Most influential person in World History

[kronic]

The options are little too modern in selection and bit too eurocentric.

Yeah, way too many Germans.

 

[Plotinus]

I will say Socrates, Plato or maybe Jesus or St Peter. This guys has the most inpact although Confucious has mega influence in East Asia.

I don't think St Peter did all that much. Paul would surely be a more obvious choice than him.

Still, Confucius still wins, for the simple reason that although he's not very influential outside Asia, his influence remains immense within it. How many modern Europeans follow the teachings of Jesus or the method of Socrates? Even most of those who call themselves Christians completely ignore the Sermon on the Mount. Yet Confucius' ideals are absolutely central to most of Asia even today. I've had to try to teach Asian undergraduates philosophy this term, and if I hear the phrase "filial piety" - meaningless to me - one more time I will kill one of them!

If you are going to say Jesus or Mohammed, then you have to put Abraham first. I said it once and i will say it agian. He started it all, so he should get the credit for the 52.97% of the population that follows Christianity, Islam, or Judaism.

And I've said it once and I'll say it again: Abraham is a figure of legend about whom virtually nothing is known, and who probably never existed at all. Jesus and Muhammad both existed and what they did is fairly well attested. If you're going to argue that Abraham is the most influential man for discovering monotheism, you might as well argue that Noah is the most influential man for saving the human race!

 

[SoCalian]

my vote still goes to sid. but regadless, you know this debate is going no where, when people start saying "I've said it before, and I'll say it again..."

 

[amadeus]

Jesus of Nazareth.

I can see some of the names up there too, but Mao? He doesn't even have any influence in the country he controlled for 25-odd years. The only places where Mao matters are in the minds of a few kooks in Nepal, Peru, and UC Berkeley.

 

[Plotinus]

I think to say that Mao has no influence in China is pretty daft - even now, Mao is still enormously respected and revered by very many Chinese. They attribute the disasters of his rule to those around him, such as his wife, rather than say anything bad about the Chairman himself.

I'd agree, though, that describing someone who died only thirty years ago as the most influential person in history would be pretty peculiar, no matter what they achieved.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Matt Groening - Can you honestly imagine a world without 'The Simpsons'?

Do me for spamming if you want but it's equally as stupid as naming any other 'one' person who changed the whole course of history.

 

[Ramius75]

I don't think St Peter did all that much. Paul would surely be a more obvious choice than him.

Still, Confucius still wins, for the simple reason that although he's not very influential outside Asia, his influence remains immense within it. How many modern Europeans follow the teachings of Jesus or the method of Socrates? Even most of those who call themselves Christians completely ignore the Sermon on the Mount. Yet Confucius' ideals are absolutely central to most of Asia even today. I've had to try to teach Asian undergraduates philosophy this term, and if I hear the phrase "filial piety" - meaningless to me - one more time I will kill one of them!

yes, what am i thinking, i often confuse peter as the one the invent christianity...

 

[ComradeDavo]

Matt Groening - Can you honestly imagine a world without 'The Simpsons'?

Good choice

 

[wit>trope]

I'd have thought the obvious answer is Confucius, but I'd still say Plato, or perhaps even Pythagoras. As for Abraham, it's hardly certain that he even existed.

The poll is far too skewed to recent people. How could anyone from the twentieth century be considered the most influential person in history?

It is obviously some religious/philosophic figure who is most influential. Any other option besides Colombus perhaps, is just silly (Newton is especially silly and I'm glad no one voted for it).

But your last comment assumes that influence can only be uni-directional (i.e. from present to future) and not bi-directional (i.e. from both present to past as well as present to future). I am pretty sure influence is bi-directional. The present can influence not only future but also past. If you think about it hard, it makes sense, especially since you brought up Ancient Greek philsophers with their idea of multiple kinds of causation

 

[craig9897]

The problem with the pick of "Jesus" is that all eveidnce found so far points to the fact no such person ever existed. The myth of the 'son of god was here' didn't surface until a few hundred years later.

 

[Plotinus]

The problem with the pick of "Jesus" is that all eveidnce found so far points to the fact no such person ever existed. The myth of the 'son of god was here' didn't surface until a few hundred years later.

I'm afraid that's completely untrue. Jesus is quite well attested. One of the main pieces of evidence in his favour is the fact that the teaching of Jesus often doesn't square with what the church taught (such as the emphasis on the coming Kingdom) and the fact that he died the death of a Roman criminal when the early church was more keen to blame the Jews for this. That suggests that the Christians didn't make up those things, and indeed all the evidence points to the early church manipulating or developing (or indeed simply preserving) pre-existing traditions about Jesus, not making them all up out of thin air. I'm not sure what you mean by "the myth of the son of god was here" - "son of God" in the first century simply meant somebody whom God approved of, and that is what it means in the New Testament. If you mean the Gnostic redeemer myth, that was something different. The doctrine of the incarnation obviously postdates Jesus, but that is neither here nor there. People's interpretation of Jesus is not the same thing as Jesus himself.

Cierdan - how can the present possibly influence the past? The most someone can do is influence our view of the past (something that no doubt Mao, among others, was good at), but that is not the same thing.

 

[Yellowbelly]

Possible candidates -

Kung Fu-tze (Confucius)

Gautama Buddha (originator of Buddhism)

Manuel Labor (inventor of work)

 

[amadeus]

The problem with the pick of "Jesus" is that all eveidnce found so far points to the fact no such person ever existed.

I disagree, but how does that make him any less influential in the history of the world?

 

[KingKHAN]

Why is the world they way it is?

Because Genghis Khan died 2 early.

 

[Israelite9191]

Well, I fyou are going to go with people who we know beyond any possible doubts, and Abraham is a pretty historical firgure BTW, although he just isn't the best documented one, then I would go with Mohammed. Foinder of the third largest religion currently, formerly second largest and at one time first, fastest growing relgiong. He also united the Arabs who saved Greek and Roman learning, along with the Irish, and created a unifying political force from Portugal and Morroco Indonesia, from Mozambique to Hungary. After him, Jesus followed by the Budha, Zoroaster, and Ghenghis Khan.

 

[Hornblower]

The problem with the pick of "Jesus" is that all eveidnce found so far points to the fact no such person ever existed. The myth of the 'son of god was here' didn't surface until a few hundred years later.

Yes I agree .... it is difficult to find actual proof of a guy with all sorts of mysterious powers who was related to a diety.
There probably was a successful public speaker guy who had a really good PR agent though.

 

[Homie]

Well, I fyou are going to go with people who we know beyond any possible doubts, and Abraham is a pretty historical firgure BTW, although he just isn't the best documented one, then I would go with Mohammed. Foinder of the third largest religion currently, formerly second largest and at one time first, fastest growing relgiong. He also united the Arabs who saved Greek and Roman learning, along with the Irish, and created a unifying political force from Portugal and Morroco Indonesia, from Mozambique to Hungary. After him, Jesus followed by the Budha, Zoroaster, and Ghenghis Khan.

The third largest religion? It's atleast the second largest according to encyclopedias, and probably in actuality it is the largest, because usually the entire Western world is counted as Christian, whcih obviously is false. And you said that it was third largest, formerly second and at one time first, what??? Islam has been growing continuosly since its conception, somtimes fast, sometimes not as fast, but it has never decreased as you seem to indicate.

Yes I agree .... it is difficult to find actual proof of a guy with all sorts of mysterious powers who was related to a diety.
There probably was a successful public speaker guy who had a really good PR agent though.

Wow, this "argument" is getting old.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Though I am not a believer, I would have to say Jesus, Mohammed, or Buddha. Because religion has shaped the world, whether we like it or not.

 

[wit>trope]

I'm afraid that's completely untrue. Jesus is quite well attested.

I agree and anyone who disagrees is just being silly. Non-Christian historians of that time period refer to him.

Cierdan - how can the present possibly influence the past? The most someone can do is influence our view of the past (something that no doubt Mao, among others, was good at), but that is not the same thing.

You brought up Ancient Greek philosophers. Some of them had concept of multiple kinds of causes, including the idea of final cause. Final cause can be in the future, meaning that once it is present it will be final cause of something that is in the past relative to it. If there can be final causation from present to past, then surely there is influence from present to past. As for how this could be? Well you are right it is hard to imagine when dealing only with beings bound by our space of time. But if there exist beings outside our space of time, then it could most certainly be seen how it could be. For instance if a being outside our space of time saw something that was present in the year 2040 and BASED ON WHAT he saw chose to do something in 1880 then that would be a case of the present (2040) influencing the past (1880) VIA a being who exists outside our space of time. Just one example of how this could happen. OF course also just because we can't SEE how it could happen, doesn't mean it can't happen.

 

[Plotinus]

Well, it's going wildly off-topic, but "final cause" in the Aristotelian sense isn't really reverse causation. It simply means what something aims at. So the "final cause" of my typing this is having a post appear on the thread. Clearly that's in the future, but it doesn't follow from that that the future existence of a post is causing my behaviour now - rather, what has effective power now is my *plan* to make a post, irrespective of whether it actually happens or not. So final causation doesn't imply influence from future to past, it simply means that things are done now with an eye to what the future may hold.

Most philosophers have considered true reverse causation - that is, what Aristotle called "efficient causation" where the cause comes temporally after its effect - to be not merely impossible but incoherent. You can't even imagine it, leaving aside examples such as an atemporal entity like the one you suggest. Although there are pretty good arguments for such an entity being incoherent in itself.

Leaving all of which aside, and returning vaguely to the topic, I think it's a fairly safe bet that, as a rule, people don't influence the past. I don't think Mao had access to any bizarre trans-temporal entities whom he could persuade to alter the past, and I don't think that anyone living before Mao behaved differently because they knew Mao was on the way. Although I bet you could write an interesting SF story on this basis...