awards
Philosophers Among New Class of AAAS Fellows
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced its new class of fellows, and a couple of philosophers are among them.
Most of the 502 newly named fellows are scientists and engineers, but there are also a small number of researchers in the humanities and social sciences.
The philosophers listed are:
- Kevin Elliott, Michigan State University
- Laura Ruetsche, University of Michigan
The AAAS fellowships are “a distinguished lifetime honor within the scientific community.” According to the AAAS, “the new Fellows will receive a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin (representing science and engineering, respectively) to commemorate their election and will be celebrated at a forum on September 21, 2024” in Washington, DC.
The complete list of fellows is here.
(Please let us know if we missed someone who should be included in this post.)
The post Philosophers Among New Class of AAAS Fellows first appeared on Daily Nous.
Philosophia Introduces Outstanding Referee Award
Philosophia is now offering an annual Outstanding Referee award, and has just announced the inaugural co-winners.
They are:
Dr. David Collins of the University of Oxford, U.K., and Professor Daniel Story of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, USA.
Mitch Green (Connecticut), Philosophia‘s editor-in-chief, writes that “the Editorial Team considered many superb candidates for this award, and chose to select two co-winners for providing reports, both on initial submissions and revised submissions, that were exemplary for their detailed, insightful and actionable comments on the manuscripts that we invited them to referee.”
Each of the winners will be given free online access to the entire contents of Philosophia for a year, a cash prize of 250 euros, and their names will be featured on the journal’s homepage.
Professor Green adds, “Philosophia plans to award an Outstanding Referee Award annually heretofore. We thank Dr. Collins and Prof. Story, as well as the many hundreds of other scholars who have generously lent their time and expertise to support Philosophia’s commitment to the publication of top-quality philosophical research.”
Related: Referee Awards
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APA Announces Fall 2023 Prize Winners
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of 16 prizes.
They are:
2023 APA/PDC Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs
Recognizes philosophy departments, research centers, institutes, societies, publishers, and other organizations for creating programs that risk undertaking new initiatives in philosophy and do so with excellence and success. Prize: a plaque and one year of electronic access to a bundle of philosophy resources from the Philosophy Documentation Center.
Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO) (Affiliated with the University of Washington)
2023 K. Jon Barwise Prize
Recognizes significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing by an APA member. Prize: a plaque, keynote talk at a computing and philosophy conference, symposium at one of the divisional APA meetings.
Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen University)
2023 Book Prize
Awarded in odd years for the best published book that was written by a younger scholar during the previous two years. Prize: $4000.
Winner: Una Stojnić (Princeton University) for Context and Coherence: The Logic and Grammar of Prominence (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Honorable Mention: Hallie Liberto (University of Maryland, College Park) for Green Light Ethics: A Theory of Permissive Consent and its Moral Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2022)
Honorable Mention: Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Georgetown University) for Reconsidering Reparations (Oxford University Press, 2021)
2024 John Dewey Lectures
Three annual lectures, one at each divisional meeting of the APA (Eastern, Central, and Pacific), given by a prominent and senior (typically retired) philosopher associated with that Division, who is invited to reflect broadly and in an autobiographical spirit on philosophy in America as seen from the perspective of a personal intellectual journey. Prize: lecture, $1000.
Eastern: Ernest Sosa (Rutgers University)
Central: Stephen Darwall (Yale University)
Pacific: Michael Bratman (Stanford University)
2023 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought
Awarded to the author of the best unpublished, English-language, philosophical essay in Latin American thought. Prize: $500.
Emmanuel Carrillo (University of Memphis), “Rethinking Extractivist Epistemologies: Mexican philosophy and philosophy ‘al otro lado’”
2023 Joseph B. Gittler Award
Given for an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences. Prize: $4000.
David Livingstone Smith (University of New England)
2024 William James Prize
For the best paper in the area of American philosophy that is both (a) written by a philosopher who received their PhD within five years of the beginning of the calendar year in which the paper is submitted, or is a graduate student, and (b) accepted for inclusion in the Eastern Division program by the program committee through the normal process of anonymous-reviewing. Prize: $300.
Laura Soter (Duke University), “Rethinking Doxastic (In)Voluntarism”
2023 Alvin Plantinga Prize
Recognizes original essays that engage philosophical issues about or in substantial ways related to theism. Prize: $10,000. Honorable mentions: $5000 each.
Winner: Blake Hereth (University of Pennsylvania), “Self-Defense for Theists” (Journal of Analytic Theology, 2022)
Honorable Mention: Lara Buchak (Princeton University), “Faith and Rational Deference to Authority” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming)
Honorable Mention: Eleanor Gordon-Smith (Princeton University), “Not Enough Evidence, God! Why Deliberation Rules out Evidentialism about Reasons for Belief”
2023 Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest
For the best opinion-editorials published by philosophers. Prize: $100.
Chris Bousquet (Syracuse University), “How Work Alienates Us from Our Social Lives” (APA Blog, 2022)
Hannah Kim (University of Arizona), “Fitting Vaccine Conspiracies into a Philosophy of Fiction” (Los Angeles Times, 2022)
Céline Leboeuf (Florida International University), “Body Positivity Is Fixated on Beauty – Here’s How to Fix That” (Psyche Magazine, 2022)
Kate Manne (Cornell University), “Diet Culture Is Unhealthy. It’s also Immoral” (New York Times, 2022)
2023 Philip L. Quinn Prize
In recognition of service to philosophy and philosophers, broadly construed. Prize: Plaque, $2500.
Howard McGary (Rutgers University)
2023 Routledge, Taylor & Francis Prize
For the two best published articles in philosophy written by adjunct professors. Prize: $1000 each.
James Kinkaid (Bilkent University), “Phenomenology, Anti-realism, and the Knowability Paradox”
2024 Sanders Graduate Student Awards
three prizes awarded to each of the three best papers in mind, metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics submitted for the annual APA Eastern Division meeting by graduate students. Prize: $1000 each, plus travel funds from the APA.
Rhys Borchert (University of Arizona), “Discrimination in Action”
Brian Haas (University of Southern California), “Artifacts: Ontology as Easy as it Gets”
Taylor Koles (University of Pittsburgh), “Aggregation, Contractualism, and the Procedural Separateness of Persons”
2024 Sanders Lecture
Presented annually at a divisional meeting of the APA on a topic in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, or epistemology that engages the analytic tradition. Prize: $3500 plus travel expenses.
Stephen Yablo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
2023 Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education
Awarded every third year for either a book published within the previous five years or a connected set of three or more papers, the most recent of which was published no more than five years previous, on a topic in philosophy of education, broadly construed. Prize: $1000 total.
Lawrence Blum (University of Massachusetts Boston) and Zoë Burkholder (Montclair State University)
2023 Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize
Awarded to the best unpublished essay or monograph on the philosophy of war and peace submitted for the competition. Prize: $1500.
Linda Eggert (University of Oxford) for “Duties to Rescue and Permissions to Harm”
2023 Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching
Recognizes a philosophy teacher who has had a profound impact on the student learning of philosophy in undergraduate and/or pre-college settings. Prize: Plaque, $1000.
Kristopher Phillips (Eastern Michigan University) and Rebecca Scott (Harper College)
The post APA Announces Fall 2023 Prize Winners first appeared on Daily Nous.
Journal of the History of Philosophy 2023 Book Prize
The Journal of the History of Philosophy (JHP) has announced the winner of its 2023 Book Prize.
The prize, awarded for the best book written in history of philosophy published in 2022, went to Stephen Ogden (Notre Dame) for his book, Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’s Critique (Oxford University Press, 2022).
According to the publisher,
Averroes on Intellect provides a detailed analysis of the Muslim philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd)’s notorious unicity thesis — the view that there is only one separate and eternal intellect for all human beings. It focuses directly on Averroes’ arguments, both from the text of Aristotle’s De Anima and, more importantly, his own philosophical arguments in the Long Commentary on the De Anima.
Stephen Ogden defends Averroes’ interpretation of De Anima using a combination of Greek, Arabic, Latin, and contemporary sources. Yet, Ogden also insists that Averroes is not merely a ‘commentator’ but an incisive philosopher in his own right. The author thus reconstructs and analyzes Averroes’ two most significant independent philosophical arguments, the Determinate Particular Argument and the Unity Argument. Alternative ancient and medieval views are also considered throughout, especially from two important foils before and after Averroes, namely, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’ most famous and penetrating arguments against the unicity thesis are also addressed. Finally, Ogden considers Averroes’ own objections to broader metaphysical views of the soul like Avicenna’s and Aquinas’, which agree with him on several key points including the immateriality of the intellect and the individuation of human souls by matter, while still diverging on the number and substantial nature of the intellect.
The central goal of this book is to provide readers with a single study of Averroes’ most pivotal arguments on intellect, consolidating and building on recent scholarship and offering a comprehensive case for his unicity thesis in the wider context of Aristotelian epistemology and metaphysics.
Previous winners of the JHP book prize are listed here.
The post Journal of the History of Philosophy 2023 Book Prize first appeared on Daily Nous.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies Essay Prize Winners
The International Journal of Philosophical Studies (IJPS) has announced the winners of its 2023 essay prizes.
The theme for the IJPS Robert Papazian Essay Prize was “The Ethics and Politics of Disagreement”. Its winner is Nick Küspert (St. Andrews) for their essay, “Conciliating to Avoid Moral Scepticism.”
Here’s the abstract of the paper:
A common worry about moral conciliationism is that it entails at best uncertainty about many of our moral beliefs and at worst epistemological moral scepticism. Against this worry, I argue that moral conciliationism saves us from epistemological moral scepticism and enables us to be confident in many of our moral beliefs. First, I show that only taking disagreements seriously as a threat to our beliefs allows us to utilise agreements in support of our beliefs (call this symmetry). Next, I argue that utilising moral agreements as an epistemic resource allows moral conciliationism to resist the potentially worrisome reduction in confidence of our moral beliefs. Taking the relevance of moral agreement into account, I argue that it is anti-conciliationism that must meet the challenge of epistemological moral scepticism. For this, I suggest that moral inquiry is best understood as a collective endeavour. If so, then agreement on our moral judgments is required to justify the confidence we have in many of our moral beliefs. However, by symmetry, this appeal is possible only if one accepts the conciliatory attitude towards disagreements. Hence, accepting, rather than rejecting moral conciliationism, is the way out of moral scepticism.
The prize is 3000 euros. This is the first time a graduate student has won the Papazian essay prize.
Robert Papazian, for whom the prize is named, was a political prisoner in Iran who was executed in 1982. You can learn more about him and the prize here.
The theme for the PERITIA competition was “Expert Disagreement”.
The winning article of the PERITIA IJPS prize of 2000 euros was “Disagreement about Disagreement?” by Ruth Weintraub (Tel Aviv University).
Here’s its abstract:
This paper is not concerned with the (amply discussed) question as to the rational response to peer disagreement. Instead, it addresses a (considerably less often debated) problem to which many views about the (epistemic) significance of disagreement are vulnerable (to some extent or another): self-undermining. I reject several answers that have been proposed in the literature, defend one that has been offered (by meeting objections to it), and show that in its light, the prevalent assumption that the ‘equal-weight view’, a prominent view about disagreement, rationally requires us to suspend judgement about contentious matters, is seen to be too pessimistic.
The runner up PERITIA prize of 1200 euros was awarded to Aidan McGlynn (Edinburgh) for “Hidden Depths: Testimonial Injustice, Deep Disagreement, and Democratic Deliberation”.
There were two joint winners of the third prize of 500 euro each: Marc Andree Weber (Mannheim) for “Unknown Peers” and Manuel Almagro Holgado (Valencia) and Neftalí Villanueva Fernández (Granada) for “Disagreeing with Experts“.
This is the last year the Papazian and PERITIA prizes will be awarded.
The winning, shortlisted and invited essays, some of which are also open access, appear in IJPS, volume 31.3.
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