The Holberg International Memorial Prize to Habermas

The Board of the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund has decided to award the Holberg International Memorial Prize 2005 to Professor Jürgen Habermas.

The prize has a value of NOK 4, 5 million (about 520,000 Euro) and will be awarded for the first time 3 December 2005. 

The Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund was established for the purpose of awarding the Holberg International Memorial Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of arts and humanities, social sciences, law or theology. The Holberg Prize aims to increase society's awareness of the value of research in these fields. The prize shall also stimulate young people to become more interested in these academic fields.

The prize is named after the Norwegian/Danish scholar and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Holberg was born in Bergen in 1684 and held the Chair of Metaphysics and Logic, Latin Rhetoric and History at the University of Copenhagen . Holberg had a modernising influence on his research fields. His work has been widely published and has had a broad appeal outside academia.

The Board of the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund award the prize on the basis of the recommendation of an academic committee.
Excerpt from the Holberg Prize Academic Committee’s recommendation:

“Jürgen Habermas has developed ground-breaking theories of discourse and communicative action which have resulted in new perspectives on law and democracy…His research is thematically wide-ranging and has had exceptional interdisciplinary impact. Habermas has significantly contributed to the understanding of rationality, ethics, legitimation, critical public discussion, modernity, the post-national society and European integration…Lately, Habermas’ work has included studying fundamental problems in ethics and philosophy…Habermas has had an extraordinary international influence in a great number of disciplines.”

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