LSE is pleased to announce the winner of the 2021 Lakatos Award.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2021 Lakatos Award, which goes to Anya Plutynski for her book Explaining Cancer (Oxford University Press, 2018).

The Lakatos Award was made possible by a generous endowment from the Latsis Foundation, in memory of the former LSE professor Imre Lakatos. It is administered by an international Management Committee, which is organised from the LSE but entirely independent of LSE’s Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. The Committee decides the outcome of the Award competition on the basis of advice from an anonymous panel of selectors who produce detailed reports on the shortlisted books.

The prize winner will receive their Award and deliver their prize lecture at the LSE at a time and location to be confirmed later. The lecture will be open to the public.

Explaining Cancer is praised by the Selectors as a “remarkable book” that is “clear and carefully argued” and that “covers an impressive amount of ground impressively well” while being “an outstanding example of how to do relevant philosophy of science”. It is reported to offer a “densely-argued, wide-ranging and penetrating analysis of the science of cancer research. Anyone interested in the subject would learn much from reading it, and find many surprises, both from the point of view of the science and philosophy”. Plutynski is praised for displaying “an enviable command of the philosophical literature. She is also highly informative about cancer. The combination gives an unusual depth and sensitivity to the philosophical points that she makes.”