The Most Famous
PHILOSOPHERS from Canada
This page contains a list of the greatest Canadian Philosophers. The pantheon dataset contains 1,081 Philosophers, 11 of which were born in Canada. This makes Canada the birth place of the 18th most number of Philosophers behind Czechia and Ukraine.
Top 10
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Canadian Philosophers of all time. This list of famous Canadian Philosophers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Canadian Philosophers.
1. Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980)
With an HPI of 69.83, Marshall McLuhan is the most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages on wikipedia.
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. He is known as the "father of media studies". McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" in the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and the term global village. He predicted the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, though his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years following his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. However, with the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, interest was renewed in his work and perspectives.
2. Charles Taylor (1931 - )
With an HPI of 60.89, Charles Taylor is the 2nd most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.
Charles Margrave Taylor (born November 5, 1931) is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize. In 2007, Taylor served with Gérard Bouchard on the Bouchard–Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodation with regard to cultural differences in the province of Quebec. He has also made contributions to moral philosophy, epistemology, hermeneutics, aesthetics, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of action.
3. Ian Stevenson (1918 - 2007)
With an HPI of 56.32, Ian Stevenson is the 3rd most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.
Ian Pretyman Stevenson (October 31, 1918 – February 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American psychiatrist, the founder and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years. He was chair of their department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death in 2007. As founder and director of the University of Virginia School of Medicine's Division of Perceptual Studies (originally named "Division of Personality Studies"), which investigates the paranormal, Stevenson became known for his research into cases he considered suggestive of reincarnation – the idea that emotions, memories, and even physical bodily features can be passed on from one incarnation to another. In the course of his forty years doing international fieldwork, he researched three thousand cases of children who claimed to remember past lives. His position was that certain phobias, philias, unusual abilities and illnesses could not be fully explained by genetics or the environment. He believed that, in addition to genetics and the environment, reincarnation might possibly provide a third, contributing factor. Stevenson helped to found the Society for Scientific Exploration in 1982, and was the author of around three hundred papers and fourteen books on reincarnation, including Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (1966), Cases of the Reincarnation Type (four volumes, 1975-1983) and European Cases of the Reincarnation Type (2003). His 1997 work Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects reported two hundred cases in which birthmarks and birth defects seemed to correspond in some way to a wound on the deceased person whose life the child recalled. He wrote a shorter version of the same research for the general reader, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect (1997). Stevenson was cautious in making claims about reincarnation. He emphasized that the information he collected only suggests that reincarnation is possible but does not prove that it occurs. He did, however, believe he had produced a body of evidence for reincarnation that must be taken seriously. He said, "[T]he evidence is not flawless and it certainly does not compel such a belief. Even the best of it is open to alternative interpretations, [but] one can only censure those who say there is no evidence whatever." Reaction to his work was mixed. In an obituary for Stevenson in The New York Times, Margalit Fox wrote that Stevenson's supporters saw him as a misunderstood genius, that his detractors regarded him as earnest but gullible, but that most scientists had simply ignored his research. Stevenson based his research on anecdotal case reports that were dismissed by the scientific community as unreliable because Stevenson did no controlled experimental work. His case reports were also criticized as they contained errors and omissions. Critics contend that ultimately Stevenson's conclusions are undermined by confirmation bias, mistakes, and motivated reasoning. Supporters of his work include Jim B. Tucker, a psychiatrist and colleague at the University of Virginia who now heads the division Stevenson founded.
4. Ian Hacking (1936 - 2023)
With an HPI of 51.37, Ian Hacking is the 4th most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.
Ian MacDougall Hacking (February 18, 1936 – May 10, 2023) was a Canadian philosopher specializing in the philosophy of science. Throughout his career, he won numerous awards, such as the Killam Prize for the Humanities and the Balzan Prize, and was a member of many prestigious groups, including the Order of Canada, the Royal Society of Canada and the British Academy.
5. Patricia Churchland (1943 - )
With an HPI of 48.91, Patricia Churchland is the 5th most famous Canadian Philosopher. Her biography has been translated into 23 different languages.
Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943) is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where she has taught since 1984. She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and Somerville College, Oxford, she taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is married to the philosopher Paul Churchland. Larissa MacFarquhar, writing for The New Yorker, observed of the philosophical couple that: "Their work is so similar that they are sometimes discussed, in journals and books, as one person."
6. Northrop Frye (1912 - 1991)
With an HPI of 48.32, Northrop Frye is the 6th most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.
Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957), one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century. The American critic Harold Bloom commented at the time of its publication that Anatomy established Frye as "the foremost living student of Western literature." Frye's contributions to cultural and social criticism spanned a long career during which he earned widespread recognition and received many honours.
7. G. A. Cohen (1941 - 2009)
With an HPI of 48.15, G. A. Cohen is the 7th most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.
Gerald Allan Cohen ( KOH-ən; 14 April 1941 – 5 August 2009) was a Canadian political philosopher who held the positions of Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, Oxford. He was known for his work on Marxism, and later, egalitarianism and distributive justice in normative political philosophy.
8. Bernard Lonergan (1904 - 1984)
With an HPI of 46.95, Bernard Lonergan is the 8th most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.
Bernard Joseph Francis Lonergan (17 December 1904 – 26 November 1984) was a Canadian Jesuit priest, philosopher, and theologian, regarded by many as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Lonergan's works include Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957) and Method in Theology (1972), as well as two studies of Thomas Aquinas, several theological textbooks, and numerous essays, including two posthumously published essays on macroeconomics. The projected 25-volume Collected Works with the University of Toronto Press is now complete. Lonergan held appointments at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; Regis College, Toronto, as distinguished visiting professor at Boston College, and as Stillman Professor of Divinity at Harvard University.
9. Leonard Peikoff (1933 - )
With an HPI of 40.12, Leonard Peikoff is the 9th most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Leonard Sylvan Peikoff (; born October 15, 1933) is a Canadian American philosopher. He is an Objectivist and was a close associate of Ayn Rand, who designated him heir to her estate. He is a former professor of philosophy and host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show. He co-founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in 1985 and is the author of several books on philosophy.
10. Paul Churchland (1942 - )
With an HPI of 39.96, Paul Churchland is the 10th most famous Canadian Philosopher. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Paul Montgomery Churchland (born October 21, 1942) is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland rose to the rank of full professor at the University of Manitoba before accepting the Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and joint appointments in that institution's Institute for Neural Computation and on its Cognitive Science Faculty. As of February 2017, Churchland is recognised as Professor Emeritus at the UCSD, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Moscow State University. Churchland is the husband of philosopher Patricia Churchland, with whom he collaborates closely.
Pantheon has 11 people classified as philosophers born between 1904 and 1962. Of these 11, 5 (45.45%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living philosophers include Charles Taylor, Patricia Churchland, and Leonard Peikoff. The most famous deceased philosophers include Marshall McLuhan, Ian Stevenson, and Ian Hacking.
Living Philosophers
Go to all Rankings
Charles Taylor
1931 - Present
HPI: 60.89
Patricia Churchland
1943 - Present
HPI: 48.91
Leonard Peikoff
1933 - Present
HPI: 40.12
Paul Churchland
1942 - Present
HPI: 39.96
Will Kymlicka
1962 - Present
HPI: 38.75
Deceased Philosophers
Go to all RankingsMarshall McLuhan
1911 - 1980
HPI: 69.83
Ian Stevenson
1918 - 2007
HPI: 56.32
Ian Hacking
1936 - 2023
HPI: 51.37
Northrop Frye
1912 - 1991
HPI: 48.32
G. A. Cohen
1941 - 2009
HPI: 48.15
Bernard Lonergan
1904 - 1984
HPI: 46.95
Which Philosophers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 6 most globally memorable Philosophers since 1700.
