Claude Frédéric Bastiat (; 30 June 180124 December 1850 ) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly.

On 24 December 1850, Bastiat called those with him to approach his bed.

* December 24 – Frédéric Bastiat French author and economist ( b. 1801 )

Charles Babbage, FRS ( 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871 ) was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer.

Count Francesco Algarotti ( 11 December 1712 – 3 May 1764 ) was an Italian polymath, philosopher, poet, essayist, anglophile, art critic and art collector.

Henry Home, Lord Kames ( 169627 December 1782 ) was a Scottish advocate, judge, philosopher, writer and agricultural improver.

John Wycliffe (; also spelt Wyclif, Wycliff, Wiclef, Wicliffe, or Wickliffe ) ( c. 1320 – 31 December 1384 ) was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher at Oxford in England, who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century.

Mortimer Jerome Adler ( December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001 ) was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author.

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC ( July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980 ) was a Canadian philosopher of communication theory.

* December 20 – David Bohm, American-born physicist, philosopher, and neuropsychologist ( d. 1992 )

* December 11 – Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, Indian philosopher ( b. 1875 )

* December 22 – Otto Neurath, Austrian philosopher and political economist ( b. 1892 )

* December 8 – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher ( b. 1820 )

* December 16 – George Santayana, philosopher, poet, essayist and novelist ( d. 1952 )

* December 6 – Frantz Fanon, philosopher ( b. 1925 )

* December 13 – Francesco Bianchini, Italian philosopher and scientist ( d. 1729 )

* December 27 – Henry Home, Lord Kames, Scottish advocate and philosopher ( b. 1697 )

* December 25 – Hugo Bergmann, German and Israeli Jewish philosopher ( d. 1975 )

* December 7 – Gabriel Marcel, French philosopher and playwright ( d. 1973 )

* December 25 – Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer ( d. 1921 )

* December 8 – George Boole, English mathematician and philosopher ( b. 1815 )

* December 16 – Sir William Petty, English philosopher ( b. 1623 )

* December 13 – Maimonides, Spanish rabbi and philosopher ( b. 1135 )

* December 18 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher and writer ( b. 1744 )

* December 22 – Cesare Cremonini, Italian philosopher ( d. 1631 )

* December 14 – Lady Anne Finch Conway, English philosopher ( d. 1679 )

* December 28 – Emerich de Vattel, Swiss philosopher ( b. 1714 )

* December 23 – Thomas Malthus, English economist and political philosopher ( b. 1766 )

Helen Beatrix Potter ( 28 July 186622 December 1943 ) was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children ’ s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.

This volume was delivered by the author to Arkham House in December 1949 but remained unpublished until 1971.

Carl Edward Sagan (; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996 ) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences.

Another popular early project was Jonathon Fowler's JFDuke3D, which in December 2003 received backing from the original author of Build, programmer Ken Silverman.

Alfred Damon Runyon ( October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946 ) was an American newspaperman and author.

Eric Steven Raymond ( born December 4, 1957 ), often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate.

Eden Phillpotts ( 4 November 1862 – 29 December 1960 ) was an English author, poet and dramatist.

Edwin Abbott Abbott ( 20 December 1838 – 12 October 1926 ), English schoolmaster and theologian, is best known as the author of the satirical novella Flatland ( 1884 ).

In December 1588 Oxford had secretly sold his London mansion of Fisher's Folly to Sir William Cornwallis ; by January 1591 the author Thomas Churchyard was dealing with rent owing for rooms he had taken in a house on behalf of his patron.

Giovanni Boccaccio (; 1313 – 21 December 1375 ) was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular.

Harry Julius Shearer ( born December 23, 1943 ) is an American actor, humorist, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and filmmaker.

Jack Laurence Chalker ( December 17, 1944 – February 11, 2005 ) was an American science fiction author.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (), also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (), and more popularly in the English-speaking world simply as Rumi ( 30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273 ), was a 13th-century after whose death in 1284 Rumi's younger and only surviving son, Sultan Walad ( died 1312 ), favorably known as author of the mystical Maṭnawī Rabābnāma, or the Book of the Rabab was installed as grand master of the order.

Kary Banks Mullis ( born December 28, 1944 ) is a Nobel Prize winning American biochemist, author, and lecturer.

Lyman Abbott ( December 18, 1835 – October 22, 1922 ) was an American Congregationalist theologian, editor, and author.

Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Massachusetts on December 18, 1835, the son of the prolific author, educator and historian Jacob Abbott.

Peter Guralnick ( born December 15, 1943, in Boston, Massachusetts ) is an American music critic, writer on music, and historian of US American popular music, who is also active as an author and screenwriter.

Reuben Lucius Goldberg ( July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970 ) was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor.

New Worlds author Thomas Disch would not earn better quotes from Budrys in the December 1966 review for his " ineptly written " The Genocide, a work of " unrelieved trash " which was filled with a horde of " dumb, resigned victims.

Thomas Hunt Morgan ( September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945 ) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries relating the role the chromosome plays in heredity.

Andreas Vesalius ( 31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564 ) was a Flemish anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica ( On the Structure of the Human Body ).

* December 26-Elizabeth Kostova, American author

* December 8 – Péter Kuczka, Hungarian author ( b. 1923 )