Greetings from the Chair of the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund

Photo: Patrick Imbert/Holberg Prize.

By professor Jan Fridthjof Bernt, chair Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund

The Holberg International Memorial Prize is awarded for outstanding scholarly work in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology, either within one of these academic fields alone, or for interdisciplinary work. The prize is worth NOK 4.5 million.

The main purpose of the Holberg Prize is to spread knowledge about and increase understanding of the distinctive nature and importance of these academic fields. By turning the spotlight on and rewarding outstanding scholars, we wish to increase the prestige of these disciplines among relevant institutions, among political decision-makers and among the general public.

The Statutes for the Holberg Prize state that the prizewinner shall, through his/her scholarly work, have had a decisive influence on international research in the field in question, for example by developing new theory, knowledge or insight, or by making innovative use of existing theories or the methods used. The Board of the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund selects the prizewinner on the recommendation of the Holberg Prize Academic Committee, which consists of five internationally recognised researchers from the relevant academic fields.

This year’s prize is the sixth in the history of the Holberg Prize. In 2004, the prize was awarded to Bulgarian-French psychoanalyst, linguist and philosopher Julia Kristeva. In 2005, it was awarded to the German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas, in 2006 to the Israeli social scientist Shmuel Eisenstadt, in 2007 to the American philosopher and professor of jurisprudence Ronald Dworkin, and in 2008 to the American literary and cultural theorist Fredric R. Jameson.

The Academic Committee of the Holberg Prize has had many highly qualified candidates to choose between, from many different academic communities worldwide. On the recommendation of the Academic Committee, the Board has reached the following decision:

The Holberg International Memorial Prize for 2009 for outstanding scholarly work in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology is awarded to:

Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and Collège de France

Ian Hacking

Ian Hacking is one of the world’s leading thinkers in the philosophy and history of science. He has shown how our exploration and understanding of nature and ourselves – our science, philosophy and how we define chance, pathology and personality is decided by the development of the concepts we use, and how, over time, scientific knowledge influences and changes how we understand reality.

This year’s Holberg Prize is awarded in recognition of a scholar who has set himself the goal of providing us with insight into the most fundamental preconditions and models for human knowledge. He endeavours to understand how we have found out how we can find things out, and thus how new kinds of rationality and argumentation have come to predominate human thinking and our perception of truth and of the world in which we live.

This year’s award recognises a scholar who has not only made outstanding contributions to his core discipline, the theory of science, but who has also contributed extensively to theoretical discussion and self-reflection in a number of other disciplines.