Award Karl Jaspers Prize for Seyla Benhabib
Press Release No. 54/2026
9 June 2026
Award acclaims outstanding philosophical work and public impact
Her outstanding philosophical work and her impact on the public have earned Prof. Dr Seyla Benhabib the Karl Jaspers Prize for 2026. Heidelberg University grants the prize worth 25,000 euros jointly with the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the City of Heidelberg. Prof. Benhabib’s work focuses on the question of how general ideas of justice, rights and democracy can be connected with the reality of life. Here she takes particular account of cultural differences, gender experiences and global migration. Furthermore, she is considered a proven expert on the German philosophy of the 20th century and regularly raises a critical voice in public debates. Seyla Benhabib teaches at Yale University (USA) as professor emeritus. The award ceremony is to take place on 29 April 2027.
According to the selection committee, Prof. Benhabib is being honored for her outstanding and multi-facetted scholarly lifetime achievement. The international ranking of her studies is beyond question – likewise her impact far beyond the boundaries of her specific disciplines. “We are convinced that Seyla Benhabib also raises her voice against the ‘evil spirit of an age’, as Karl Jaspers did in equally clear and exemplary fashion,” notes the statement of reasons for the award. It is important, the statement adds, that this voice, sustained “by the philosophical spirit”, finds a hearing precisely at the present time – not least because Prof. Benhabib takes a both wise and constructive position on key present-day conflicts such as the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Seyla Benhabib studied philosophy in Istanbul (Turkey) and at Brandeis University in Waltham (USA). She obtained her doctorate in 1977 at Yale University with a thesis on Hegel’s philosophy of right. She then accepted professorial posts at various universities in the United States, including Yale, Boston and Harvard, as well as State University of New York. In 2001 she was appointed to the Eugene Meyer Professorship for Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University. Prof. Benhabib has been a visiting scholar at many international institutions, including at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. Her research has been acknowledged with multiple prizes.
The Karl Jaspers Prize commemorates a “scholar whose lifetime achievement in psychopathology, philosophy and world philosophy has found international recognition”. Furthermore, the donors wish to pay grateful tribute to Jasper‘s “struggle to combat the evil spirit of an age”. A co-founder of existentialism, Karl Jaspers (1883 to 1969) was one of the most important German-speaking philosophers of the 20th century. After working as an assistant doctor at the University Psychiatric Hospital in Heidelberg, he earned his habilitation in psychology and taught philosophy at Heidelberg University from the early 1920s until his dismissal by the Nazi regime. After the end of the war, Jaspers belonged to what was called the Committee of Thirteen, which organized the rebuilding of the university. He resumed his academic work at Ruperto Carola, which made him an honorary senator in 1946. The prize named after Karl Jaspers has been awarded thirteen times so far, latterly to Prof. Dr Volker Gerhardt (2022), posthumously to sinologist Prof. Dr Rudolf G. Wagner (2019) and also to the researcher couple Prof. Dr Aleida Assmann and Prof. Dr Jan Assmann (2017).