PHILOSOPHER

John Rawls

1921 - 2002

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John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the modern liberal tradition. Rawls has been described as one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century. In 1990, Will Kymlicka wrote in his introduction to the field that "it is generally accepted that the recent rebirth of normative political philosophy began with the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971". Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of John Rawls has received more than 2,996,145 page views. His biography is available in 65 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 61 in 2019). John Rawls is the 157th most popular philosopher (down from 136th in 2019), the 245th most popular biography from United States (down from 192nd in 2019) and the most popular American Philosopher.

John Rawls is most famous for his work in political philosophy, which he called "justice as fairness." Rawls argued that a society is just if it meets two conditions: (1) all citizens have the same basic liberties and opportunities, and (2) inequalities are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.0M

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    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 65

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 9.73

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.79

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among PHILOSOPHERS

Among philosophers, John Rawls ranks 157 out of 1,267Before him are Adi Shankara, Max Scheler, Clement of Alexandria, Herbert Marcuse, Carl Schmitt, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. After him are Ferdinand Tönnies, John Wycliffe, Hippias, Chrysippus, Sextus Empiricus, and Kabir.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1921, John Rawls ranks 12Before him are Stanisław Lem, Suharto, Yves Montand, Astor Piazzolla, Giulietta Masina, and Fawzia Fuad of Egypt. After him are Simone Signoret, Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Sophie Scholl, Hua Guofeng, and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Among people deceased in 2002, John Rawls ranks 8Before him are Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, Pierre Bourdieu, Simo Häyhä, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Thor Heyerdahl. After him are Billy Wilder, Richard Harris, Vavá, Ruth Handler, László Kubala, and Valeriy Lobanovskyi.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, John Rawls ranks 245 out of 20,380Before him are Audie Murphy (1925), Charlton Heston (1923), Samuel Colt (1814), John Ford (1894), Noah Webster (1758), and Frank Zappa (1940). After him are Philip K. Dick (1928), David Lynch (1946), Emily Greene Balch (1867), Jay Leno (1950), Barbra Streisand (1942), and Emily Dickinson (1830).

Among PHILOSOPHERS In United States

Among philosophers born in United States, John Rawls ranks 1After him are George Herbert Mead (1863), Robert Nozick (1938), Judith Butler (1956), Anne Sullivan (1866), Richard Rorty (1931), John Searle (1932), Hilary Putnam (1926), Ronald Dworkin (1931), Nelson Goodman (1906), Martha Nussbaum (1947), and Daniel Dennett (1942).