20th-century American philosophers

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American intellectual, philosopher, linguist, political activist, and social critic. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s, Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American Left as a consistent critic of the foreign policy of the United States, contemporary capitalism, and corporatocracy.

Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong and American martial artist, actor, and filmmaker. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy, which was formed from his experiences in unarmed fighting and self-defense—as well as eclectic, Zen Buddhist, and Taoist philosophies—as a new school of martial arts thought. With a career spanning Hong Kong and the United States, Lee is regarded as the first global Chinese film star and one of the most influential martial artists in the history of cinema. Known for his roles in five feature-length martial arts films, he is credited with helping to popularize martial arts films in the 1970s and promoting Hong Kong action cinema.

Russian-born American writer and public philosopher (1905–1982)

Russian-born American anarchist (1869–1940)

German-American political theorist and philosopher (1906–1975)

American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist (1842–1910)

American author (1922–2007)

American former professor, co-founder of Wikipedia, founder of Citizendium and other projects (born 1968)

Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics (1906-1978)

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859–1952)

George Soros is a Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist. As of May 2025, he has a net worth of US$7.2 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations, of which $15 billion has already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune. In 2020, Forbes called Soros the "most generous giver" in terms of percentage of net worth.

English mathematician and philosopher (1861–1947)

American feminist social activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, philosopher, and writer (1860–1935)

American science fiction author (1928–1982)

American feminist gender studies philosopher (born 1956)

Palestinian-American professor (1935–2003)

American behaviorist (1904–1990)

American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist (1895–1983)

American political activist, scholar, and author (born 1944)

German philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist (1898–1979)

Spanish-American philosopher

American political philosopher (1921–2002)

American political scientist, political economist, and author

American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist (1839-1914)

Austrian-American economist (1881–1973)

American historian, physicist and philosopher (1922 – 1996)

Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusive primitive lifestyle and lone wolf terrorism campaign.

American avant-garde composer (1912-1992)

American mathematician, scientist in cybernetics and artificial intelligence (1894–1964)

American sociologist and activist (1868–1963)

American philosopher (1942–2024)

German philosopher and logician (1891–1970)

American historian, philosopher and writer (1885–1981)

German philosopher and sociologist (1895–1973)

American philosopher and logician (1900–2000)

German-American evolutionary biologist (1904-2005)

American author and activist (1952–2021)

American political philosopher (1938–2002)

Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author, an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of the mind

American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher

American economist (1926–1995)

American feminist, writer, artist, and lecturer (1860–1935)

Russian sociologist (1889-1968)

American mathematician and logician (1903–1995)

American historian, playwright, and socialist thinker (1922–2010)

Polish-American logician (1901-1983)

American philosopher (1932–2025)

German-American theologian and philosopher

American philosopher (1931–2007)

Palestinian-American Muslim philosopher and scholar (1921–1986)

History of Political Philosophy scholar (1899-1973)

American philosopher

American academic and literary critic (1934–2024)

Hungarian economist (1920-2000)

American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher (1921–2006)

American theoretical physicist

American philosopher and logician (1940–2022)

American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist

American philosopher

American philosopher (born 1947)