The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...

, widely interpreted. The contribution must be in the form of a monograph, co-authored or single-authored, and published in English during the previous six years. The award is in memory of the influential Hungarian philosopher of science and mathematics

Imre Lakatos Imre Lakatos (, ; hu, Lakatos Imre ; 9 November 1922 – 2 February 1974) was a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its "methodology of proofs and refutations" in its pr ...

, whose tenure as Professor of Logic at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) was cut short by his early and unexpected death. While administered by an international management committee organised from the LSE, it is independent of the LSE Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, with many of the committee's members being academics from other institutions. The value of the award, which has been endowed by the

Latsis Foundation The Latsis Foundation (French: ''Fondation Latsis internationale'') is a charitable foundation, founded in 1975 by the Greek shipping magnate John Latsis. Amongst other prizes and symposia, it funds the University Latsis Prizes (awarded by the ...

, is £10,000, and to take it up a successful candidate must visit the LSE and deliver a public lecture.

Selection

The award is administered by the following committee: *Professor Roman Frigg (Convenor, LSE) *Professor Richard Bradley (LSE) *Professor Hasok Chang (

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

) *Professor

Nancy Cartwright Nancy Cartwright (born October 25, 1957) is an American actress. She is the long-time voice of Bart Simpson on the animated television series ''The Simpsons'', for which she has received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Perform ...

(

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

) *Professor Kostas Gavroglu (

University of Athens The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; el, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, ''Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the Univers ...

) *Professor Helen Longino ( Stanford University) *Professor Samir Okasha (

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

) *Professor Sabina Leonelli (

University of Exeter , mottoeng = "We Follow the Light" , established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter) , type = Public , ...

) The Committee makes the Award on the advice of an independent and anonymous panel of selectors.

Winners

The Award has so far been won by: :1986 –

Bas Van Fraassen Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (; born 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University an ...

for ''The Scientific Image'' (1980) and Hartry Field for ''Science Without Numbers'' (1980) :1987 – Michael Friedman for ''Foundations of Space-Time Theories'' and

Philip Kitcher Philip Stuart Kitcher (born 20 February 1947) is a British philosopher who is John Dewey Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University. He specialises in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of mathe ...

for ''Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature'' :1988 – Michael Redhead for ''Incompleteness, Nonlocality and Realism'' :1989 –

John Earman John Earman (born 1942) is an American philosopher of physics. He is an emeritus professor in the History and Philosophy of Science department at the University of Pittsburgh. He has also taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, Rocke ...

for ''A Primer on Determinism'' :1991 –

Elliott Sober Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general phil ...

for ''Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Interference'' (1988) :1993 – Peter Achinstein for ''Particles and Waves: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Science'' (1991) and Alexander Rosenberg for ''Economics—Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns?'' (1992) :1994 –

Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." He w ...

for ''Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics'' (1991) :1995 – Lawrence Sklar for ''Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics'' (1993) :1996 – Abner Shimony for ''The Search for a Naturalistic World View'' (1993) :1998 – Jeffrey Bub for ''Interpreting the Quantum World'' and Deborah Mayo for ''Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge'' :1999 –

Brian Skyrms Brian Skyrms (born 1938) is an American philosopher, Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and Economics at the University of California, Irvine, and a professor of philosophy at Stanford University. He has worked on problem ...

for ''Evolution of the Social Contract'' (1996) on modelling 'fair', non self-interested human actions using (cultural) evolutionary dynamics :2001 –

Judea Pearl Judea Pearl (born September 4, 1936) is an Israeli-American computer scientist and philosopher, best known for championing the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence and the development of Bayesian networks (see the article on beli ...

for ''Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference'' (2000) on causal models and causal reasoning :2002 – Penelope Maddy for ''Naturalism in Mathematics'' (1997) on the issue of how the axioms of

set theory Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly conce ...

are justified :2003 –

Patrick Suppes Patrick Colonel Suppes (; March 17, 1922 – November 17, 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology ...

for ''Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures'' (2002) on axiomatising a wide range of

scientific theories A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that has been repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluatio ...

in terms of

:2004 –

Kim Sterelny Kim Sterelny (born 1950) is an Australian philosopher and professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. He is the winner of several international prizes ...

for ''Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition'' (2003) on the idea that thought is a response to threat :2005 – James Woodward for ''Making Things Happen'' (2003) on causality and

explanation An explanation is a set of statements usually constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. It may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing rules or laws in relatio ...

:2006 – Harvey Brown for ''Physical Relativity: Space-time Structure from a Dynamical Perspective'' (2005) and Hasok Chang for ''Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress'' (2004) :2008 – Richard Healey for ''Gauging What’s Real: the conceptual foundations of contemporary gauge theories'' (2007) :2009 – Samir Okasha for '' Evolution and the Levels of Selection'' (2006). :2010 – Peter Godfrey-Smith for ''Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection'' :2012 –

Wolfgang Spohn Wolfgang Konrad Spohn (born 20 March 1950, in Tübingen) is a German philosopher. He is professor of philosophy and philosophy of science at the University of Konstanz. Biography Wolfgang Spohn studied philosophy, logic and philosophy of scie ...

for ''The Laws of Belief: Ranking Theory and its Philosophical Implications'' (2012) :2013 – Laura Ruetsche for ''Interpreting Quantum Theories'' (2011) and David Wallace for ''The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory According to the Everett Interpretation'' (2012) :2014 – Gordon Belot for ''Geometric Possibility'' (2011) and David Malament for ''Topics in the Foundations of General Relativity and Newtonian Gravitation Theory'' (2012) :2015 – Thomas Pradeu for ''The Limits of the Self: Immunology and Biological Identity'' (2012) :2016 – Brian Epstein for ''The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences'' (2015) :2017 – Craig Callender for ''What Makes Time Special?'' :2018 – Sabina Leonelli for ''Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study'' (2016) :2019 – Henk W. de Regt for ''Understanding Scientific Understanding'' (2017) :2020 – Nicholas Shea for ''Representation in Cognitive Science'' (2018) :2021 – Anya Plutynski for ''Explaining Cancer: Finding Order in Disorder'' (2018) :2022 – Catarina Dutilh Novaes for ''The Dialogical Roots of Deduction: Historical, Cognitive, and Philosophical Perspectives on Reasoning'' (2020)

References

External links

The Lakatos Award website at the LSE
{{Philosophy awards Philosophy awards Non-fiction literary awards Philosophy of science *