Sally Haslanger is a Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has contributed greatly to increasing our knowledge about the social construction of identity, and has thus shed light on why we understand the world as consisting of, for example, men and women, or of different races.
She encourages us to think about how we use concepts, whether they are correct and useful, or merely expressions of ideology. She has helped found a new and influential branch of philosophy – conceptual engineering – that looks at how we can improve our concepts.
Haslanger is internationally recognized through her extensive philosophical work, and is on the editorial board of a number of professional journals. She has given a large number of guest lectures, and is designated as next year's Tanner lecturer at the University of Michigan.
She has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she gave the annual Examen Philosophicum Lecture in 2019. One of her texts is on the Exphil syllabus.
UiO's honorary doctoral degrees
Honorary doctoral degrees of UiO (Doctor Honoris Causa) are given to prominent academics. The degrees are awarded without a thesis defence/disputation.
UiO has been entitled to appoint honorary doctorates since 1824, and appointments usually occur every three years.
The honorary doctors are conferred at UiO's Annual Celebration on 2 September.