VU-PhD student Akshath Jitendranath receives Isaac Levi Prize 2023

Akshath Jitendranath, PhD student in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) receives the prize for his paper “Optimization and Beyond”. In this paper, he explores the notion that when faced with a situation where an optimal alternative cannot be chosen due to the incomplete nature of binary preferences or value relations, a genuine dilemma arises—a hard choice. However, situations where the inability to optimize stems from a cyclic relation do not qualify as hard choices. Jitendranath is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy and Economics at the Paris School of Economic.

About Askath Jitendranath
Akshath Jitendranath grew up in Bangalore, India. He completed a Bachelor in Economics in Pune, India and the Research Master in Economics and Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was junior lecturer and PhD student at the PPE programme in the J.S. Mill College at VU Amsterdam. He is in the final stage of the PhD in Philosophy on “What is a hard choice?”.

Isaac Levi Prize
The Isaac Levi Prize was created in to honor and continue the intellectual legacy of philosopher Isaac Levi (June 30, 1930–December 25, 2018) was, who served as a longtime editor for The Journal of Philosophy. It’s a competition open to current philosophy graduate students and scholars who have received a Ph.D. within the past two years. The award will go to an article submitted to the Journal on the areas and themes that interested Levi. Those themes include decision theory, epistemology, formal epistemology, pragmatism (especially as developed by Peirce), philosophy of science, social choice theory, ethics of controversy, and the relevance of philosophy in these areas to public life.

Journal of Philosophy
The Journal of Philosophy is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious journals in philosophy. It publishes philosophical articles of current interest and encourages the exchange of ideas, especially the exploration of the borderline between philosophy and other disciplines. Contributors over the years include G. E. M. Anscombe, Noam Chomsky, Arthur Danto, John Dewey, Martha Nussbaum, W. V. Quine, John Rawls, Bertrand Russell, and Amartya Sen. Since its founding in 1904, it has been published from Columbia University.

John Stuart Mill College & PPE
The John Stuart Mill College (JSMC) was founded in 2016 with the ambition to position VU Amsterdam as the centre on the European continent of excellent Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) research and education.vProfessionals in business, politics and academia have to deal ever more with complex societal questions that cannot be solved from one angle. The John Stuart Mill College is a place where different subjects and theoretical approaches are integrated in order to interpret such societal problems in an interdisciplinary way.