Photo/Illutration Kojin Karatani, this year’s recipient of the Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Prize (Nobuo Fujiwara)

Renowned philosopher Kojin Karatani, whose influential books include “The Structure of World History,” has been awarded this year's Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Prize, regarded as the "Nobel Prize for philosophy." 

The Berggruen Institute, a think tank based in California, made the announcement on Dec. 8.

Karatani, 81, is the first Asian recipient of the prize, which was launched by Nicolas Berggruen, a philanthropist and chairman of the institute, in 2016.

“I’m pleased with the unexpected high evaluation (of my work)," Karatani said. "I appreciate it.”

The institute awards the prize annually to “thinkers whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world.”

It cited Karatani’s “radically original contributions to modern philosophy, the history of philosophy, and political thinking.” 

It also praised his work saying it is “particularly valuable in the current era of troubled global capitalism, crisis in democratic states, and resurgent but seldom self-critical nationalism.”

The prize award is $1 million (135.9 million yen). The awards ceremony will be held in Tokyo next spring.

Karatani started his career as a literary critic in late 1960s with an essay on Natsume Soseki (1867-1916), an acclaimed Japanese novelist.

He is credited with drastically changing literary criticism with his works including “Origins of Modern Japanese Literature,” published in 1980.

Later he shifted his focus to philosophical and ideological themes and published books such as “Transcritique: On Kant and Marx” and “Power and Modes of Exchange,” published in 2001 and 2022, respectively.

His works have been translated into multiple languages including English.

Karatani has served as a book reviewer for The Asahi Shimbun since 2005.

Past recipients of the Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Prize include Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher, who aims to achieve multicultural society where people from various cultures co-exist through his work. Taylor received the award in 2016.

Another prominent recipient was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an American lawyer who handled many cases on gender discrimination before serving as a prominent liberal justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Ginsburg was given the prize in 2019 before her death in 2020 at age 87. 

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