News & Publications
An Exploration of Plato's Cave at St. John's College
FOR RELEASE: November 25, 2008
CONTACT: Patricia Dempsey, 410-626-2539
patricia.dempsey@sjca.edu
Jonathan Lear, professor at the University of Chicago, will give a lecture at St. John's College entitled, "Plato's Cave: The Role of Allegory in Philosophy." The lecture will be held in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium on Friday, December 5, at 8:15 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Lear's lecture will explore the role that allegory plays in a philosophical investigation. He will look closely at the allegory of Plato's Cave in the Republic and will ask what role this allegory plays in the tasks of philosophical inquiry and persuasion.
Jonathan Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Lear studied philosophy at Cambridge University and The Rockefeller University, where he received his doctorate in 1978. His area of interest focuses primarily on philosophical conceptions of the human psyche from Socrates to the present. Lear also trained as a psychoanalyst at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. He has authored numerous books, including: "Aristotle: The Desire to Understand"; "Open Minded: Working out the Logic of the Soul"; and "Freud". His latest book is "Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation."