2016 Autumn General Meeting

Charles G. Gross

The American Philosophical Society is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2016 Karl Spencer Lashley Award is Charles G. Gross “in recognition of his pioneering studies of the neurophysiology of higher visual functions and the neural basis of face recognition and object perception.” The award will be presented to Dr. Gross on November 11, 2016, at the Society’s annual Autumn General Meeting.

Charles Gross pioneered the neuroscience of higher level vision. His seminal work on the inferotemporal cortex of nonhuman primates described neurons that are activated by complex stimuli such as faces, hands, and multicolored objects. His discoveries identified inferotemporal cortex as the highest-level area dedicated to object vision.

Dr. Gross is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. He received an A.B in biology at Princeton University and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Cambridge. He was a faculty member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University before joining the Princeton faculty in 1970. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.

The Karl Spencer Lashley Award was established in 1957 by a gift from Dr. Lashley, a member of the Society and a distinguished neuroscientist and neuropsychologist. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The members of the selection committee are Larry R. Squire (chair), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology, UCSD School of Medicine, Research Career Scientist, VA Medical Center, San Diego; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences, Harvard University; John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor of Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences; Edvard Moser, Professor of Neuroscience, Director, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and William T. Newsome III, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

2017 Spring General Meeting

Michael N. Shadlen

The American Philosophical Society is pleased to award the 2017 Karl Spencer Lashley Award to Michael Shadlen in recognition of his pioneering experimental and theoretical studies of decision-making, identifying neural mechanisms that accumulate and convert sensory information toward behavioral choices.

Michael Shadlen studies how sensory information guides behavioral choice. His experience as a clinical neurologist led to an interest in how the brain makes decisions on the basis of external evidence, in particular how brain mechanisms combine information arriving over time to form choices. Guided by anatomical knowledge of sensorimotor circuitry, he recorded in areas of the parietal and frontal cortex—structures that link visual perception to eye movement selection—while animals performed rigorously controlled decision-making tasks. He and his colleagues discovered that these association areas integrate information using computations akin to those used in cryptanalysis and statistical hypothesis testing. Understanding the process of choice is fundamental to understanding cognition and behavior. Shadlen’s work has combined elegant biological and behavioral experimentation with rigorous theory and analysis to uncover the brain basis for this fundamental element of cognition.

Dr. Shadlen earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.D. at Brown University. He is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and an Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The Karl Spencer Lashley Award was established in 1957 by a gift from Dr. Lashley, a member of the Society and a distinguished neuroscientist and neuropsychologist. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The members of the selection committee were William T. Newsome III (chair), Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Research Professor of Neurosciences Emeritus, Harvard University; Ann M. Graybiel, Institute Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Eric Knudsen, Sewell Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus, Stanford University School of Medicine; John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor of Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences; Edvard Moser, Professor of Neuroscience, Director, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and Larry R. Squire, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry,

2007 Spring General Meeting

Richard Rorty

The 2007 recipient of the American Philosophical Society's Thomas Jefferson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences is philosopher Richard Rorty, professor of comparative literature emeritus and, by courtesy, of philosophy at Stanford University. The citation for the medal reads, "In recognition of his influential and distinctively American contribution to philosophy and, more widely, to humanistic studies. His work redefined knowledge "as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature" (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1979) and thus redefined philosophy itself as an unending, democratically disciplined, social and cultural activity of inquiry, reflection, and exchange, rather than an activity governed and validated by the concept of objective, extramental truth."

Richard Rorty is considered among the most influential of English-speaking philosophers. His synthetic thought brings together a pragmatic linguistic philosophy with a variety of naturalistic materialism. He is the latest in the line of a distinctively American tradition that includes James, Dewey, Sellars, Kuhn, and Quine. His is the most significant attempt to bridge the gap between "continental" and "analytic" philosophy in the United States, and his ideas have made an impact in philosophical circles around the world. Rorty is not only one of the few philosophers in the United States to enjoy a reputation in disciplines other than his own, he has resurrected the pragmatist tradition of commentary by philosophers on public affairs. At the same time, his influence beyond the field of professional philosophy has entailed no compromise of the logical and analytical skills admired by professional philosophers.

Dr. Rorty's published works include Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1988), Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers I (1991), Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers II (1991), Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America (1998), Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers III (1998), and Philosophy and Social Hope (2000). He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2005.

The Thomas Jefferson Medal was created in 1993 by an act of Congress to honor the American Philosophical Society and its third president, Thomas Jefferson, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Society. It is the Society's highest award for distinguished achievement in the arts, humanities, or social sciences.

The selection committee consisted of the Society's president, Baruch S. Blumberg, Fox Chase Distinguished Scientist at Fox Chase Cancer Center; the co-executive officers Mary Maples Dunn, president emeritus of Smith College, and Richard S. Dunn, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania; vice president Harriet Zuckerman, senior vice president at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Council members Elizabeth Cropper, dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art; Lionel Gossman, M. Taylor Pyne Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages at Princeton University; Barbara B. Oberg, general editor, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson; John W. O'Malley, University Professor at Georgetown University; and Charles E. Rosenberg, Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Social Sciences at Harvard University.

2016 Spring General Meeting

Thomas E. Starzl

The recipient of the American Philosophical Society's 2016 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences is Thomas E. Starzl, Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Tom Starzl has had an extraordinary career. He not only pioneered surgery for transplantation of the liver, he also developed a model of multivisceral transplantation (intestine, pancreas and other organs) that significantly lessens the rejection of the transplant. Perhaps his greatest discovery was in the use of the anticancer drug methotrexate and its derivative imuran to suppress rejection. At a 1963 conference organized by the National Research Council, he astounded the meeting with the news that his methods had produced an 80% one-year survival for kidney grafts when all others were achieving less than 10%. He later had even greater success with cyclosporine and other immunosuppressives. In large part due to his innovations, successful organ transplantation has now almost become commonplace. He is, by a wide margin, the most-cited scientist in medical research.

The citation for the medal is "Tom Starzl has transformed human organ transplantation from science fiction to reliable treatment of fatal diseases, virtually changing medical practice. Fifty years ago when the world had only a handful of surviving kidney transplant recipients he showed that rejection was reversible, allowing consistent success. His introduction of new immunosuppressive agents helped him to accomplish the first liver and multivisceral transplants. His studies explain liver regeneration and determine that this organ controls lipid metabolism. His discovery of persistent donor cell chimerism in successful recipients points the way to allograft tolerance without chronic immunosuppression. In recognition of his profound contributions the American Philosophical Society salutes Thomas E. Starzl by awarding him its highest honor."

Dr. Starzl earned his bachelor's degree in biology at Westminster College. At Northwestern University Medical School 1950 he received a master’s degree in anatomy in 1950 and in 1952 earned both a Ph.D. in neurophysiology and M.D. with distinction. He served on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1958 to 1961 and joined the University of Colorado School of Medicine as an associate professor in surgery in 1962. He was promoted to professor in 1964 and served as chairman of the department of surgery from 1972 to 1980. Dr. Starzl joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as professor of surgery in 1981. Until 1991, he served as chief of transplantation services at Presbyterian University Hospital (now UPMC Presbyterian), Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Pittsburgh, overseeing the largest and busiest transplant program in the world. He then assumed the title of director of the University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute, a post that permitted his full attention to research. In 1996, the Institute was renamed in his honor. He now holds the title of director emeritus. He is the recipient of the Medawar Prize (1992), the National Medal of Science (2004), the Lasker Award for Clinical Science (2012), and the Anthony Cerami Award in Translational Medicine (2015). He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1999.

The Benjamin Franklin Medal was created in 1906 by the United States Congress to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. The Benjamin Franklin Medal is the Society’s highest honor for lifetime achievement in the sciences.

The selection committee: President Clyde Barker, Executive Officer Keith Thomson, Class 1 Council members, Jerrold Meinwald, Stephen Benkovic, and Charles Slichter, and Class 2 Council members Jack Dixon, David Sabatini, and Lawrence Einhorn.

2011 Spring General Meeting

Arlin M. Adams

The American Philosophical Society awarded the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Public Service to Arlin M. Adams. The citation inscribed on the framed certificate that accompanies the Franklin Medal reads “in recognition of contributions to public life reflecting the best skills a lawyer can possess: leader of the bar, distinguished judge, public policy advocate, settler of disputes, generous donor of time and talent. At the American Philosophical Society, a former president and much more. Pioneer of Head Start and other public welfare programs that have improved the lives of countless children. World War II veteran. Native son of Philadelphia who has given back to his city and state throughout a 64-year legal career. A model of fairness and negotiator extraordinaire, who brings adversaries to the table and persuades them to talk because they trust him.”  The award was presented by Linda Greenhouse, Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School.

Arlin M. Adams has had a long and distinguished career of service in law and government, as well as to the American Philosophical Society.  A senior partner at Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis since 1947, Adams took leave in 1963 to serve as the Secretary of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania under Governor Scranton for three years.  Many of his accomplishments for the Commonwealth became models for programs at the federal level.  He started the program that later became known as Head Start nationwide, made birth control available to people on welfare, adopted functional education programs for people on welfare, and started music and art programs for mentally handicapped children and adults.  In 1969 President Nixon appointed Adams to serve as Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where he served with great distinction for 17 years and was held in the highest esteem for his impartiality.  In 1990 he was appointed Independent Counsel for the investigation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for profiteering and influence peddling inside HUD during the Reagan administration.  In 1996 he served as Trustee in the bankruptcy of the New Era Foundation, the largest bankruptcy of a non-profit organization to date.

Judge Adams was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1979 and has served the Society in many capacities – the Class Committee, Bylaws Committee, Phillips Prize Selection Committee, 250th Anniversary Celebration Committee, Secretary, Vice President, President, and then continuing on the Finance Committee, Executive Committee, and Council.  Among his many contributions, as president Judge Adams was responsible for a concerted and organized effort to add women, minorities, under-represented fields, and international members to strengthen the membership of the Society by providing a structure to support this effort in the Society’s bylaws.

In 1906, the United States Congress authorized a commemorative medal to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin.  The medal was designed by Augustus and Louis St. Gaudens.  In 1987, the Society starting awarding the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Public Service to honor exceptional contributions to the general welfare.

The selection committee for the Franklin Medal award consists of the Society’s president, executive officer, the three vice presidents, and the three Council members from Class 5: Baruch S. Blumberg, Mary Patterson McPherson, Clyde F. Barker, Harriet Zuckerman, John O’Malley, Joel E. Cohen, Linda Greenhouse, and Conrad K. Harper.

2018 Spring General Meeting
Todd H. Weir

The selection for the 2017 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is Todd H Weir, for his book Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: the Rise of the Fourth Confession (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Dr. Weir’s book is a subtle, extensively researched study of a complicated set of historical and philosophical questions. What is secularism, as distinct from secularization? When does a world-view become a form of faith rather than an array of opinions? Is atheism a kind of creed?

The work explores these issues in a particular context, that of Prussia, and especially Berlin, in the nineteenth century. It is ‘modest’, as its author says, in its detailed concentration on ‘somewhat marginal social movements’, like Free Thought, Free Religion, Ethical Culture and Monism, and ‘ambitious’ in its demonstration of secularism’s hitherto neglected role in Germany history, traversing the revolutions of 1848, the establishment of the unified nation, and the Second Reich.

The word ‘confession’ is ordinarily used to identify a declared and organized religious grouping. The three recognized confessions of nineteenth century Germany were Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism. Dr. Weir takes secularism, in its many different shapes and forms, as a notional fourth type, providing ‘an angle of observation’ that allows him to look without simplification at the ‘dynamics of dissent’. ‘Confessional dissent was necessarily political’, Professor Weir says, and shows that anticlericalism was ‘a force not just against but also within the religious sphere’. Attacks on Catholicism were sometimes pro-Protestant and sometimes more broadly anti-Christian; and Hitler could borrow the language of secularism to make the National Socialists sound more orthodox than the Pope: ‘If the word of the Lord is authoritative, then we are the best’. Dr. Weir does not argue that atheism is a creed, but he does suggest that Free Thought and other movements have often occupied the social and political positions of a religion. This is why he is able to write of a ‘lasting confessionalization of German politics’.

Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth Century Germany makes a large contribution to our understanding of an important and difficult period in recent history.

Todd H. Weir is an associate professor, History of Christianity and Modern Culture, at the University of Groningen. He received his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Modern European History at Columbia University.

The Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded annually to the author whose book exhibits distinguished work in American or European cultural history. Established by a former student of Jacques Barzun, the prize honors this historian and cultural critic who was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1984.

The selection committee consisted of Michael Wood (chair), Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University; Robert B. Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago; and Frank H. Stewart, Professor Emeritus, Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

2005 award presented in April 2007

Jacob Soll

The American Philosophical Society's Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded to Jacob Soll for his book, Publishing The Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism, published by University of Michigan Press in 2005. It is a superb example of contemporary book history, printing history and influence. In this book Jacob Soll follows the typographical fortunes and receptions of the French translation of Machiavelli's The Prince and its various and changing meanings into the Enlightenment. In the course of his researches, especially on erudite textual criticism, he makes valuable contributions both to the history of reading as a social and political practice and as a modern medium of subversive as well as absolutist political thought.

Jacob Soll received his Diplôme d'Études Approfondies from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 1993. He began his doctoral research in Paris, but eventually moved to Magdalene College, Cambridge University, where he finished his Ph.D. in 1998. In 1997, while completing his doctorate, he began lecturing in the history department at Princeton University. He moved to Rutgers University in 1999, where he is currently an associate professor of history.

The Barzun Prize selection committee consisted of chairman Donald R. Kelley, James Westfall Thompson Professor of History Emeritus at Rutgers University, Glen W. Bowersock, Professor of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Michael Wood, Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University.

2006 award presented in April 2007

Fritz Stern

The American Philosophical Society’s Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded to Fritz Stern in recognition of his book Five Germanys I Have Known, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2006. “We all seek traces of a tangible past,” Fritz Stern writes in Five Germanys I Have Known, “and we try to fill them with life.” This sentence describes the aspirations both of personal memory and of professional history, and in this incomparable book Stern brings them magisterially together. Because he is such a gifted and disciplined historian, his very memories acquire the quality of evidence, carefully weighed and sifted, never over-interpreted. And because the central thread of memories in the book is his own – from the destruction of the world of European Jewry to the reunification of Germany – history here takes on a discreetly compelling personal accent. When Stern tells us that “the German roads to perdition...were neither accidental nor inevitable,” and that he finally feels, returning as an honored son to his German birthplace now become a part of Poland, that he has been given back a part of his past, we know we are reading not only an elegant memoir and not only a distinguished work of history, but a unique evocation of a haunted and haunting culture, an intimate analysis of that enduring Germany that has so altered our world.

One of America's best known historians, Fritz Stern is University Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, where he has taught since receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1953. The author of books such as The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the German Ideology (1961), The Responsibility of Power (1967) and Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichroder and the Building of the German Empire (1977), Dr. Stern also served on the editorial board of Foreign Affairs for many years. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1988.

The Barzun Prize selection committee consisted of chairman Donald R. Kelley, James Westfall Thompson Professor of History Emeritus at Rutgers University; Glen W. Bowersock, Professor of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study; and Michael Wood, Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English at Princeton University.