The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its foundation this year. Established in 1825, the Academy has long been dedicated to cultivating and supporting Hungarian scientific life, fostering research excellence, and promoting scientific values in society. As one of Hungary’s most prestigious academic institutions, HAS recognizes outstanding scholars through election to its membership tiers: corresponding, full, and external members — the latter category reserved for Hungarian researchers working abroad.
This year, Professor Katalin Farkas was elected as an external member of HAS. According to the HAS bulletin announcing the election of new members, Farkas’s work has made major contributions to the philosophical understanding of intentionality and consciousness. She is known for defending a view in which the directedness of sensory experience — its intentionality — arises from the phenomenal character of mental states, shaped by their structured and predictable nature. In addition, her research into different kinds of knowledge — including acquaintance, propositional, and practical knowledge — advocates for a unified theory of human cognition. Katalin Farkas is a member of the Academia Europaea since 2012. She also served as president of the European Society for Analytic Philosophy between 2020 and 2023.
It is worth noting that Professor Farkas became eligible for external membership after CEU was effectively forced to relocate from Hungary to Vienna — a reminder of the political pressures that continue to shape the Hungarian academic landscape. In recent years, HAS itself has faced political interference threatening its independence. Farkas’s election is thus not only a celebration of academic excellence, but also a reminder of possible threats to academic freedom.