Peter Gärdenfors

Contact information

Peter Gärdenfors

Born September 21, 1949

Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science

LUX, Lund University, Box 192, S-221 00 Lund

Tel: +46 46 222 4817

Mobile: +46 709 146 246

Fax: +46 46 222 4424

E-mail: Peter.Gardenforslucs.luse

Web page: www.ht.lu.se/en/person/PeterGardenfors

Doctoral degree

Theoretical Philosophy, 1974, Lund University. Title: Group Decision Theory

Qualification as associate professor/docent

Theoretical Philosophy, 1975

Current positions, period of appointment

Senior Professor of Cognitive Science since 2016. Senior Research Associate with the Palaeo-Research Institute at the University of Johannesburg since 2019.

Previous positions and periods of appointment

Various positions at Department of Philosophy, Lund University, 1970-1980. Held a vacancy as Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science at Umeå University parts of 1975-1977. Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Lund University, 1980-1988, Professor of Cognitive Science, Lund University, 1988-2016. Adjunct Professor at University of Technology Sydney 2013-2019.

Visiting positions

Visiting Fellow, Princeton University 1973-1974. Visiting Scholar, Stanford University 1983-1984. Visiting Professor, Auckland University September 1986. Visiting Fellow, Australian National University, 1986-1987. Visiting Professor, Universidad de Buenos Aires, November 1990. Visiting Professor, École Normale Superieur, Cachan, June 1992. Visiting Professor, Rome University La Sapienza, May 1995, Visiting Scholar, CREA, Paris, October 1999, Fellow at SCASSS, Uppsala 2003-2004. Visiting Professor, UCSD, January-February 2005, Visiting Scholar, Bristish Academy, April 2005. Visiting Professor, Cà Foscari University of Venice, May-June 2005. Visiting Professor, University of Technology, Sydney, January 2006. Fellow at Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, October 2006. Visiting Professor, Humboldt Universität, Berlin, October 2011 – February 2012. Fellow at SCAS, Uppsala, September-December 2012. Fellow at Zukunftskolleg, Konstanz Universität, November 2014. Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Sept 2015- July 2016. Visiting professor Universidad de Concepción, Chile, March 2019. Fellow at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, October-November 2013, January-February 2015, October-November 2016, October-December 2018 and November-December 2019, November 2021.

National and international assignments of importance

Member of the board for the Interactive Institute 2001-2004. Member of various committees in the Swedish Research Council and other grant awarding foundations. Member of the board for Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies. Vice chairman of the foundation Natur och Kultur 2007-2020. Member of Scientific Advisory Board of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin 2005-2012. Member of the Prize Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011-2017. Member of the Committee for the Future of Schools at the Royal Academy of Science 2016-2019. Principal investigator of the Linneaus project Cognition, Commmunication and Learning 2008-2020.

Editorships

Editor of Theoria 1980-1986, Editor of Journal of Logic, Language and Information, 1992-1995. Editor or co-editor of 13 book volumes. Member of a number of editorial boards.

Awards

The Rausing Prize in humanities in 1996. The Prize for interdisciplinary research by Academiæ Regiæ Scientiarum Upsaliensis in 2008. The Hermann Lotze Prize in 2012. Universitatis Lodziensis Amico Medal 2012. Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society since 2016. Awarded the Einar Hansen Honorary Prize in Humanities 2017. Awarded the Swenson Prize in Humanities and Social Sciences 2021. Gave the Jin Yuelin Lectures at Tsinghua University 2023. Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association since 2024. Awarded the Jean Nicod Prize and Lectures 2025. Awarded the Natur & Kultur prize for the best debate book 2025.

Membership in Academies

Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities since 1996. Member of Academia Europaea since 1999. Member of Leopoldina Deutsche Akademie für Naturforscher since 2004. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science since 2009. Member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences since 2018.

PhD students awarded doctorates where I have been the main supervisor

Nils-Eric Sahlin 1984, Agneta Gulz 1991, Kenneth Holmqvist 1993, Tom Andersson 1994, Christian Balkenius 1995, Robert Pallbo 1997, Simon Winter 1998, Henrik Gedenryd 1998, Jana Holsanova 2001, Mikael Johannesson 2002, Annika Wallin 2003, Lars Kopp 2003, David de Léon 2003, Lars Hall 2004, Pierre Gander 2005, Petter Johansson 2006, Tomas Persson 2008, Paul Hemeren 2008, Monica Bredefeldt 2009, Maria Larsson 2009, Mathias Osvath 2010, Paulina Lindström 2011, Åsa Harvard 2015, Zahra Gharaee 2018, Simone Löhndorf 2021.

Postdoctoral researchers who are or have been engaged in collaboration with me

Christian Balkenius, Kenneth Holmqvist, Heike Tappe, Jordan Zlatev, Nils Dahlbäck, Jana Holsanova, Frank Zenker, Paula Quinon, Mathias Osvath, Matias Osta Velez.

Communication outside the university

I write popular articles and books in Swedish. For example, my book Lusten att förstå: Om lärande på människans villkor (Natur och Kultur 2010) has attracted very great interest among teachers and teacher educations. I have given a large number of lectures on my books and other material for broad non-academic audiences. My popular book Hur Homo blev sapiens (Nya Doxa 2000) has been translated into six languages. I appear frequently on Swedish Radio and TV, for example in Filosofiska rummet and Kunskapskanalen.

Bibliometry 

Published more than 400 articles (see lucs.lu.se/people/peter-gardenfors-bibliography-2010-present/ and lucs.lu.se/people/peter-gardenfors-bibliography-2000/). 31.000 Google citations, h-index 65, i10-index 196. Erdös number 3. Bacon number 3. The most cited scholar in the humanities in Sweden. The journals include Science and are within philosophy, cognitive science, logic, artificial intelligence, economics, management science, linguistics, psychology, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, cognitive neuroscience and biology.