Intriguing list of the “50 most influential living philosophers” at http://www.thebestschools.org/features/most-influential-living-philosophers/.

Brian Leiter doesn’t much care for it, but this list seems to me reasonably balanced in offering representatives of, e.g., both Christian and atheist perspectives, Continental versus analytic philosophers, as well as a wide variety of others. Feminists can’t claim not to be represented, as there are at least two (Judith Butler, Judith Jarvis Thomson). There are a few names I would have left off (Cornel West who is clearly far more a political activist than a philosopher).

And a few glaring omissions, such as Alvin Plantinga who I’d thought was one of the leading Christian analytic philosophers of religion in the country, Harry G. Frankfurt who actually published something relevant with On Bullshit (2005) and has done other useful work as well, and Colin McGinn of “New Mysterian” fame, although he might have been excluded for political reasons, e.g., the accusation of sexual harassment at the University of Miami from which he resigned in 2013.  Doubtless I’d think of a few others who should be on this list but aren’t, if I put my mind to it. The list, as it says, is a list of those who are influential, not necessarily those who are the best, and as Leiter observes, we don’t know what methodology was used to generate this list.

Most, I note, are elderly; many, also unsurprisingly, are not Americans. Not an absolutely wretched list, given a field very much “in the doldrums” (Harry Frankfurt’s apt description).