Wisdom Won From Illness: The Psychoanalytic

Grasp of Human Being

Presenter: Jonathan Lear, Ph.D.

Discussant: Martha C. Nussbaum, Ph.D.

From its inception psychoanalysis has claimed not merely to be an effective therapy for psychological suffering, but to shed light on the human condition. But what kind of insight does psychoanalysis offer? This turns out to be a very puzzling question, yet we need to answer it if we are to locate psychoanalysis in the larger western tradition of think about and shaping the human psyche.

Jonathan Lear, Ph.D. 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. He is also a trained psychoanalyst who sees patients in private practice, and he serves on the faculty of the Chicago Institute and the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. After the publication of Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, Lear was adopted into a Crow family, and he spends time talking about dreams and visions with his Crow brothers. Among his other books are: A Case for Irony; Therapeutic Action: an Earnest Plea for Irony; Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul; and Love and its Place in Nature: a Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis . He is a recent recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award.

Martha C. Nussbaum, Ph.D. is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. Her most recent book is Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. She is currently working on anger and forgiveness.

Target Audience: Psychoanalysts, other interested mental health professionals, and members of the community.

Admission is free. No reservations are required.