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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.
Lear earned his B.A. (cum laude) in history at Yale in 1970 and his B.A. in philosophy at Cambridge in 1973. He then received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Rockefeller University with a dissertation on Aristotle's logic directed by Saul Kripke. 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.
During his time as the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society was able to work with the Crow people and the Field Museum of Natural History to sponsor the exhibit Apsáalooke Women and Warriors.
In 2017, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
Lear was first married to Cynthia Farrar, with whom he had a daughter before divorcing. In 2003, he married fellow academic Gabriel Richardson, with whom he had a son. Jonathan Lear died from stomach cancer at his home in Chicago on September 22, 2025, at the age of 76.
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.
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.
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Categories: 1948 Births, 2025 Deaths, 21st-century American Philosophers, Alumni Of The University Of Cambridge, American Logicians, American Psychoanalysts, Deaths From Stomach Cancer In Illinois, Members Of The American Philosophical Society, Philosophers Of Psychology, Rockefeller University Alumni, University Of Chicago Faculty, Yale College Alumni, People From West Hartford, Connecticut
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