21st-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.

American author (1922–2007)

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

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.

American feminist gender studies philosopher (born 1956)

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

American political philosopher (1921–2002)

English American author and journalist (1949–2011)

American political scientist, political economist, and author

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 author, philosopher and neuroscientist (born 1967)

American philosopher (1942–2024)

American author and activist (1952–2021)

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

American political philosopher (1938–2002)

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

American philosopher (1932–2025)

Lebanese-American mathematical statistician, option trader, risk analyst and author (born 1960)

American philosopher (1931–2007)

American philosopher

American academic and literary critic (1934–2024)

American philosopher and logician (1940–2022)

American philosopher (born 1947)

American philosopher

American writer (1928–2020)

Scottish-American philosopher (1929–2025)

Austrian school economist and libertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher

American legal philosopher (1931-2013)

American philosopher, scholar in the field of science and technology studies

American feminist philosopher and theologian (1928–2010)

American Christian philosopher

American physicist, computer scientist and professor of cognitive science

American philosopher (1935–2017)

American philosopher (born 1935)

American writer and public speaker

American political philosopher

American philosopher (1917–2003)

American philosopher

American legal academic (born 1959)

American political scientist and international relations theoretician (1924-2013)

American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist

Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher (1921-2007)

American political economist (1946–)

American Christian apologist and theologian

American mathematician (1919–2017)

American information technologist, philosopher, and sociologist

American philosopher, political activist and writer (born 1953)

Iranian philosopher, theologian and Islamic scholar (born 1933)

Canadian philosopher

British-American philosopher and writer

African-American scholar

American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

American art critic and philosopher (1924–2013)

American philosopher (1941–2001)

American author and philosopher (born 1950)

American astronaut

American legal scholar

American philosopher (1929-2020)

American political theorist

United States federal judge