Meister Eckhart Prize

Since 2001 the Düsseldorf Identity Foundation has awarded the Meister Eckhart Prize to thinkers who produce high-quality work on the subject of identity.

The first Meister Eckhart Prize was awarded to Prof Dr. Richard Rorty on the December 3 2001 in Berlin. The American academic, who was born in 1931, has been teaching comparative literature and philosophy at Stamford University since 1966.

The second Meister Eckhart Prize was awarded to Claude Lévi-Strauss in 2003.

The Meister Eckhart Prize is a biannual prize of ?50,000. With the Meister Eckhart Prize, the Düsseldorf Identity Foundation is trying to open up a wide public dialogue. A jury selects the Prize winner based on some outstanding publications in fields such as philosophy, theology, history, sociology, political science, anthropology, ethnology, linguistics and psychology. The main criteria for the Prize include an interdisciplinary approach and a presentation of ideas accessible to the general public.

The prize is named for Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) a German Christian theologian, philosopher and mystic.