who, in your opinion have been the most influential philosophers?
as a political scientist 
i’d say Plato and Marx have been the most influential on society and on myself(nietschze perhaps too but he took his coolest ideas from Plato). i’m still a philosophy NooB, as they say. i’ve read a pretty wide list of subjects but never bothered to allocate enough time, until recently to delve extensively into a certain field of philosophy. any recommendations?
I’d say Camus because he’s the bridge between existentialism and nihilism. He helped develop a more practical way to live, in my opinion.
Plato and Aristotle have been extremely influential. The time factor gives them a huge advantage.
Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger are some others.
One guy that might be under the radar is Heraclitus.
Socrates (Plato) is by far my favorite and most influential philosopher.
What people don’t realize is that he was a nihilst!
I think its mostly the obvious ones really. Obviously Plato and Aristotle, I mean its just an objective fact that they have been the most influential, because they’ve been studied for the longest. Quite simply, the western world would be very different without them. Nobody has mentioned Hume yet, obviously he was a huge influence on Kant, who influenced pretty much everyone after him, whether they agreed with him or not. His views on many subjects survive to the present day (causation, foundation of morality, scepticism).
How about philosophers who were a lot more influential than anybody would think? After studying him, its amazing the influence Malebranche had in his time. Not forgotten now, but mostly just a name associated with some weird views about causation. Hume was a big fan of his, and Hume’s argument against necessary connections is largely contained in Malebranche’s work.
Darwin, probably.
for influence, probably Darwin
Einstein
To be honest, I don’t know a lot of philosophers. The ones I have learnt about (due to my own curiousity) are full of bullshit.
My most influencial philosophers are Ayn Rand and Aristotle.
I did like Camus. Absurdism is exhilarating. Voltaire’s still my favorite.
I admire Descartes’ ethic.
See, I used to like Descartes, then I read him more closely and realised that he’s incredibly lacking in many areas. His stated views on causation make no sense when you consider his other doctrines, his account of what a human is is made impossible not only by his mind/body duality, but by this. Also, for somebody who talks so much about perception, he never even seriously considers how we can perceive objects, given, again, his problems with causation. It seems to me that his main influence was in the gaps he left.
Actually, Nietzsche didn’t much like Plato/Socrates.
Anyhow, Nietzsche is the best. But when one considers who has been the most influential one must remember that right now, filth still sits happily upon the throne. Not to say that it always has, of course…
Darwin, his idea bridged the biggest gap. The blind forces of physics, and super specialized complexity of organisms.
can darwin be classified as a philosopher though?
I think so, I had a book of the world’s most influential philosophers, and Darwin was in it. Actually, I should go get the book, see what arguments are made for other philosophers, in terms of influence.
I think Darwin fits under most definitions of philosopher in dictionaries: “1. a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields.”
but more then that darwin offered insights/anwsers into some of philosophies most IMPORTANT questions, for example: Why are we here, where did we come from, whats the point of life, the abundancy/diversity of life, the origins of functional complexity, I think darwin anwsered or worked on a lot of philosophical questions, that un til that point had been essentially dead in the water.
(What I mean by that was only so much progress could be made and had been made until then, much before darwin people spoke of evolution and even genes in such a way, that was really really surprising given the fact that the people had no real knowledge about it, people make guesswork/observations that were really close to the fact, and these p hilosohers and scientists of old deserve our respect as well)
But natural selection was the breakthrough, the breakthrough that seems so obvious in hind-sight that anyone could think it up, but only one person did.
===
Part of the reason I think Darwin is the most influential is because his work is the BEDROCK FOUNDATION of ALL MODERN BIOLOGY, it is the foundation of one of the most powerful and useful sciences we have ever made use of, n ot only that, but darwin’s insights are still, very very very accurate today, a modern biologist trying to re-write the origin of species would be amazed at how well the book holds up today (you know minus his lack of understanding about genetics, etc. As on biologist did attempt to do this and gave up, realizing how little he’d have to change in the long run) and it still provides insights today.
Darwin took the foundation of biology, and darwin is quickly taking or has already taken the foundation of the social sciences, evolution through natural selection is still offering us new insights into research protocols that unlock information that no other view but an evolutionary view will point out.
So darwin might have been the most infuential to date, but that influence is still as strong now as it was from the time darwin died today, science is still being revolutionized from Darwin’s ideas and we benefit/will beneit from it in amazing ways.
I can’t think of anyone’s whose work was so far reaching, anwsered so many important philosohical questions, and is still the super driving force behind many many sciences/philosophy today.
I am inclined to agree with the old saying that the whole of western philosophy is a series of footnotes of Plato.
That being said, however, my own area of study is hellenistic moral theory, specifically with regards to Stoicism (even though it was more popular in the early days of the Roman Republic.) Because of that, I am somewhat biased towards Seneca.
Besides those, however, I believe the most influencial philosopher(s), as pertains to the contemporary world, are Kant, Nietzsche (even though I can’t stand him,) and Wittgenstein.
lol my poor Hume was only mentioned once. though his work seems obvious and boring he remains one of the most influential philosophers to have ever graced us with linguistic communicado.
hume is kinda for racists 
I’ll go with the following:
Plotinus
Socrates
Aristotle
Plato
Confucius
Buddha
Jesus of Nazareth
Abu hamid al-ghazali
Adam Smith
Descartes
Locke
Newton
Kant
Husserl
Derrida
Karl Marx
Ludwig Feuerbach
Friedrich Nietzsche
Kierkegaard
Darwin
Theodor Herzl
Einstein
Wittgenstein
Godel
Noam Chomsky
Dummett
In another 50 years, we can add Satyr to this list.
On a personal influence: Plotinus, Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Spinoza, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Einstein, Smith, Marx, Buber, Darwin, Sylvin Tomkins, Camus
If I had to pick just one and only one from all human histrory, I’d go with Aristotle.
Yeah, but he has to die, first.
Isn’t that how it works? 