Philosophy professor wins major French prize

Professor of Philosophy, Kim Sterelny, is off to France this week as recipient of the prestigious Jean-Nicod Prize for 2008.

The international prize was first awarded in 1993 to mark the centenary of the birth of French philosopher and logician Jean Nicod.

Each year, the Jean-Nicod committee selects a leading philosopher in the field of cognitive science and invites them to Paris, France.

As the 2008 recipient, Professor Sterelny will spend 19 days in Paris delivering a series of four lectures under the title 'The Fate of the Third Chimpanzee'. His first lecture will develop an alternative model of evolutionary psychology, and the following three lectures will see this model in action.

He will then publish the lectures as a monograph of between 60,000 and 80,000 words.

The lectures are organised by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as part of its effort to develop the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science in France.

Previous winners of this award are eminent philosophers from around the world. Last year's winner was Professor Stephen Stich of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Professor Sterelny, whose outstanding research and publication record has won him an international reputation, has been lecturing philosophy at Victoria since 1988. He teaches the evolution of human nature, philosophy in the life sciences and relationships between science and biology.

He is based at Victoria from January until July, and at the Australian National University in Canberra for the rest of the year. He was recently awarded Marsden funding worth $495,000 for his project entitled 'Human uniqueness: a bio-cultural synthesis'.