Submitted by Joanne Wells on Wed, 29/10/2025 - 12:17
The Faculty of Philosophy is saddened to hear of the death, on 22nd of September, of Jonathan Lear.
Jonathan first studied History at Yale and came to Cambridge as an affiliated student where he took another BA in Philosophy in 1973. He came back to the Faculty from 1979 – 85 as a lecturer and was also then a Fellow and Director of Studies at Clare. In later years he returned regularly to Cambridge to visit friends and colleagues. From 1996 his professional life was based in Chicago, where he was a major figure in the Committee on Social Thought and was also Director of the Neubauer Collegium.
He had a remarkably wide range of interests, engaging deeply with Aristotle, Plato, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard and Freud, and reflecting on logic, meaning, understanding, the unconscious, mourning, death and love. To his powerful and influential writing on all of these people and topics he brought deep scholarship, acute insight and human warmth.
He will be greatly missed by many people.
Professor Jane Heal
