Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Jewish recipients of the Thinkers of the Twentieth Century documented in the ThankJews directory. Jews are about 30% of all recipients — while making up roughly 0.2% of the world's population.
142 documented recipients
Alfred Adler1870
Founder of individual psychology and the concept of the inferiority complex
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Theodor Adorno1903
Frankfurt School philosopher and social theorist, a founder of critical theory
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Samuel Alexander1859
British philosopher of emergent evolution, author of 'Space, Time, and Deity'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Hannah Arendt1951
Political Philosophy
Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism
Rudolf Arnheim1904
Pioneer of the psychology of art and visual perception
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Raymond Aron1905
French political philosopher and sociologist
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Kenneth Arrow1972
Economist who proved the impossibility theorem of social choice and, with Gérard Debreu, the existence of a general equilibrium in a competitive economy; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1972
Source: Wikipedia — Kenneth Arrow / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1972
Erich Auerbach1892
Author of Mimesis, the foundational work of comparative literature
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Daniel Bell1919
Sociologist known for 'The Coming of Post-Industrial Society' and 'The End of Ideology'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Julien Benda1867
French philosopher, author of 'La Trahison des clercs'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Walter Benjamin1892
Philosopher and critic whose essays on language and translation remain influential.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Emile Benveniste1966
Structural linguist known for major work on Indo-European languages and theory of enunciation
Source: Britannica
Bernard Berenson
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Peter Berger1929
Sociologist of knowledge and religion; co-author of 'The Social Construction of Reality'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Henri Bergson1927
French philosopher of duration and creative evolution, Nobel Prize in Literature 1927 for his rich and vitalizing ideas; refused Vichy's exemption from the anti-Jewish laws and registered as a Jew in…
Source: Wikipedia — Henri Bergson / NobelPrize.org Literature 1927
Isaiah Berlin1909
British political philosopher and historian of ideas, known for 'Two Concepts of Liberty' and value pluralism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Basil Bernstein1924
Sociolinguist known for the theory of elaborated and restricted linguistic codes.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Bruno Bettelheim1903
Child psychologist known for work on autism and emotional development
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Max Black1909
Analytic philosopher of language and science
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Ernst Bloch1885
German Marxist philosopher, author of 'The Principle of Hope'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Marc Bloch
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Leonard Bloomfield1887
American linguist, founder of structural linguistics and author of the landmark 1933 book 'Language'.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Franz Boas1858
Father of American anthropology; pioneered descriptive linguistics of Native American languages.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Niels Bohr1913
Physicist who gave the quantum model of the atom in 1913 and led Copenhagen's Institute for Theoretical Physics; Nobel Prize in Physics 1922
Source: Wikipedia — Niels Bohr
Max Born1954
Co-founder of quantum mechanics who gave the statistical interpretation of the wave function; Nobel Prize in Physics 1954
Source: Wikipedia — Max Born
Jacob Bronowski
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Jerome Bruner1915
Cognitive psychologist whose work shaped theories of language acquisition and cognitive development.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Leon Brunschvicg1869
French idealist philosopher
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Martin Buber1878
Jewish philosopher of dialogue, author of 'I and Thou'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Benjamin Cardozo1870
US Supreme Court Justice and influential common-law jurist; author of 'The Nature of the Judicial Process'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Law & Jurisprudence
Ernst Cassirer1874
Neo-Kantian philosopher of symbolic forms
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Noam Chomsky1957
Linguistics Theory
Source: Transformational grammar
Morris Raphael Cohen1880
American philosopher of law and science
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Jacques Derrida1930
Philosopher, founder of deconstruction and influential theorist of language and meaning.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Emile Durkheim1895
Sociologist, a founding figure of modern sociology as an academic discipline
Source: Britannica
Ronald Dworkin1931
Legal philosopher; developed 'law as integrity' and the principal critique of legal positivism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Law & Jurisprudence
Albert Einstein1905
Physicist who founded special and general relativity and explained the photoelectric effect; Nobel Prize in Physics 1921
Source: Wikipedia — Albert Einstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Erik Erikson1902
Developmental psychologist who formulated psychosocial stages and the identity crisis
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Hans Eysenck1916
Personality psychologist known for dimensional models of temperament
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Herbert Feigl1902
Vienna Circle philosopher of science, philosophy of mind
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Richard Feynman1948
Physicist who helped rebuild quantum electrodynamics and introduced Feynman diagrams; Nobel Prize in Physics 1965
Source: Wikipedia — Richard Feynman
Stanley Fish1938
Literary theorist of reader-response criticism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Meyer Fortes1906
Social anthropologist known for kinship studies of the Tallensi of West Africa
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Anthropology
Jerome Frank1909
Psychiatrist known for comparative research on psychotherapy and persuasion
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Felix Frankfurter1882
US Supreme Court Justice and constitutional scholar; leading advocate of judicial restraint
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Law & Jurisprudence
Anna Freud1895
Founder of child psychoanalysis and theorist of ego defense mechanisms
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Sigmund Freud1896
Psychoanalysis
Source: Founded modern psychology
Milton Friedman1962
Free Market Economics
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1976
Erich Fromm1900
Humanistic psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Clifford Geertz1926
Founder of interpretive anthropology and 'thick description', author of 'The Interpretation of Cultures'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Anthropology
Murray Gell-Mann1969
Classification of elementary particles and their interactions (quark theory)
Source: Jinfo.org / Nobel Prize Physics 1969
Ernest Gellner1925
Philosopher and social anthropologist, theorist of nationalism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Erving Goffman1922
Sociologist who studied the interactional organization of talk and everyday conversation.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Kurt Goldstein1878
Neurologist and founder of the holistic and organismic approach to brain function.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Biology
Ernst Gombrich1909
Author of The Story of Art, the world's most-read art history book
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Nelson Goodman1906
American philosopher, the 'new riddle of induction' and nominalism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Paul Goodman
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Stephen Jay Gould1941
Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist who co-developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Biology
Oscar Handlin
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
H.L.A. Hart1907
Leading legal philosopher; author of 'The Concept of Law', foundational to modern legal positivism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Political Philosophy & Science
Abraham Joshua Heschel1907
Jewish theologian and philosopher of religion
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
E. D. Hirsch Jr.1928
Literary theorist; author of Cultural Literacy
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Richard Hofstadter1916
Two-time Pulitzer-winning historian of American political culture
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Sidney Hook1902
American pragmatist philosopher
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Max Horkheimer1895
Director of the Frankfurt School and co-founder of critical theory
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Edmund Husserl1900
Philosopher who founded phenomenology; born into a Jewish family (later converted to Lutheranism)
Source: Britannica
Ivan Illich
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
François Jacob1920
Awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize for discovering the operon model of gene regulation.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Biology
Roman Jakobson1896
Founder of structural linguistics and modern phonology; developed distinctive-feature theory.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Hans Kelsen1881
Legal philosopher; developed the 'Pure Theory of Law' and modern legal positivism
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Law & Jurisprudence
Lawrence Klein1980
Economist who built the first large econometric models of national economies, the Wharton models and Project LINK; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1980
Source: Wikipedia — Lawrence Klein / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1980
Melanie Klein1882
Founder of object relations theory and child psychoanalysis
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Arthur Koestler1905
Novelist and essayist ('Darkness at Noon')
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Literature
Kurt Koffka1886
Co-founder of Gestalt psychology
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Karl Kraus
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Hans Krebs1953
Discovery of the citric acid cycle (Krebs cycle) in cellular metabolism
Source: Jinfo.org / Nobel Prize Medicine 1953
Saul Kripke1940
Philosopher and logician known for the causal theory of reference and modal logic.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Thomas Kuhn1922
Philosopher of science, author of 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' and the concept of paradigm shifts
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Simon Kuznets1971
Empirical research on economic growth and the measurement of national income
Source: Jinfo.org / Nobel Prize Economics 1971
Imre Lakatos1922
Philosophy of mathematics; Proofs and Refutations
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Mathematics
Harold Laski
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Wassily Leontief1905
Economist who created input-output analysis and compiled the first input-output tables of the American economy; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1973
Source: Wikipedia — Wassily Leontief / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1973
Claude Lévi-Strauss1955
Founder of structural anthropology; author of Tristes Tropiques and The Elementary Structures of Kinship.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl1857
French philosopher and anthropologist
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Kurt Lewin1890
Founder of modern social psychology and field theory
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Oscar Lewis1914
Anthropologist who developed the concept of the 'culture of poverty'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Walter Lippmann
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Seymour Martin Lipset1922
Leading political sociologist; author of 'Political Man'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Gyorgy Lukács1885
Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary theorist
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Alexander Luria1902
Founder of modern neuropsychology and the study of the brain's functional organization.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Biology
Salvador Luria1912
Showed with Max Delbrück that bacteria mutate spontaneously (fluctuation test); co-founded the phage group; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1969 for discoveries on the replication and genetics…
Source: Wikipedia — Salvador Luria
Rosa Luxemburg
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Karl Mannheim1893
Founder of the sociology of knowledge
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Gabriel Marcel1889
French existentialist philosopher (of Jewish descent)
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Herbert Marcuse1898
Frankfurt School philosopher, author of 'One-Dimensional Man'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Abraham Maslow1908
Founder of humanistic psychology and the hierarchy of needs
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Robert K. Merton1994
Founder of the sociology of science; coined 'self-fulfilling prophecy' and 'role model'; National Medal of Science (1994)
Source: Jinfo.org — Jewish recipients of the US National Medal of Science
Hermann Muller1890
Showed in 1927 that X-rays produce gene mutations, founding radiation genetics; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1946
Source: Wikipedia — Hermann Muller
Lewis Mumford
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Ernest Nagel1901
Philosopher of science, author of 'The Structure of Science'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Sir Lewis Namier
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
John von Neumann1945
Computer Architecture and Game Theory
Source: Manhattan Project / Princeton
Otto Neurath1882
Vienna Circle philosopher, advocate of physicalism and unified science
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Emmy Noether1882
Founder of modern abstract algebra; Noether's theorem
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Mathematics
J. Robert Oppenheimer1945
Scientific director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos; theoretical physicist and, afterwards, an advocate of international control of nuclear weapons
Source: Wikipedia — J. Robert Oppenheimer
Erwin Panofsky1892
Founder of modern iconology in art history
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Wolfgang Pauli1945
Theoretical physicist who formulated the exclusion principle and proposed the neutrino; Nobel Prize in Physics 1945
Source: Wikipedia — Wolfgang Pauli
Max Perutz1962
Hemoglobin Structure
Source: Nobel Prize Chemistry 1962
Karl Polanyi1886
Economic anthropologist and historian, author of 'The Great Transformation'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Anthropology
Michael Polanyi1891
Physical chemist known for reaction rate theory and adsorption
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Chemistry
Karl Popper1902
Philosopher of science, developed falsifiability as the criterion of demarcation; author of 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Otto Rank1884
Psychoanalyst known for theories of the birth trauma and will
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Psychology
Wilhelm Reich1897
Psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
David Riesman1909
Sociologist and author of the influential study of American character 'The Lonely Crowd'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Harold Rosenberg
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Marshall Sahlins1930
Anthropologist known for 'Stone Age Economics' and 'Islands of History'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Anthropology
Paul Samuelson1948
Economic Theory
Source: Nobel Prize Economics 1970
Edward Sapir1884
Linguist and anthropologist central to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Meyer Schapiro
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Max Scheler1874
German phenomenologist and founder of philosophical anthropology (of Jewish descent)
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Heinrich Schenker
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Arnold Schoenberg1921
Austrian composer who pioneered atonality and the twelve-tone technique, a founder of the Second Viennese School and one of the most influential musical modernists.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg
Gershom Scholem
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Julian Schwinger1918
Physicist; co-founder of quantum electrodynamics (QED), Nobel Prize 1965
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Physics
Edward Shils1910
Sociologist known for work on tradition, intellectuals, and the 'center and periphery'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Georg Simmel1858
German sociologist and philosopher
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Herbert Simon1978
Social scientist of administrative decision-making and bounded rationality, and with Allen Newell a pioneer of artificial intelligence; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1978
Source: Wikipedia — Herbert A. Simon / NobelPrize.org Economic Sciences 1978
Susan Sontag1933
American writer and public intellectual whose essays on culture and photography shaped criticism.
Source: IMDb (Jewish Actors list)
Leo Spitzer1887
Romance philologist and founder of literary stylistics.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
William Stern1871
Psychologist and philosopher of personalism, originated the concept of IQ
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Leo Strauss1899
Political philosopher and scholar of classical political thought
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Alfred Tarski1901
Foundational logician; theory of truth and decidability.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Computer Science
Lionel Trilling1905
Preeminent American literary critic of the mid-20th century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews among the 250 most-cited scholars in the Arts & Humanities
Leon Trotsky
Profiled in Thinkers of the 20th Century
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews Profiled in Thinkers of the Twentieth Century
Lev Vygotsky1896
Psychologist whose work on thought and language founded developmental psycholinguistics.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics
Simone Weil1909
French philosopher and mystic
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Max Wertheimer1880
Founder of Gestalt psychology
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Philosophy
Norbert Wiener1894
Founded cybernetics and statistical communication theory.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Computer Science
Eugene Wigner1902
Mathematical physicist; brought group theory and symmetry principles into quantum mechanics, theory of the nuclear force; Nobel Prize in Physics 1963
Source: Wikipedia — Eugene Wigner
Louis Wirth1897
Pioneer of urban sociology; author of 'Urbanism as a Way of Life'
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Sociology
Ludwig Wittgenstein1889
Philosopher of language, author of the 'Tractatus' and 'Philosophical Investigations'.
Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Linguistics