{{Short description|American philosopher and psychoanalyst (1948–2025)}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = | name = Jonathan Lear | native_name = | honorific_suffix = | image = Jonathan Lear.jpg | birth_date = {{birth date|mf=y|1948|10|9}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|mf=y|2025|9|22|1948|10|9}} | death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | education = Yale University (BA)<br />Cambridge University (BA)<br />Rockefeller University (PhD) | alma_mater = | thesis_title = Aristotle's Theory of Proof | thesis_url = https://www.proquest.com/docview/302914397 | thesis_year = 1978 | spouse = {{ubl|Cynthia Farrar (divorced)|{{marriage|Gabriel Richardson|2003}}}} | children = 2 | institutions = | workplaces = University of Chicago | main_interests = {{hlist|Psychology|Psychoanalysis|Ethics|Ancient Greek philosophy}} | notable_ideas = | website = }}
'''Jonathan David Lear''' (October 9, 1948 – September 22, 2025) was an American philosopher and psychoanalyst. He was the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and served as the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society from 2014 to 2022.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/10/06/jonathan-lear-named-roman-family-director-neubauer-collegium|title=Jonathan Lear named Roman Family Director of Neubauer Collegium|date=6 October 2014 }}</ref>
==Background and career== Jonathan David Lear was born in New York City on October 9, 1948.<ref name = Rosenwald>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/books/jonathan-lear-dead.html|title = Jonathan Lear, Philosopher Who Embraced Freud, Dies at 76|last = Rosenwald|first = Michael S.|date = October 8, 2025|accessdate = October 8, 2025|newspaper = The New York Times|url-access = limited}}</ref> His father and Norman Lear were first cousins.<ref name = Rosenwald/> Lear was brought up in West Hartford, Connecticut.<ref name = Rosenwald/>
Lear earned his B.A. (cum laude) in history at Yale in 1970 and his B.A. in philosophy at Cambridge in 1973.<ref name = Rosenwald/> He then received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Rockefeller University with a dissertation on Aristotle's logic directed by Saul Kripke.<ref name = Rosenwald/> He also trained at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis in 1995. He subsequently won the Gradiva Award from the National Association for Psychoanalysis three times for work that advances psychoanalysis.
Before moving to Chicago permanently in 1996, Lear taught philosophy at Cambridge University (1979-1985), where he was a fellow and the director of studies in philosophy of Clare College. He also taught philosophy at Yale University and was chair of the department of philosophy (1978–79, 1985–1996). He is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. In 2009, he received the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2010/03/26/mellon-foundation-award-fund-lear-s-ongoing-work-human-imagination|title=Mellon Foundation award to fund Lear's ongoing work on human imagination|date=26 March 2010 }}</ref>
During his time as the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society was able to work with the Apsáalooke Nation and the Field Museum of Natural History to sponsor the exhibit ''Apsáalooke Women and Warriors''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Neubauer Collegium |url=https://neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/aps%C3%A1alooke-women-and-warriors |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=The Neubauer Collegium |language=en-US}}</ref>
In 2017, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.amacad.org/content/members/newFellows.aspx?s=c |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160424093934/http://www.amacad.org/content/members/newFellows.aspx?s=c |archive-date=2016-04-24 |title=Newly Elected Fellows}}</ref> He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jonathan Lear Elected to the American Philosophical Society {{!}} Division of the Humanities |url=https://humanities.uchicago.edu/articles/2019/05/jonathan-lear-elected-american-philosophical-society |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=humanities.uchicago.edu}}</ref>
Lear was first married to Cynthia Farrar, with whom he had a daughter before divorcing.<ref name = Rosenwald/> In 2003, he married fellow academic Gabriel Richardson, with whom he had a son.<ref name = Rosenwald/> Jonathan Lear died from stomach cancer at his home in Chicago on September 22, 2025, at the age of 76.<ref name = Rosenwald/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Weinberg |first1=Justin |title=Jonathan Lear (1948–2025) |url=https://dailynous.com/2025/09/22/jonathan-lear-1948-2025/ |website=Daily Nous |access-date=23 September 2025 |date=22 September 2025}}</ref>
==Philosophical work== Lear's early work focused on formal logic and ancient Greek philosophy. Much of his work involves the intersection of psychoanalysis and philosophy. In addition to work involving Sigmund Freud, he also wrote widely on Aristotle, Plato, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard and Ludwig Wittgenstein, focusing on ideas of the human psyche. His most recent work explores the ethical task of managing to live with the fears and anxieties of world-catastrophe.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Q&A with... Jonathan Lear |url=http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/001116/lear.shtml |access-date=2025-09-27 |website=chronicle.uchicago.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=PHF {{!}} Jonathan Lear |url=http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/04-05/event_lear.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050402020547/http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/04-05/event_lear.html |archive-date=2005-04-02 |access-date=2025-09-27 |website=humanities.sas.upenn.edu}}</ref>
Lear argues that mourning is a central human practice through which we confront transience, reclaim meaning after loss, and shape how we live ethically in a finite world.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Why Mourning Is Essential to Our Well-Being: Big Brains podcast with Jonathan Lear |url=https://news.uchicago.edu/why-mourning-essential-our-well-being-jonathan-lear |access-date=2025-09-27 |website=University of Chicago News |language=en}}</ref>
== Awards and honors == * American Philosophical Society, Member (2019)<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=lear&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> * American Academy of Arts and Science, Fellow (2017)<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-03-20 |title=Jonathan Lear {{!}} American Academy of Arts and Sciences |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/jonathan-lear |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=www.amacad.org |language=en}}</ref> * Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities (2011–2014)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mellon Foundation |url=https://www.mellon.org/grant-details/distinguished-achievement-award-lear-8358 |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=www.mellon.org |language=en}}</ref> * Gradiva Award, National Association for Psychoanalysis ** Best Article on the Subject of Psychoanalysis (1995), ''"''The shrink is in", ''The New Republic'' ** Best Psychoanalytic Book (1998), ''Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul'' ** Best Psychoanalytic Book (2000), ''Happiness, Death and the Remainder of Life'' * John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1987–88)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jonathan D. Lear |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/jonathan-d-lear/ |access-date=2024-03-20 |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation... |language=en}}</ref> * National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Independent Study and Research (1984–85) * The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ** Harvard University (November, 2010)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Harvard University Press |url=https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674063143}}</ref> ** Cambridge University (November, 1999)
==Works== *''Aristotle and Logical Theory'' (1980) *''Aristotle: The Desire to Understand'' (1988) *''Love and Its Place in Nature'' (1990) *''Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul'' (1998) *''Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life'' (2000) *''Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony'' (2003) *''Freud'' (2005) *''Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation'' (2006) *''A Case for Irony'' (2011) *''Wisdom Won From Illness: Essays in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis'' (2017) *''The Idea of a Philosophical Anthropology: The Spinoza Lectures'' (2017) *''Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life'' (2022)<ref>Reviewed at: {{cite journal |author=Griffiths, Paul J. |author-link=Paul J. Griffiths |date=January 2023 |title=Mourned or lamented? |journal=Commonweal |volume=150 |issue=1 |pages=54–56 |url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/mourning-lament-jonathan-lear-paul-griffiths |url-access=limited <!--|access-date=2023-06-07-->}}</ref>
==See also== * American philosophy * List of American philosophers
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{wikiquote}} * {{IMDb name}} * [https://news.uchicago.edu/why-mourning-essential-our-well-being-jonathan-lear "Why Mourning Is Essential to Our Well-Being with Jonathan Lear"], University of Chicago, (Ep. 108), 2 March 2023
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lear, Jonathan}} Category:1948 births Category:2025 deaths Category:21st-century American philosophers Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge Category:American logicians Category:American psychoanalysts Category:Deaths from stomach cancer in Illinois Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society Category:Philosophers of psychology Category:Rockefeller University alumni Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:Yale College alumni Category:People from West Hartford, Connecticut