Gunnar Skirbekk
Gunnar Skirbekk is a Norwegian philosopher. He is professor emeritus at the Department of Philosophy and the Center for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.
Academic career
Skirbekk studied at the University of Oslo 1957–59, in Paris 1960–61, and in Tübingen 1961–62. He was later a research assistant for Herbert Marcuse and Avrum Stroll at the University of California, San Diego 1966–67; dr.philos. at the University of Bergen in 1970; research at UCSD 1979–80, 1983, and 1991.He became an assistant teacher at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen 1962. He was made associate professor in 1964, and then professor in the philosophy of the sciences and the humanities in 1979. He was made Professeur invité at the University of Nice in Sophia Antipolis in Spring 1997. In the Winter 2000–2001 he was Professor at the department of philosophy of Freie Universität Berlin. He was Advisory Professor at East China Normal University from 1998, and Fellow at the Hans Jonas Zentrum in Berlin from 1998. Founder of the Center for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen, and director from 1987–1991, 1995–1997, and 2001–2003.
He received the Lauritz Meltzer Award for most outstanding research at the University of Bergen in the period 1990–1996. The Tønnes Andenæs Award, together with Nils Gilje, for Filosofihistorie 1–2, in 1999. He is translated into more than 20 languages. In 2013 he received the Nynorsk User of the Year award.
Editorial and group positions
- Co-editor of Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift 1979–1983
- Member of the editorial board of Praxis International 1980–1993, and of Social Science Studies 1988–1994
- Member of the Overseas Correspondence Board of Chinese Social Sciences Quarterly from 1994
- Member of the editorial board of Redescriptions, Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History from 2004.
- Together with Jürgen Habermas, Hilary Putnam and Patrick Suppes, member of the advisory board of Philosophical Analysis from 2010.
- Member of the board of Nordic institute of philosophy from 1981-1998.
- Member of the board of the Norwegian Research Council 198–89.
- Member of the governmental Commission for the Freedom of Expression, 1996–1999.
- Norwegian coordinator of "Marco Polo" 1994–2005, a program of comparative studies of cultural modernization in Europe and East Asia, established in 1994, at the University of Bergen and East China Normal University in Shanghai.
- Member of the scientific committee of Noèsis from 2015.
- Member of the international editorial board of Danish Yearbook of Philosophy from 2019.
Publications
- Nihilisme?, Oslo 1958.
- Dei filosofiske vilkår for sanning. Ei tolking av Martin Heideggers sanningslære, Oslo 1966.
- Er ideologiane døde?, ed. and co-author, Oslo 1969.
- Nymarxisme og kritisk dialektikk, Oslo 1970.
- Truth and Preconditions, Bergen 1970.
- Innføring i politisk teori, revised version of Innføring i politisk teori, Bergen 1972, 2nd ed. 1976.
- Økologi og filosofi, Oslo 1972.
- Wahrheitstheorien: Eine Auswahl aus den Diskussionen über Wahrheit im 20. Jahrhundert , Frankfurt a. M. 1977, ed. and co-author.
- Filosofihistorie, Bergen/Oslo 1980, revised version of Politisk filosofi. New editions 1987, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2007. From 1987, together with Nils Gilje; 2007 also with Anne Granberg, Cathrine Holst, and Rasmus Slaattelid. German edition 1993; Danish and Swedish editions 1995; Bokmål 1996; Icelandic edition 1999; Russian 2000; English 2001; Uzbek 2002 ; Chinese 2004 ; Tajik 2004 ; Turkish 2004; Azeri and French 2010; Arabic 2012; Korean 2016; Serbian 2017; Persian.
- Praxeology: An Anthology. Oslo, 1983, ed. and co-author.
- Ord: Essay i utval, Oslo 1984.
- Manuscripts on Rationality, Bergen, 1984; revised and enlarged version Bergen 1992.
- Objektivitetsproblemet i vitskapane, Bergen 1984, ed. and co-author.
- Die pragmatische Wende. Sprachspielpragmatik oder Transzendentalpragmatik?, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, eds. Dietrich Böhler, Tore Nordenstam, Gunnar Skirbekk; co-author.
- Til Djevelens forsvar og andre essays, Bergen 1987.
- Die pragmatische Wende, Frankfurt a. M., 1987, co-ed. and co-author.
- Modernitet - rasjonalisering og differensiering, Bergen 1988, ed. and co-author.
- Vernunft und Verantwortung, Bergen 1992.
- Kulturell modernitet, vitskapleg rasjonalitet, Bergen, 1992.
- Eco-philosophical Manuscripts, Bergen 1992.
- The Commercial Ark. A Book on Ecology, Evolution and Ethics, co-ed. and co-author, Oslo 1992.
- Geschichte der Philosophie, Frankfurt a. M. 1993, together with Nils Gilje.
- Rationalité et Modernité, Paris 1993.
- Rationality and Modernity: Essays in Philosophical Pragmatics, Oslo/Oxford 1993.
- The Notion of Sustainability, Oslo 1994, co-ed. and co-author.
- Philosophy Beyond Borders. An Anthology of Norwegian Philosophy, co-ed. and co-author, Bergen 1997; Chinese edition 1999, extended Chinese edition 2016.
- Vit og vitskap. Postmodernistisk ord-bok om modernitetens babelske forvirring, Bergen 1998.
- Une praxéologie de la modernité. Universalité et contextualité de la raison discursive, Paris 1999.
- Øko-etikk, Bergen 1999.
- Føresetnader for ein god politisk kultur, Oslo, 2000.
- A History of Western Thought, co-written with Nils Gilje, London 2001.
- Modernitetens makt og avmakt. Vitskapsteoretiske perspektiv på kunnskap og makt, Oslo 2002.
- On Pragmatics – Contributions to Current Debates, ed. and co-author, Bergen 2002.
- Undringa, philosophical essays, Oslo 2002.
- Praxeologie der Moderne, Weilerswist 2002.
- Reflexion und Verantwortung. Auseinadersetzungen mit Karl-Otto Apel, eds. Dietrich Böhler, Matthias Kettner, Gunnar Skirbekk; co-author, Frankfurt a. M. 2003.
- Striden om sanningen, ed., Gothenburg 2004.
- Den filosofiske uroa, Oslo 2005.
- Religion, Modernity, and Rationality, Bergen, 2006.
- Ludvig Holberg. Dobbeltmonarkiets kulturelle modernisator, Bergen 2006.
- Timely Thoughts, Lanham 2007; in Chinese, Shi Dai Zhi Si, Shanghai 2010.
- Rasjonalitet og modernitet, Oslo 2009.
- Une histoire de la philosophie occidentale, together with Nils Gilje, Paris 2010.
- Norsk og moderne, Oslo 2010.
- Multiple Modernities. A Tale of Scandinavian Experiences, Hong Kong 2011; in Chinese 2013.
- Herausforderungen der Moderne aus wissenschaftsphilosophischer Sicht, Berlin 2012.
- "if a lion could talk...", with Rasmus Slaattelid, illustrated by Ingri Egeberg, Bergen 2012.
- Notes in retrospect, Bergen 2013; in Chinese 2013.
- Krise og medansvar, Oslo 2016.
- Norvezhskiy mentalitet i modernost, Moscow 2017.
- Philosophie der Moderne. Vernunft, Wahrheit, Menschenwürde, Meinungsfreiheit, Weilerswist 2017.
- Three Lectures, Bergen 2018.
- Epistemic Challenges in a Modern World. From "fake news" and "post truth" to underlying epistemic challenges in science-based risk-societies, Zürich 2019