Postscript: Jonathan Lear 1948 - 2025

Jonathan Lear (Photo from The New York Times)

I see in the Times that Jonathan Lear died: “Jonathan Lear, Philosopher Who Embraced Freud, Dies at 76.” Over the years, I’ve dipped into a few of his books [e.g., Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life (2000), Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (2006), and, most recently, Imagining the End: Mourning and Ethical Life (2022)]. Lear is a great analyst. I enjoy watching him make his moves on the page. Sample: 

This looks like a dilemma: Either one accepts that Aristotle made a logical error in the opening sentence of his fundamental ethical work or one must make coherent sense of what he is saying. Rather than choose, however, I should like to shift the question away from what Aristotle is saying and ask instead what he is doing. I would like to suggest that Aristotle is here participating in a peculiar kind of inaugural instantiation. He is attempting to inject the concept of “the good” into our lives – and he thereby changes our lives by changing our life with concepts. [Happiness, Death and the Remainder of Life]

I love that passage, especially the refusal to choose and the shifting of the question. I have no idea what “inaugural instantiation” means. But I’ve never forgotten it. 

Lear was never satisfied with orthodox interpretations. He always sought deeper considerations. For example, in his absorbing Radical Hope, he analyzed the meaning of a statement made by the last great chief of the Crow nation, Plenty Coups. Here's what Plenty Coups said:

I can think back and tell you much more of war and horse-stealing. But when the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.

After this nothing happened – what could Plenty Coups' utterance mean? As Lear points out, a psychological interpretation suggests that Plenty Coups was depressed, or that he was giving voice to the depression that engulfed his tribe. For Lear, this interpretation is too easy. He asks, “Might he not be giving utterance to a darker thought, one that is more difficult for us to understand? If so, then the psychological interpretation is in too much of a rush."

I relish that last line. When interpreting, take your time, never rush to judgment – that’s my takeaway from Lear, one of them, anyway.

Lear goes on to propose an even darker take on Plenty Coups' words. As usual, he expresses it in a string of brilliant questions: 

But what if his remark went deeper? What if it gave expression to an insight into the structure of temporality: that at a certain point things stopped happening? What would he have meant if he meant that?

For Lear, there was never an analytical endpoint. There was always another question, and another, and another. He had a subtle, original mind. He’s gone now. But he lives on in his thought-enriching books.