📣 The Lakatos Prize (https://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/news/mazviata-chirimuuta-wins-the-2025-lakatos-award) awarded by the London School of Economics (LSE) in 2025 has been awarded to Mazviata Chirimuuta, a professor at the Universities of Pittsburgh and Edinburgh. The prize, which celebrates outstanding achievements in the philosophy of science, was awarded to Chirimuuta for his book
The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 2024).
🔹 Chirimuuta is known for his influential research in the fields of philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. He argues, citing case studies, that models and theories in neuroscience are not necessarily direct and objective representations of the reality of the brain and our perception, but rather that they are often incomplete and simplified images and explanations due to the complexity of the brain. In other words, these models and theories are presented under the influence of practical goals and specific problems. According to the reviewers and critics, Chirimuta's work is original and valuable, raising fundamental questions about the nature of scientific explanation, the function of modeling, and the relationship between human cognition and the physical world.
🔸 The Journal of Philosophy of Science invites researchers to submit their articles on Chirimuta's ideas and this book in particular (in the form of opinions, review articles, promotional articles, and research articles). These articles will be given priority for publication.
