Mazviita Chirimuuta (Edinburgh) has been named the winner of the 2024 Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy.

She was awarded the £20,000 prize for her book, The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience (MIT Press).

The prize, which is administered by the Royal Institute of Philosophy, aims to reward books that “demonstrate rigorous, original and high-quality transdisciplinary research, are accessible and engaging to read, are original, innovative, and impactful, [and] advance and contribute to the understanding of human behaviour”.

According to a press release from the institute,

Chair of the judging panel Professor Constantine Sandis, Director of Lex Academic and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, says: Transcending the disciplinary boundaries between philosophy and neuroscience, Mazviita Chirimuuta’s The Brain Abstracted demonstrates that while simplification in science has its place, we should not allow ourselves to underestimate the complexity of the brain and consequently overestimate our comprehension of it. This remarkably original book transforms the ways in which we interpret the philosophical significance of neuroscience.

The books shortlisted for this year’s prize include Global Justice and the Biodiversity Crisis (Oxford University Press) by Chris Armstrong (Southampton) and The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press) by Shannon Vallor (Edinburgh). (A post about the longlist for the prize is here.)

The prize is named for and sponsored by philosopher and neuroscientist Nayef Al-Rodhan. It was launched last year.