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From "I think, therefore I am" to "The invisible hand," these revolutionary thinkers transformed human understanding forever. Join us as we count down the most influential minds whose ideas reshaped our world! Our list spans from Ancient Greece to the 20th century, covering philosophers, scientists, and social theorists who challenged the status quo.
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00:00All we are is dust in the wind, dude.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most groundbreaking minds who reshape the way we see the world.
00:11For this list, we're focusing on philosophers, scientists, and thinkers.
00:15However, religious figures and prophets are off the table, as their influence is a whole other story.
00:19At sunrise, Siddhartha Gautama at last attained enlightenment, becoming Buddha, the Enlightened One.
00:27Number 10. Ayn Rand.
00:29Ayn Rand is one of the most polarizing thinkers of the 20th century.
00:33A Russian émigré-turned-novelist-slash-philosopher, she preached the gospel of individualism and capitalism.
00:39First, my philosophy is based on the concept that reality exists as an objective absolute.
00:47That man's mind, reason, is his means of perceiving it.
00:51Her works like The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged laid the foundation for her philosophy of objectivism.
00:57Rand rejected altruism and glorified self-interest as a moral duty.
01:01Dismissed by many academics, she became an early pop culture thought leader.
01:05She didn't want to stop at fiction.
01:07She wanted to change the world.
01:09Her work found a huge audience among business leaders, libertarians, and conservative politicians in the U.S. and U.K.
01:14Decades later, her ideas still echo in debates about free markets, regulation, and the role of government.
01:20You don't have to like her to see her impact.
01:22Rand helped hardwire modern right-wing politics.
01:25Study economics.
01:27A free economy will not break down.
01:29Number 9.
01:30Abin Sina, aka Avicenna.
01:32Known in the West as Avicenna, Avicenna was the ultimate polymath of the Islamic Golden Age.
01:37A physician, philosopher, and scientist.
01:40Avicenna wrote hundreds of works covering everything, from logic and metaphysics, to astronomy and medicine.
01:45Works that he mentions by name that he studied in the early days include Porphyry's Isagoge,
01:50The Almagest, which is a work by Ptolemy, and the famous work by Euclid, The Elements.
01:56His canon of medicine became a standard medical text in Europe and the Middle East for nearly six centuries.
02:02In philosophy, he fused Aristotle and Plato with Islamic thought.
02:06His genius and brilliance really shines through in these many texts.
02:10He wrote commentaries on the work of Aristotle.
02:13He wrote epistles and poetic works.
02:18He influenced everyone from Thomas Aquinas to great thinkers of the Enlightenment.
02:21His belief in reason and systematic study showed that science could thrive across cultures and faiths.
02:27By the time Europe was just waking up from the Dark Ages,
02:29Abin Sina had already helped shape the world of reason.
02:32He truly is one of the most, one of the greatest luminaries,
02:36at least in philosophy and science, in all of history.
02:39Number 8. W.E.B. Du Bois
02:42W.E.D. Du Bois was one of the sharpest minds of his generation.
02:45In an America divided by color, he pioneered a new era of thinking about race and society.
02:50Herein lie buried many things which, if read with patience,
02:56may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the 20th century.
03:02The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard,
03:05he went on to co-found the NAACP.
03:07He also became a leading intellectual voice in the fight for civil rights.
03:11His landmark book, The Souls of Black Folk, introduced the concept of double consciousness.
03:15That veil through which black people saw themselves, through the eyes of another race,
03:21straddled between the African and the American,
03:24cast into internal exile, destined to be foreigners in our own homes.
03:29Yet with that veil came a gift,
03:32a divided self with which to understand this divided nation.
03:36He captured the tension of living with a black American identity.
03:39Du Bois believed education, political activism,
03:42and cultural pride were the keys to equality.
03:44His ideas also inspired decolonization and pan-African movements abroad,
03:49changing how the entire world tackled race and identity.
03:52W.E.B. Du Bois can be deemed, arguably,
03:55the most profound African American intellectual of his generation.
04:01Number 7. Karl Marx
04:03Few thinkers have left the world as rattled as Karl Marx did.
04:06A German philosopher and economist,
04:08He put forward a revolutionary philosophy.
04:10Love him or loathe him,
04:13what you cannot dispute is that Karl Marx
04:16dramatically transformed our world.
04:19History, Marx argued, was driven by class struggle.
04:22He believed that capitalism was inherently exploitative.
04:25His most famous works,
04:27The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital,
04:29laid out a new vision of society.
04:31Marx's ideal nation was built on collective ownership
04:34instead of private profit.
04:35If a capitalist wanted to cut the working day,
04:38that probably wouldn't be possible,
04:40because competitors would exploit workers just as much as before.
04:45You'd lose profit, you'd go out of business.
04:47And so in this way, Marx said,
04:49under capitalism, we become playthings of alien forces.
04:53At the time, his ideas were radical.
04:55Suppression of his words was widespread,
04:57but couldn't contain them.
04:59Workers' movements spread across Europe and beyond.
05:01Marx's reframing of politics,
05:03philosophy, and history through the lens of power and production
05:06appealed to oppressed workers.
05:08Another love him or hate him figure,
05:10Marx's impact on the 20th century is undeniable.
05:13So whether you choose to read Marx as a hero or a villain,
05:17his philosophical journey must be interrogated
05:20and never forgotten.
05:22Adam Smith is our guide to perhaps the most pressing dilemma of our time,
05:33how to make a capitalist economy more humane and more meaningful.
05:37A Scottish economist and philosopher,
05:39Smith is best known for the wealth of nations.
05:42Published in 1776, the same year America declared independence,
05:45it introduced the notion of what we now call market forces.
05:48Properly developed, capitalism shouldn't just service our basic material needs
05:53while exciting us to buy frivolous things.
05:55It should make money from goods and services that deliver true fulfillment.
06:00Smith argued that individuals pursuing self-interest
06:02could unintentionally benefit society as a whole.
06:05His invisible hand would lead a free market to mass prosperity.
06:08Limited government intervention and the power of competition
06:11were the keys to success.
06:13His ideas laid the intellectual foundation for modern economics
06:16and shaped policies across the Western world.
06:19Today, every debate about capitalism, regulation, or trade
06:22owes something to Smith's vision.
06:24He deserves our ongoing attention
06:26because he was interested in an issue
06:28that has become a leading priority of our own times.
06:31How to create an economy that is at once profitable and civilized.
06:37Number five, Rene Descartes.
06:39I think, therefore I am.
06:41With those five words,
06:43Rene Descartes permanently changed the way humans approach knowledge.
06:46Descartes asked,
06:47What, if anything, can I know for certain?
06:51He decided he couldn't rely on any evidence acquired from his senses
06:54since they sometimes misled him.
06:57Descartes turned doubt into a scientific method.
07:00Question everything.
07:01Peel back every layer until only the undeniable remains.
07:04He wanted philosophy to be as rigorous as math.
07:07And on the subject of mathematics,
07:08he knew of which he spoke.
07:10What if an evil demon was in control of his thoughts,
07:13manipulating them so that every time he added numbers together,
07:17he made a basic error?
07:19He created the Cartesian coordinate system,
07:21letting algebra and geometry speak the same language.
07:24His cool-headed rationalism helped drag Europe
07:27from medieval scholasticism toward the Enlightenment.
07:29He may have had an ego to match his intellect,
07:31but it's hard to argue that it wasn't well-earned.
07:34I think, therefore I am.
07:36Cogito, ergo, sum.
07:39Number 4. Isaac Newton
07:41Gravity was just Isaac Newton's opening act.
07:43In 1687, his Principia Mathematica
07:46laid out the laws of motion and universal gravitation.
07:49While most titles these days are overhyped,
07:52this one, written in Latin, truly changed the world.
07:55He proved that the same force pulling an apple to the ground
07:59keeps the moon in orbit.
08:00It was a revelation.
08:01The heavens and the earth were ruled by the same laws.
08:04Newton realized that the earth does not attract the objects just down,
08:08but it attracts the objects radially towards its center.
08:11His vision redefined physics for more than two centuries.
08:14Humanity came to believe that the universe could be explained through math.
08:18Newton also co-invented calculus, revolutionized optics,
08:21and built the first practical reflecting telescope.
08:24His mind pushed science into the modern age.
08:27You read his writing.
08:27The man was connected to the universe
08:29in ways that I've never seen another human being connected.
08:33Number 3. Mary Wollstonecraft
08:35For much of human history, rights weren't really a thing.
08:38The conduct and manners of women
08:40evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state.
08:44For like the flowers, which are planted in too rich a soil,
08:48strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty.
08:52Might made right.
08:53People, oftentimes women,
08:55were stuck in a cycle of repression.
08:57Feminism as a concept didn't really come along
08:59until the end of the 18th century.
09:00Then, Mary Wollstonecraft came along,
09:02an English writer and philosopher.
09:04Her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
09:07ignited a centuries-long fight for equality.
09:09The book pushed against many commonly held notions of femalehood.
09:13She argued that women were not naturally inferior to men.
09:16If they seemed that way,
09:17it's only because they lacked the same opportunities.
09:19Wollstonecraft insisted that women deserve the same education,
09:22access to the workforce,
09:24and independence as men.
09:25At the time, her book was revolutionary.
09:27Though she died young,
09:29her words lit a fuse that would ignite later feminist movements.
09:31I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue.
09:36That the first object of laudable ambition
09:39is to obtain a character as a human being,
09:42regardless of the distinction of sex.
09:46Number two, Confucius.
09:48Confucius wasn't born a king or general.
09:50He was a mid-level bureaucrat with big ideas.
09:53Most people recognize his name
09:55and know that he is famous for having said something.
09:59But considering the long-lasting impact
10:02his teachings have had on the world,
10:04very few people know who Confucius really was.
10:08His was a world of constant warfare between Chinese states.
10:11So, Confucius preached a radical alternative,
10:14order through virtue, not violence.
10:16He emphasized education,
10:18filial piety,
10:18and respect for tradition.
10:20He made family values a political philosophy.
10:23So, when one duke bragged that his subjects were so upright
10:26that a son testified against his own father
10:29when his father stole a sheep,
10:31Confucius informed the duke
10:33that genuinely upright fathers and sons protected one another.
10:37To him,
10:38a good ruler governed by example,
10:40morality flows downward from the top.
10:42Over time,
10:43his teachings became the backbone of Chinese statecraft.
10:44Dynasties rose and fell,
10:47but Confucianism endured.
10:49It shaped everything,
10:50from schools to governments across East Asia.
10:52Today,
10:53echoes of his thought influence billions of lives.
10:56When asked to summarize his teachings in a single phrase,
10:59Confucius himself said,
11:01Do not inflict upon others
11:03that which you yourself would not want.
11:062,500 years later,
11:09it's still sage advice.
11:10Before we unveil our top pick,
11:12here are a few honorable mentions.
11:13Hypatia of Alexandria,
11:15a female scholar who redefined
11:17who society allowed to shape ideas.
11:19Throughout her life,
11:20Hypatia remained celibate
11:22and chose not to marry,
11:23instead devoting her time to learning and teaching.
11:26Rabindranath Tagore,
11:28his new Indian voice in literature and philosophy,
11:30challenged colonial narratives.
11:32He said,
11:33We ought to know
11:34that isolation of life and culture
11:36is not a thing
11:37of which any nation can be proud.
11:40In the human world,
11:41giving is exchanging.
11:43It is not one-sided.
11:45John Locke,
11:46he pioneered the concept of natural rights,
11:48influencing both democracy
11:50and liberal thought.
11:51And the answer to the great question of the ages,
11:54who should have the power?
11:56As Locke wrote,
11:57This doctrine of a power in the people
11:59is the best fence against rebellion.
12:02Ibn Khaldun,
12:03ahead of his time,
12:04he analyzed history through social forces.
12:07His first and perhaps most important book
12:09was called Al-Muqaddima,
12:10or The Introduction.
12:12Some also refer to it
12:13as Ibn Khaldun's Prologa Mana,
12:16a pioneering text
12:17that brought us historiography,
12:19sociology,
12:20demography,
12:21and economics.
12:22Shinua Ashebe,
12:23his Things Fall Apart
12:25forced the world
12:25to rethink African stereotypes.
12:27Are you satisfied
12:28with the development
12:29of an authentic African voice?
12:32Well, it's only the beginning.
12:34Before we continue,
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12:49Number one,
12:51the Classical Greeks.
12:52They were history's
12:53greatest teacher-student relay team.
12:55Socrates laid the foundation
12:56by teaching not what to think,
12:58but how to think.
12:59His relentless questions
13:00forced people
13:00to examine their own beliefs.
13:02His great legacy to the world
13:03was the method of questioning
13:05to arrive at the truth,
13:07which is known
13:08as the Socratic method.
13:09His student, Plato,
13:10built on that method,
13:11spinning grand theories
13:12about justice,
13:13politics,
13:14and the nature of reality.
13:15One 20th century philosopher
13:17even went so far
13:18as to describe
13:19all of Western philosophy
13:21as a series of footnotes
13:23to Plato.
13:24Finally came Aristotle,
13:26Plato's student
13:26and tutor to Alexander the Great,
13:28who tried to catalog
13:29the entire world.
13:30He wrote on everything
13:31from ethics and politics
13:32to biology and physics.
13:34Where Plato chased ideals,
13:36Aristotle dissected the tangible.
13:38For Aristotle,
13:39philosophy was about
13:40practical wisdom.
13:41Even when wrong,
13:42their systems provided
13:43the scaffolding
13:43of Western thought
13:44for centuries.
13:45Nearly every branch
13:46of philosophy,
13:47science,
13:48and politics
13:48traces back to this chain
13:49of teacher to student.
13:51Are we sure we should
13:52be paying attention
13:53to these guys?
13:53It's like who died
13:54and left Aristotle
13:55in charge of ethics?
13:58Plato!
13:59Whose ideas do you think
14:00aged the best,
14:01and whose didn't
14:01stand the test of time?
14:02Let us know your favorite
14:03thought leaders
14:04from throughout history
14:05in the comments below.
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