Three NYU Faculty Elected to American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society has elected three New York University faculty as members: Jorge Castañeda, a Distinguished Global Professor of Politics; Ronald Dworkin, the Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at NYU’s School of Law; and Itamar Rabinovich, a Global Distinguished Professor at NYU’s Taub Center for Israel Studies. Others elected this year include former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., New Yorker Editor David Remnick, and Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, holds an appointment in NYU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. His publications include: Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War; The Mexican Shock; Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara; and Perpetuating Power: How Mexican Presidents Were Chosen. Castañeda is a regular columnist for the Mexican daily Reforma and Newsweek International.

A clerk for Judge Learned Hand, Dworkin is best known for his work Law’s Empire (1986), in which he asserts judges must interpret—rather than simply apply—past legal decisions, resulting in a general theory of what interpretation is and why one interpretation is better than others. Dworkin, who holds an additional appointment in NYU’s Department of Philosophy, has also written Taking Rights Seriously; A Matter of Principle; Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia; A Bill of Rights for Britain; Life’s Dominion; Freedom’s Law; and Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New Political Debate.

Rabinovich served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1993 to 1996 and was chief negotiator with Syria under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University, where he served as president from 1999 to 2007. Rabinovich’s published works include: Syria Under the Ba’ath; The War for Lebanon; The Road Not Taken: Early Arab-Israeli Negotiations; The Brink of Peace: Israel and Syria; and Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs at the End of the Century.

The American Philosophical Society was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” Early members included George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and in the 19th century John James Audubon, Robert Fulton, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Edison were among those elected. During the 20th century, more than 200 members of the society received the Nobel Prize.