Juergen Habermas is one of the most influential philosophers and prominent thinkers of social policy. The Emeritus Professor of the University of Frankfurt has also been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Retailers’ Society (2001) and the Premio Príncipe de Asturias (2003). His scientific work focuses for example on the structure of society, communication theories and research into living conditions in a scientific and technical world. After the indologist Paul Thieme, Habermas, who was born in Duesseldorf, is the second German citizen to win the Kyoto Prize.

The American computer expert Alan Curtis Kay is a pioneer in the field of information technology. He was the first to draft the concept of a personal computer back in the 1960s, and also played a key role in the development of this idea. The co-founder of the Californian Xerox Palo Alto research centre was involved in the establishment of the ARPANet, a precursor to the Internet used by the American military. He developed computer networks and pushed ahead the development of the Windows system’s overlapping windows, object-orientated programming and desktop publishing. His career has included posts at Atari, Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard. Kay has also received the “Zero-One Award” (development of new media) from the Berlin University of Arts, the “Software Systems Award” (in 1987) and the “Turing Award” (in 2003) from the Association for Computing Machinery.

The work of biochemist and human geneticist Alfred George Knudson has played a key role in modern cancer research and has helped towards the understanding of how cancer cells are formed. One area of focus is the “Two-Hit Model” developed by Knudson, which describes the ways in which sporadic and hereditary tumours are created. According to this model, two successive cell mutations are required for the development of a tumour. The scientist received the renowned Albert Lasker Award, one of the most coveted prizes in medicine, in 1998. Since 1976, he has been Professor of Paediatrics and Human Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

With this year’s Kyoto Prize, artists and scientists who have given of their services to develop the sciences and the arts were honoured for what is now the 20th time. The prize was created in 1984 by Kazuo Inamori, the founder of the Japanese technology group Kyocera, and is awarded each year by the foundation he also created.

Habermas Receives Kyoto Prize for Lifetime Achievement

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Jürgen Habermas, the leading philosopher writing in German today and a long-term visiting professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, is the recipient of the 2004 Kyoto Prize for Arts and Philosophy (with a cash gift of approximately $450,000), according to an announcement that was made by the Inamori Foundation Friday, June 11.

The Inamori Foundation announced the names of all the recipients of its 20th annual Kyoto Prizes, among the world’s leading awards for lifetime achievement. The international prizes are presented to people who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural and spiritual development of mankind in the areas of advanced technology, basic science, and arts and philosophy.

On Nov. 10, each laureate will participate in a ceremony in Japan, where they will receive a diploma, a Kyoto Prize gold medal of 20-karat gold and the cash gift. The laureates also will convene March 2 to 4, 2005, for the fourth annual Kyoto Laureate Symposium at the University of San Diego.

The preeminent contemporary social and political philosopher, Habermas is a public intellectual who has greatly influenced major debates of the day. Retired from the University of Frankfurt, he, together with Jacques Derrida, is one of the two most important living philosophers. His two dozen books and many articles have influenced virtually every discipline of the humanities and social sciences.

For his accomplishments in the worlds of public discourse and scholarship, he became the first German since Albert Schweitzer to receive Denmark’s prestigious Sonning Prize. Recently named one of the world’s most influential people by Time magazine, he also has received many of Germany’s literary prizes, culminating in 2001 with the Peace Prize of the German Publishers, as well as other European prizes, including Spain’s Prince of Asturias Prize, the Nobel Prize of the Spanish-speaking world.

Habermas’ life and work were deeply influenced by the traumatic events of his youth under National Socialism.

“Jurgen Habermas is admired greatly for his civic as well as his intellectual virtues,” said Thomas McCarthy, professor of humanities and philosophy at Northwestern University.

Throughout Habermas’ career, he has applied philosophic ideas to social problems and spoken out about the perils of intolerance, repression and poverty.

“From his student years after World War II until the present day, he has been speaking out clearly and courageously, and typically with considerable effect, on the major moral and political issues of the day -- from violations of civil liberties and attempts to ‘historicize’ the Holocaust, to German reunification and the invasion of Iraq,” McCarthy said.

Habermas’ public interventions have been collected in the many volumes of his “Kleine Politische Schriften.”

“His scholarly work, most of which has been translated into English, ranges from the book with which, as a young man, he first astonished the academic world, ‘The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,’ to his magnum opus on legal and political theory, ‘Between Facts and Norms,’” McCarthy said.

Habermas’ work includes such undisputed classics as “Knowledge and Human Interests,” “The Theory of Communicative Action” and “The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.”

The Kyoto prizes are presented to individuals or groups in appreciation not only of their outstanding achievements, but also the excellence of the personal characteristics on which they have built their contributions to mankind. The Inamori Foundation was established in 1984 by Kazuo Inamori, founder and chairman emeritus of Kyocera Corporation.