Image: MIT Press
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘This Remarkably Original Book’
In a remarkably busy season of competition announcments, the United Kingdom’s Royal Institute of Philosophy has announced Mazviita Chirimuuta’s The Brain Abstracted: Simplification in the History and Philosophy of Neuroscience from MIT Press the winner of the Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy.
Carrying a purse of £20,000 (US$25,400), the Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy (known in the trade as TRIP) brings together books that, in the words of the award’s self-descriptive copy:
- Demonstrate rigorous, original and high-quality transdisciplinary research
- Are accessible and engaging to read
- Are original, innovative, and impactful
- Intend to advance and contribute to the understanding of human behavior
Specifically, the Chirimuuta work is honored as “the most original philosophical research that transcends academic disciplines.”
The prize submissions have been assessed for academic merit and rigor by a panel of academics and practitioners, reflecting the transdisciplinary nature of the prize.
Last year’s prize was awarded to Amia Srinivasan for her groundbreaking and discipline-transcending book The Right to Sex. More information on the program can be found here.
The 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.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on book and publishing awards is here, more on academic and scholarly publishing is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s awards-busy book market is here.