MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Philip L. Quinn Prize by the American Philosophical Association (APA).
The award recognizes Haslanger’s lifetime contributions to philosophy and to philosophers. Haslanger, the Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies, said she was honored to be recognized with the award.
“Many philosophers whom I deeply respect have received this award before me, including my former colleague and lifelong inspiration, Judith Jarvis Thomson,” Haslanger said. “Judy and I are deeply committed to metaphysics with an eye toward the ethical/political realm. We were both committed feminists at a time when this task was not easy. We both believe in the power of organizations like the APA and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to keep intellectual communities thriving, and we both demand that the organizations we belong to adhere to their values.”
Haslanger joined the MIT faculty in 1998.
Her research focuses on exploring the social construction of categories such as gender, race, and family; social explanation and social structure; and themes in feminist epistemology. She has also published papers on metaphysics and critical race theory. In general, her work combines issues of social justice with contemporary work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.
Her book Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Criticism (Oxford University Press, 2012) won the Joseph B. Gitler Prize for outstanding achievement in the philosophy of social science. She is also co-author of What is Race: Four Philosophical Views (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her latest book, Doing Justice to the Social (under contract with Oxford University Press), is a commentary on social practices and structures, highlighting their materiality, the role of ideology, and potential grounds for criticism. She continues to document and improve the underrepresentation of women and other minorities in philosophy.
Haslanger, a past president of APA’s Eastern Chapter, emphasized the collaborative nature of the field and praised the recognition he has received from his colleagues, saying his work has been “inspired, nurtured and supported by others.”
“Judy is an incredible inspiration (and a great example of how hard this work can be), but there are so many other people who have joined me on this journey and encouraged me, including fellow feminists both here and abroad, graduate students, staff, and colleagues from different disciplines and professions,” Haslanger said.
The Quinn Prize, awarded annually since 2007, recognizes Philip L. Quinn, a distinguished philosopher from the University of Notre Dame and longtime president of the APA Central Division. The award includes $2,500 and a plaque.
Kieran Setiya, the Peter de Flores Professor of Philosophy and chair of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, said Haslanger “played a transformative role in philosophy.”
“Sally’s influence in this field has been profound. “She has bridged deep gaps, bringing critical social theory into dialogue with analytic philosophy and arguing for accounts that give legitimacy to the materiality of social structures and practices,” Setiya says. “This work has earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as invitations to give lectures named after classical philosophers past and present, including Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Hempel, Kant, and Spinoza.”
Setiya pointed to Haslanger’s significant contributions to the field, including his contributions to the founding of the Boston Integrative Philosophy Summer Institute (PIKSI), which over the past decade has attracted a diverse range of undergraduate students to MIT, demonstrated to them that graduate study in philosophy is a viable option, and guided them through their graduate school applications.
“As Sally’s colleague, I have come to admire not only her extraordinary philosophical and professional achievements but also her integrity and boundless energy for students, the Philosophy Department, MIT, the profession, and the fight for social justice around the world, from which academia is inseparable,” Setiya added.
