Jonathan Lear studies the human psyche, both in the philosophies of the ancient world—Socrates, Plato and Aristotle—and in the modern—Kierkegaard, Freud, Heidegger and Wittgenstein. He is also a fully trained psychoanalyst. His books include Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life (2022); (2008); Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (2008); Freud (2015); and Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (1988). Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor on the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.
Presentation