2020 Cheiron Young Scholar Award: Claudia Cristalli
The 2020 Cheiron Young Scholar Award goes to Claudia Cristalli for her paper
“Unconscious Inferences in Experimental Psychology: Peirce and Wundt.”
Cristalli places Charles S. Peirce in the intellectual history of psychology, by tracing
conceptual links between Wundt’s early work on perception and Peirce’s writings on
epistemology. The key concept here is that of ‘unconscious inference’ and its centrality to
processes of perception. Although Wundt would later abandon this idea, Cristalli incisively
explicates its development in his thought and that of other philosophers of the time
(Whewell, Fechner, Helmholtz). Peirce’s own work on unconscious inference bore not only
on cognition, argues Cristalli, but also on broader questions of the nature of knowledge,
ultimately underlying a view of self and scientific knowledge as ‘collective enterprises’.
Continuities between psychological and philosophical thought are an important topic, and
Cristalli’s paper is notable for its clarity of analysis—of what are often complex and dense
sources—and sensitive use of original-language and archival sources.
Cristalli received her PhD from University College London, United Kingdom in 2020, has
most recently worked at the University of Milan updating the Peirce Research Group
website and rebuilding it on a new platform, and is presently fulfilling a one-year, Mellonfunded
postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and
Medicine at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.
The Young Scholar Award Committee congratulates Cristalli and thanks each of the young
scholars who submitted his or her paper for the award. Each of these manuscripts were
thought-provoking and carefully researched, thus making the committee’s decision
particularly challenging. We hope that these and other qualified young scholars will
continue to submit their work for our award.
-- 2020 Cheiron Young Scholar Award Committee
Rémy Amouroux, David Devonis, Kim Hajek, and Ann Johnson