The Jean Nicod Prize is awarded annually in Paris to a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The lectures are organized by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as part of its effort to promote interdisciplinary research in cognitive science in France. The 1993 lectures marked the centenary of the birth of the French philosopher and logician Jean Nicod (1893–1924). Besides the CNRS, sponsors include the École Normale Supérieure and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. The Jean Nicod lecturer is expected to deliver at least four lectures on a topic of his or her choice, and subsequently to publish the set of lectures, or a monograph based on them in the Jean Nicod Lectures series (MIT Press/Bradford Books; F. Recanati editor).
List of Jean Nicod Prize laureates from 1993 to the present day:
(Source: Institut Jean Nicod)
Jerry Alan Fodor was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." At the time of his death in 2017, he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University, and had taught previously at the City University of New York Graduate Center and MIT.
Ned Joel Block is an American philosopher working in philosophy of mind who has made important contributions to the understanding of consciousness and the philosophy of cognitive science. He has been professor of philosophy and psychology at New York University since 1996.
Gilbert Harman was an American philosopher, who taught at Princeton University from 1963 until his retirement in 2017. He published widely in philosophy of language, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, ethics, moral psychology, epistemology, statistical learning theory, and metaphysics. He and George Miller co-directed the Princeton University Cognitive Science Laboratory. Harman taught or co-taught courses in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics.
Michael Tomasello is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University.
Ruth Garrett Millikan is a leading American philosopher of biology, psychology, and language. Millikan has spent most of her career at the University of Connecticut, where she is now Professor Emerita of Philosophy.
Jean George Pierre Nicod was a French philosopher and logician, best known for his work on propositional logic and induction.
Jon Elster is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University.
Stephen P. Stich is an American academic who is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, as well as an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Stich's main philosophical interests are in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and moral psychology. His 1983 book, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief, received much attention as he argued for a form of eliminative materialism about the mind. He changed his mind, in later years, as indicated in his 1996 book Deconstructing the Mind.
The Institut Jean Nicod (IJN) is an interdisciplinary research center based in Paris, France. Its current director is the philosopher Roberto Casati (2017-present), preceded by famous philosopher François Recanati (2010–2017) and Pierre Jacob (2002–2010). Created in 2002, its name commemorates the French philosopher, epistemologist and logician Jean Nicod (1893–1924). The IJN is jointly run by the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), École normale supérieure (ENS) and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), three French research and higher education institutions. Since 2007, the ENS hosts the IJN where it is affiliated with both the Département d'Etudes Cognitives (DEC), of which it is a founding member, and the Department of Philosophy.
Leda Cosmides is an American psychologist, who, together with anthropologist husband John Tooby, pioneered the field of evolutionary psychology.
John Tooby was an American anthropologist, who helped pioneer the field of evolutionary psychology with his psychologist wife Leda Cosmides.
Christopher Donald Frith FRS, FMedSci, FBA, FAAAS is a British psychologist and professor emeritus at the Wellcome Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. He is also an affiliated research worker at the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy and Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford since 2013.
Dan Sperber is a French social and cognitive scientist and philosopher. His most influential work has been in the fields of cognitive anthropology, linguistic pragmatics, psychology of reasoning, and philosophy of the social sciences. He has developed: an approach to cultural evolution known as the epidemiology of representations or cultural attraction theory as part of a naturalistic reconceptualization of the social; relevance theory; the argumentative theory of reasoning. Sperber formerly Directeur de Recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique is Professor in the Departments of Cognitive Science and of Philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest.
Zenon Walter Pylyshyn was a Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher. He was a Canada Council Senior Fellow from 1963 to 1964.
Kim Sterelny 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 in the philosophy of science, and was previously editor of Biology and Philosophy. He is also a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is currently the First Vice President of the Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (2020–2023).
Susan E. Carey is an American psychologist who is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. She studies language acquisition, children's development of concepts, conceptual changes over time, and the importance of executive functions. She has conducted experiments on infants, toddlers, adults, and non-human primates. Her books include Conceptual Change in Childhood (1985) and The Origin of Concepts (2009).
Martine Nida-Rümelin is a philosopher.
Frances Egan is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. She has authored a number of articles and book chapters on philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and perception.
