By a unanimous decision of the Dennett Prize Committee, the winner of the Dennett Prize—2026 is Nicholas Humphrey.
The Dennett Prize is awarded for significant advances in the fields of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence, the modern appearance and scopes of which were shaped largely due to the revolutionary ideas of Daniel Dennett. This year, 17 applications were submitted for the Dennett Prize competition, all of which were carefully considered by the Committee.
Nicholas Humphrey is a theoretical psychologist who studies the evolution of intelligence and consciousness; Emeritus Professor of Psychology, London School of Economics; Bye Fellow, Darwin College, Cambridge. He was the first to demonstrate the existence of "blindsight" after brain damage in monkeys, he did research on mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, he proposed the celebrated theory of the "social function of intellect" and he has investigated the evolutionary background of religion, art, healing, death-awareness and suicide. His twelve books include Consciousness Regained: Chapters in the Development of Mind (OUP, 1983), The Inner Eye: Social Intelligence in Evolution (OUP, 1986/2002), Seeing Red: a Study in Consciousness (Harvard University Press, 2006), Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness (Princeton University Press, 2011) and Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness (OUP, 2022). He has been awarded the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the Pufendorf Medal and the International Mind and Brain Prize. He will now be awarded the Dennett Prize. Congratulations!
The award will take place on the last day of the 3nd Annual ICCS Conference, in Rome, where Nick Humphrey will give the Daniel Dennett Lecture.
For more information about the Dennett Prize, see the Project page. The next competition for the Dennett Prize will be announced in autumn 2026.
