The American Philosophical Association is pleased to announce that the board of officers has selected Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah (New York University) as the recipient of the 2020 Philip L. Quinn Prize, the APA’s highest honor for service to the profession.
The prize memorializes Philip L. Quinn, a former president of the APA Central Division and former chair of the APA board of officers. This prize, which includes a prize check of $2,500 and an engraved plaque, is given annually by the APA board of officers in recognition of service to philosophy and philosophers, broadly construed.
Dominic McIver Lopes, chair of the APA board of officers, said “The Philip L. Quinn Prize is given ‘in recognition of service to philosophy and philosophers, broadly construed,’ and each laureate represents a distinctive and personal vision of how the life of a philosopher can enrich the lives of other philosophers. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s writings in ethics, culture, and identity are subtle and timely, and his contributions catalyzed the mainstreaming of philosophy of race and Africana philosophy within the discipline. His leadership on the boards of the APA, the MLA, the ACLS, and the AAAS, and on many juries, including the jury for the Berggruen Prize, has fortified the communities of scholars within which we thrive. In his column as ‘The Ethicist’ in the New York Times Magazine, Appiah embodies a new model of the public philosopher as confidant and advisor, as well as advocate and explainer.”
Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at NYU. Earlier, he taught at the University of Ghana, Cambridge, Yale, Cornell, Duke, Harvard and Princeton. He grew up in Ghana and received undergraduate and doctoral degrees in philosophy from Cambridge University in England. His work has been in the philosophy of mind and language, ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of art, of culture, and of the social sciences; as well as in literary studies, where he has focused on African and African-American literature. He has served as President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (2007) and Chair of the APA Board (2008-2011); and also on the boards of the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New York’s Public Library, the Public Theater, and the PEN American Center. In 2012, President Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal. His publications include Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity, As If: Idealization and Ideals, and The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity, along with three novels. Professor Appiah writes the weekly Ethicist column for the New York Times Sunday magazine.
