The Philosopher
Amartya Sen
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- Indian
- Schools:
- Capability approach
- Branchs:
- Economics, Philosophy, Welfare economics, Development Economics, Social choice theory, Economic justice, social justice, Famine, Decision theory, Public Health, well-being
- Period:
- 21st century
The synopsis
Amartya Kumar Sen (born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher who has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, he received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics. He has also made major contributions to social choice theory, economic and social justice, economic theories of famines, decision theory, development economics, public health, and the measures of well-being of countries.
Sen is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and professor of economics and philosophy, at Harvard University. He previously served as master of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1999, he received India's highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna, for his contribution to welfare economics. The German Publishers and Booksellers Association awarded him the 2020 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his pioneering scholarship addressing issues of global justice and combating social inequality in education and healthcare.
Sen was born in Santiniketan, Bengal, British India. His father was a professor of chemistry at Dhaka University. Sen attended Presidency College, Calcutta, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He taught at various institutions including Jadavpur University, Delhi University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Oxford before joining Harvard University.
The works
Choice of Techniques
Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation
Equality of What?
More than 100 million women are missing
Development as Freedom
The Idea of Justice
The quotes
I was born in a University campus and seem to have lived all my life in one campus or another.
The student community of Presidency College was also politically most active.
People's identities as Indians, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way - quite suddenly - to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities.
It is also very engaging - and a delight - to go back to Bangladesh as often as I can, which is not only my old home, but also where some of my closest friends and collaborators live and work.
From the mid-1970s, I also started work on the causation and prevention of famines.
While I am interested both in economics and in philosophy, the union of my interests in the two fields far exceeds their intersection.
I have not had any serious non-academic job.
I left Delhi, in 1971, shortly after Collective Choice and Social Welfare was published in 1970.
The curriculum of the school did not neglect India's cultural, analytical and scientific heritage, but was very involved also with the rest of the world.
When the Nobel award came my way, it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions, including literacy, basic health care and gender equity, aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh.
But the idea that I should be a teacher and a researcher of some sort did not vary over the years.