone Weil
French philosopher, writer, and social activist
1909 – 1943
Joseph Stiglitz
American economist, professor
b. 1943
Ludwig von Mises
Austrian-American economist
1881 – 1973
Meir Kahane
Rabbi, writer and far right American-Israeli politician (
1932 – 1990
Murray Rothbard
American economist
1926 – 1995
Naomi Klein
Canadian author and activist
b. 1970
Ben Bernanke
American economist
b. 1953
- ÉD
Émile Durkheim
French sociologist
1858 – 1917
Erich Fromm
German-American sociologist and psychoanalyst
1900 – 1980
Isaiah Berlin
Russo-British-Latvian Jewish social and political theorist
1909 – 1997
Janet Yellen
78th United States Secretary of the Treasury
b. 1946
Steven Pinker
Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist
b. 1954
Claude Lévi-Strauss
French anthropologist and ethnologist
1908 – 2009
Edith Stein
Jewish-German Catholic nun
1891 – 1942
Henri Bergson
French philosopher
1859 – 1941
David Ricardo
British classical economist and politician
1772 – 1823
György Lukács
Hungarian marxist philosopher and literary critic
1885 – 1971
Edmund Husserl
German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology
1859 – 1938
Franz Boas
German-American anthropologist
1858 – 1942
Paul Samuelson
American economist
1915 – 2009
Paul Wolfowitz
American politician and diplomat
b. 1943
Stephen Jay Gould
American biologist and historian of science
1941 – 2002
Wilhelm Reich
Austrian-American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst
1897 – 1957
Elinor Ostrom
American political economist
1933 – 2012
Karl Polanyi
Hungarian economist, philosopher and historian
1886 – 1964
Kenneth Arrow
American economist
1921 – 2017
Martin Buber
German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian (
1878 – 1965
Philo of Alexandria
Hellenistic Jewish philosopher
c. 20 BCE – c. 50
Zygmunt Bauman
Polish philosopher and sociologist
1925 – 2017
Richard D. Wolff
American Marxian economist
b. 1942
Erving Goffman
Canadian-American sociologist
1922 – 1982
Gary Becker
American economist
1930 – 2014
Raymond Aron
French philosopher, sociologist, journalist
1905 – 1983
Robert K. Merton
American sociologist
1910 – 2003
Robert Solow
American economist
1924 – 2023
Thomas Kuhn
American historian, physicist and philosopher
1922 – 1996
Max Horkheimer
German philosopher and sociologist
1895 – 1973
- SL
Stanisław Lem
Polish science fiction author, philosopher and futurologist
1921 – 2006
Hilary Putnam
American philosopher and mathematician
1926 – 2016
Joel Mokyr
American-Israeli economic historian
b. 1946
Lev Vygotsky
Soviet psychologist
1896 – 1934
Louis Kahn
Estonian-American architect
1901 – 1974
Richard Thaler
American economist
b. 1945
A. J. Ayer
English philosopher
1910 – 1989
Benoit Mandelbrot
Polish-born, French and American mathematician
1924 – 2010
Eliezer Yudkowsky
AI risk researcher, founded MIRI
b. 1979
Ernst Cassirer
German philosopher
1874 – 1945
Larry Summers
American economist and government official
b. 1954
Moses Mendelssohn
German-Jewish philosopher and theologian
1729 – 1786
Allan Bloom
American philosopher, classicist, and academician
1930 – 1992
Bernard-Henri Lévy
French film director and philosopher
b. 1948
David Bohm
American theoretical physicist
1917 – 1992
Emanuel Lasker
Greman chess player, World Chess champion
1868 – 1941
Georg Simmel
German sociologist, philosopher, and critic
1858 – 1918
Immanuel Wallerstein
American sociologist and economic historian
1930 – 2019
- RM
Ralph Miliband
Marxist theorist
1924 – 1994
Richard Posner
United States federal judge
b. 1939
Simon Kuznets
Russian-born American economist and statistician
1901 – 1985
Yoram Hazony
Israeli philosopher
b. 1964
Daniel Bell
American sociologist
1919 – 2011
- DB
David Benatar
South African philosopher
b. c. 1966
Henry Morgenthau Jr.
American politician
1891 – 1967
Kurt Lewin
German-American psychologist
1890 – 1947
Shneur Zalman of Liadi
Lithuanian Orthodox Rabbi and first Rebbe of Chabad
1745 – 1812
Alfred Tarski
Polish-American logician
1901 – 1983
Emmanuel Levinas
Jewish-French-Lithuanian philosopher
1906 – 1995
Ernst Bloch
German philosopher
1885 – 1977
- HS
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
British politician
1870 – 1963
Ilya Prigogine
Russian-Belgian physical chemist
1917 – 2003
Janusz Korczak
Polish-Jewish educator and physician
1878 – 1942
- LK
Lawrence Kohlberg
American psychologist
1927 – 1987
Wassily Leontief
Russian economist
1906 – 1999
Abraham ibn Ezra
12th-century Sephardic rabbi and astrologer
c. 1089 – 1167
Edward Sapir
American linguist and anthropologist
1884 – 1939
H. L. A. Hart
English legal philosopher
1907 – 1992
Hélène Cixous
French philosopher and writer
b. 1937
Jerzy Kosiński
Polish-American novelist
1933 – 1991
Philippe Aghion
French economist
b. 1956
- SG
Saadia Gaon
rabbi, translator, Jewish philosopher and theologian acti
882 – 942
- TS
Thomas Szasz
Hungarian psychiatrist
1920 – 2012
Alvin E. Roth
American economist, professor
b. 1951
Claudia Goldin
American economist; Nobel prize winner
b. 1946
Dan Ariely
Israeli-American professor of psychology and behavioral e
b. 1967
Franco Modigliani
Italian-American economist
1918 – 2003
Gershom Scholem
German-Israeli philosopher
1897 – 1982
Imre Lakatos
Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science
1922 – 1974
Joseph Weizenbaum
German-American computer scientist
1923 – 2008
Judah Halevi
Spanish-Jewish philosopher, poet and physician
c. 1075 – c. 1141
Leonid Hurwicz
Polish-American economist and mathematician
1917 – 2008
Max Scheler
German philosopher
1874 – 1928
Michael Polanyi
Hungarian-British polymath
1891 – 1976
- NP
Neil Postman
American writer and academic
1931 – 2003
Otto Neurath
Austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist
1882 – 1945
Paul Milgrom
American economist
b. 1948
Robert Aumann
Israeli-American mathematician
b. 1930
Erik Olin Wright
American sociologist
1947 – 2019
George Akerlof
American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics
b. 1940
Karl Mannheim
Hungarian-German philosopher and sociologist
1893 – 1947
Lewis Gompertz
English philosopher and social reformer
c. 1783 – 1861
Marcel Mauss
French sociologist and anthropologist
1872 – 1950
Robert Malley
American diplomat
b. c. 1963
Eric Maskin
American Nobel laureate in economics
b. 1950
- HM
Harry Markowitz
American economist
1927 – 2023
Judea Pearl
Israeli-American computer scientist
b. 1936
- NE
Norbert Elias
German sociologist
1897 – 1990
Robert Kagan
American historian
b. 1958
- WK
Walter Kaufmann
German-American philosopher
1921 – 1980
William Nordhaus
American economist
b. 1941
Hans Kelsen
Austrian lawyer
1881 – 1973
- JF
Jerry Fodor
American philosopher
1935 – 2017
Josef Breuer
Austrian physician
1842 – 1925
Lev Shestov
Russian existentialist philosopher
1866 – 1938
Marina von Neumann Whitman
American economist
1935 – 2025
Martin Feldstein
American economist
1939 – 2019
Moses Hess
German philosopher
1812 – 1875
Seymour Martin Lipset
American sociologist
1922 – 2006
Solomon ibn Gabirol
11th-century Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher
c. 1021 – c. 1058
Abraham Joshua Heschel
theologian; marched at Selma
1907 – 1972
Elliot Aronson
American psychologist, psychology teacher
b. 1932
- GA
G. A. Cohen
Canadian political philosopher
1941 – 2009
Gar Alperovitz
American historian, economist
b. 1936
George Steiner
American writer
1929 – 2020
Hans Jonas
German philosopher
1903 – 1993
Jonathan Levin
American economist
b. 1972
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn
Rbi Third Chabad Rebbe
1789 – 1866
Myron Scholes
Canadian economist
b. 1941
Robert Fogel
American economist and historian
1926 – 2013
Siegfried Kracauer
German writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic
1889 – 1966
Benjamin Graham
American economist and investor
1894 – 1976
Frances Fox Piven
American sociologist
b. 1932
- GA
Günther Anders
German-Austrian philosopher
1902 – 1992
Isaac Abarbanel
Portuguese-Spanish Jewish businessman
c. 1437 – 1508
- JS
Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks
British rabbi
1948 – 2020
Lawrence Klein
American economist
1920 – 2013
Leonard Nelson
German mathematician and philosopher
1882 – 1927
- ML
Michael Löwy
French sociologist
b. 1938
- NW
Nathaniel Weyl
American politician
1910 – 2005
Peter Diamond
Nobel prize in economics winner
b. 1940
Reinhard Selten
German economist
1930 – 2016
Robert C. Merton
American economist
b. 1944
Roger Myerson
American economist
b. 1951
Stanley Milgram
American social psychologist
1933 – 1984
Edgar Morin
French philosopher and sociologist
1921 – 2026
Jared Bernstein
American economist
b. 1955
Leonid Kantorovich
Russian mathematician
1912 – 1986
- NR
Nouriel Roubini
American economist
b. 1958
- AS
Adin Steinsaltz
Israeli rabbi and educator
1937 – 2020
Charles Bettelheim
French historian and economist
1913 – 2006
James Hillman
American psychologist
1926 – 2011
John Harsanyi
Hungarian economist
1920 – 2000
Joseph Raz
Israeli philosopher
1939 – 2022
Max Wertheimer
Austro-Hungarian psychologist
1880 – 1943
- MP
Moishe Postone
American historian, Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of Mode
1942 – 2018
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
Italian orthodox rabbi
c. 1707 – 1746
Richard Sennett
American sociologist and academic
b. 1943
- AK
Alexandre Koyré
French philosopher
1892 – 1964
- DK
David Kimhi
rabbi
c. 1160 – c. 1235
- ES
Edward S. Herman
American journalist
1925 – 2017
Ernest Gellner
Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist
1925 – 1995
Joshua Angrist
Israeli-American economist
b. 1960
- MK
Michael Kimmel
American sociologist
b. 1951
Michael Kremer
American development economist
b. 1964
Rose Friedman
American economist
1911 – 2009
Will Herberg
American sociologist
1901 – 1977
- BB
Bruno Bettelheim
Austrian-American child psychologist and writer
1903 – 1990
- CP
Chaïm Perelman
Belgian philosopher of law
1912 – 1984
George Ritzer
American sociologist
b. 1940
Hans Hahn
Austrian mathematician
1879 – 1934
Isaac Israeli ben Solomon
medieval Jewish physician and philosopher
c. 832 – c. 932
- KL
Karl Löwith
German philosopher
1897 – 1973
Leonard Peikoff
Canadian-American philosopher
b. 1933
Oliver Hart
British-born American economist
b. 1948
Alain Finkielkraut
French philosopher
b. 1949
- AE
Amitai Etzioni
German-Israeli immigrant to the United States
1929 – 2023
Benjamin Fondane
Romanian-French writer
1898 – 1944
- DB
Daniel Bensaïd
French philosopher
1946 – 2010
Marvin Harris
American anthropologist
1927 – 2001
- MM
Merton Miller
American economist
1923 – 2000
Otto Weininger
Austrian philosopher and writer
1880 – 1903
Victor Klemperer
German philologist
1881 – 1960
- VF
Vilém Flusser
Czech philosopher and photographer
1920 – 1991
Carol Gilligan
American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist
b. 1936
- FW
Friedrich Waismann
Austrian philosopher
1896 – 1959
- AM
Abraham Maimonides
Egyptian rabbi
c. 1186 – 1237
Douglas Diamond
American economist and professor of finance
b. 1953
Herbert A. Hauptman
American mathematician
1917 – 2011
- AS
Alfred Schütz
American sociologist
1899 – 1959
Ágnes Heller
Hungarian philosopher and academic
1929 – 2019
- JG
John G. Kemeny
Jewish-Hungarian American mathematician, computer scientist
1926 – 1992