Philip Kitcher, a 'Humanist Intellectual', Awarded Frontiers of Knowledge Prize in Humanities

On Tuesday, the BBVA Foundation awarded the Frontiers of Knowledge Prize in the Humanities category to British-American philosopher Philip Kitcher (London, 78 years old) for his impact as a 'humanist intellectual' through a body of work that has addressed 'a wide spectrum of central issues of our time', according to the jury's statement, which awarded him the prize worth 400,000 euros.

Kitcher, an emeritus professor of the John Dewey Chair of Philosophy at Columbia University and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from Princeton University, has developed his academic career in the United States, where he served as president of the American Philosophical Association between 1996 and 1997. He is also an honorary doctor from Erasmus University Rotterdam, a recognition he also received from the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht.

Kitcher has made fundamental contributions to the philosophy of science—particularly biology and genetic research—'demonstrating the relevance of life sciences to the humanities, and vice versa', according to the jury.

Throughout an academic career spanning more than four decades, Professor Kitcher has published seminal works on a wide variety of topics, from the philosophy of mathematics and the origins of ethics to the role of science in democratic societies, the crucial importance of education in transforming children into citizens, and the challenge of climate change, presenting it as the greatest challenge humanity faces today.

His intellectual curiosity, as highlighted by the jury, has even led him to dissect the ethical and philosophical teachings contained in the works of great literary figures such as James Joyce and Thomas Mann, as well as the music of Richard Wagner.

'What distinguishes Kitcher's work is its immense breadth, encompassing and interrelating the philosophy of science with ethics, politics, education, literature, and the arts, always with the aim of improving society and driving its progress,' says jury president John Dupré, Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Exeter (UK), who highlighted that the awardee 'is one of the most influential living philosophers of our time.'

'His book 'The Advancement of Science' (1993), published just over 30 years ago, is a pioneering work that defends the importance of rationality in science. It is also a precursor to another of his most famous books, 'Science, Truth, and Democracy' (2001), where Professor Kitcher delves into the role that scientific endeavour plays in a democratic society and articulates a key philosophical concept, that of 'science in the service of the common good'. This is, the proposal that scientific activity is not only a matter for the researchers who conduct it, nor merely the economic interests of the institutions that fund this science, but that the scientific agenda should arise from a process of public rational deliberation among informed citizens seeking a common good. Scientific progress must be dictated by principles of justice and social equity, as well as ethical responsibility,' highlights jury secretary Atocha Aliseda, Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophical Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico).

'He is not a specialised philosopher of science, but I believe his fundamental contribution has been to broaden the interests of the philosophy of science towards issues that were previously unattended or even considered pernicious. He has made us philosophers of science see that we must step out of our ivory tower and technical virtuosity to focus on the central problems that concern society regarding the implications of scientific and technological advancement,' says Antonio Diéguez, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of Málaga and nominator of Professor Kitcher. 'In his work, he emphasises the democratic governance of science—the well-ordered science—which implies that the researchers' agenda should be decided by democratic procedures, also considering the interests of the most disadvantaged. This applied to biomedicine means, for example, that not only the diseases prevalent in rich countries, such as cardiovascular diseases, which involve business, should be researched, but also others like malaria.'

The awardee himself defines philosophy as an intellectual project of synthesis, whose goal is 'to integrate the dispersed knowledge of all scientific and humanistic disciplines, uniting many seemingly disconnected things to forge a coherent whole' that allows us 'to progress morally and improve the world.'

Philip Kitcher's path to philosophy began at the University of Cambridge, where he studied Mathematics, but—thanks to a professor's suggestion—ended up choosing the history and philosophy of science. His early research during his PhD at Princeton University focused on the history and philosophy of mathematics until, motivated by his students' questions, he became interested in biology. He spent a year training at Harvard University, at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and later proposed arguments against the theory of sociobiology, which, according to the awardee, was based on the social behaviour of insects like ants and extrapolated the social behaviour of insects to humans. Kitcher posited that 'in humans, one must consider that their environment is much more complex and cultural forces have an effect on human evolution.'

In the mid-1990s, Kitcher analysed the ethical implications of the Human Genome Project in a report for the US Library of Congress, which he eventually turned into the book 'The Lives to Come' (1996). Speaking with congressional advisors, he realised that the political motivation to embark on the Human Genome Project was very different from that of the scientific community: far from the ambition to cure, or at least diagnose, all kinds of diseases, the Congress's goal was to gain a competitive scientific advantage over Japan, which excelled in the technological field.

This disparity led the philosopher to question how the relationship between science and the societies that fund it and in which this science is applied is, and should be. He reflected his conclusions in the book 'Science, Truth, and Democracy', in which 'without detracting from the value of basic science, which I consider extremely important, I argue that the importance of fundamental research lies in that, over time, it provides knowledge that allows people to make advances to improve human lives,' he expresses. 'The ultimate goal of science is to benefit humanity.'

This goal, in turn, has led Kitcher to question how to establish the role that science plays in societies and, from there, to develop a vision of democracy 'that goes beyond people voting from time to time on various issues, and even beyond constitutions. Democracy requires people to work together to understand what problems need solving and how to adapt the knowledge we gain from scientific research to address those problems.'

The jury's statement also highlights Professor Kitcher's work on climate change. In these investigations, he reviews what he considers to be the main problems of the climate challenge and concludes that, without deep cooperation, in this case between countries, the climate challenge is not easily solved: 'The climate crisis is an ethical and political problem,' he states.