Who are the world's leading public intellectuals? FP and Britain’s Prospect magazine would like to know who you think makes the cut. We’ve selected our top 100, and want you to vote for your top five. If you don’t see a name that you think deserves top honors, include them as a write-in candidate. Voting closes October 10, and the results will be posted the following month.
| Name | Occupation | Country |
|---|
| Chinua Achebe | Novelist | Nigeria |
| Jean Baudrillard | Sociologist, cultural critic | France |
| Gary Becker | Economist | United States |
| Pope Benedict XVI | Religious leader | Germany, Vatican |
| Jagdish Bhagwati | Economist | India, United States |
| Fernando Henrique Cardoso | Sociologist, former president | Brazil |
| Noam Chomsky | Linguist, author, activist | United States |
| J.M. Coetzee | Novelist | South Africa |
| Gordon Conway | Agricultural ecologist | Britain |
| Robert Cooper | Diplomat, writer | Britain |
| Richard Dawkins | Biologist, polemicist | Britain |
| Hernando de Soto | Economist | Peru |
| Pavol Demes | Political analyst | Slovakia |
| Daniel Dennett | Philosopher | United States |
| Kemal Dervis | Economist | Turkey |
| Jared Diamond | Biologist, physiologist, historian | United States |
| Freeman Dyson | Physicist | United States |
| Shirin Ebadi | Lawyer, human rights activist | Iran |
| Umberto Eco | Medievalist, novelist | Italy |
| Paul Ekman | Psychologist | United States |
| Fan Gang | Economist | China |
| Niall Ferguson | Historian | Britain |
| Alain Finkielkraut | Essayist, philosopher | France |
| Thomas Friedman | Journalist, author | United States |
| Francis Fukuyama | Political scientist, author | United States |
| Gao Xingjian | Novelist, playwright | China |
| Howard Gardner | Psychologist | United States |
| Timothy Garton Ash | Historian | Britain |
| Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Scholar, cultural critic | United States |
| Clifford Geertz | Anthropologist | United States |
| Neil Gershenfeld | Physicist, computer scientist | United States |
| Anthony Giddens | Sociologist | Britain |
| Germaine Greer | Writer, academic | Australia, Britain |
| Jürgen Habermas | Philosopher | Germany |
| Ha Jin | Novelist | China |
| Václav Havel | Playwright, statesman | Czech Republic |
| Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Politician | Somalia, Netherlands |
| Christopher Hitchens | Polemicist | United States, Britain |
| Eric Hobsbawm | Historian | Britain |
| Robert Hughes | Art critic | Australia |
| Samuel Huntington | Political scientist | United States |
| Michael Ignatieff | Writer, human rights theorist | Canada |
| Shintaro Ishihara | Politician, author | Japan |
| Robert Kagan | Author, political commentator | United States |
| Daniel Kahneman | Psychologist | Israel, United States |
| Sergei Karaganov | Foreign-policy analyst | Russia |
| Paul Kennedy | Historian | Britain, United States |
| Gilles Kepel | Scholar of Islam | France |
| Naomi Klein | Journalist, author | Canada |
| Rem Koolhaas | Architect | Netherlands |
| Enrique Krauze | Historian | Mexico |
| Julia Kristeva | Philosopher | France |
| Paul Krugman | Economist, columnist | United States |
| Hans Küng | Theologian | Switzerland |
| Jaron Lanier | Virtual reality pioneer | United States |
| Lawrence Lessig | Legal scholar | United States |
| Bernard Lewis | Historian | Britain, United States |
| Bjørn Lomborg | Environmentalist | Denmark |
| James Lovelock | Scientist | Britain |
| Kishore Mahbubani | Author, diplomat | Singapore |
| Ali Mazrui | Political scientist | Kenya |
| Sunita Narain | Environmentalist | India |
| Antonio Negri | Philosopher, activist | Italy |
| Martha Nussbaum | Philosopher | United States |
| Sari Nusseibeh | Diplomat, philosopher | Palestine |
| Kenichi Ohmae | Management theorist | Japan |
| Amos Oz | Novelist | Israel |
| Camille Paglia | Social critic, author | United States |
| Orhan Pamuk | Novelist | Turkey |
| Steven Pinker | Experimental psychologist | Canada, United States |
| Richard Posner | Judge, scholar, author | United States |
| Pramoedya Ananta Toer | Writer, dissident | Indonesia |
| Yusuf al-Qaradawi | Cleric | Egypt, Qatar |
| Robert Putnam | Political scientist | United States |
| Tariq Ramadan | Scholar of Islam | Switzerland |
| Martin Rees | Astrophysicist | Britain |
| Richard Rorty | Philosopher | United States |
| Salman Rushdie | Novelist, political commentator | Britain, India |
| Jeffrey Sachs | Economist | United States |
| Elaine Scarry | Literary theorist | United States |
| Amartya Sen | Economist | India |
| Peter Singer | Philosopher | Australia |
| Ali al-Sistani | Cleric | Iran, Iraq |
| Peter Sloterdijk | Philosopher | Germany |
| Abdolkarim Soroush | Religious theorist | Iran |
| Wole Soyinka | Playwright, activist | Nigeria |
| Lawrence Summers | Economist, academic | United States |
| Mario Vargas Llosa | Novelist, politician | Peru |
| Harold Varmus | Medical scientist | United States |
| Craig Venter | Biologist, businessman | United States |
| Michael Walzer | Political theorist | United States |
| Florence Wambugu | Plant Pathologist | Kenya |
| Wang Jisi | Foreign-policy analyst | China |
| Steven Weinberg | Physicist | United States |
| E.O. Wilson | Biologist | United States |
| James Q. Wilson | Criminologist | United States |
| Paul Wolfowitz | Policymaker, academic | United States |
| Fareed Zakaria | Journalist, author | United States |
| Zheng Bijian | Political scientist | China |
| Slavoj Zizek | Sociologist, philosopher | Slovenia |
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Criteria
The irony of this “thinkers”
list is that it does not bear thinking about too closely. The problems of definition
and judgment that it involves would discourage more rigorous souls. But some criteria
must be spelled out. What is a public intellectual? Someone who has shown distinction
in their own field along with the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate
outside of it.
Candidates must have been alive, and still
active in public life (though many on this list are past their prime). Such criteria
ruled out the likes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Milton Friedman, who would have
been automatic inclusions 20 or so years ago. This list is about public influence,
not intrinsic achievement. And that is where things get really tricky. Judging
influence is hard enough inside one’s own culture, but when you are peering
across cultures and languages, the problem becomes far harder. Obviously our list
of 100 has been influenced by where most of us sit, in the English-speaking West.
We tried to avoid the “box ticking”
problem of having x Chinese, y economists and z under-50s.
But we have also tried to give due weight to the important thinkers in all the
main intellectual disciplines and centers of population. We also tried to ensure
that all names on the list are influential in at least a few countries in their
region, if not the entire globe. We may not have succeeded in following all these
rules to the letter, but for those of you irritated by our choices, there is a
small safety valve—a write-in vote that allows you to nominate a name that
wasn’t included on our list. — Prospect
and Foreign Policy
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