Allan Bloom (Indianapolis, 1930 – Chicago, 1992) was an American philosopher, classicist and university teacher, best known for his criticism of higher education in his country. He belonged to the tradition of political philosophy associated with Leo Strauss, and he defended the direct reading of the great books as the foundation of intellectual life.
He studied at the University of Chicago, where he entered a programme for gifted students at a young age and earned his doctorate in 1955 from the Committee on Social Thought. He studied with Strauss and, in Paris, with Alexandre Kojève, whose lectures he later introduced to the English-speaking world. He taught at Yale, Cornell, Toronto, Tel Aviv and the École Normale Supérieure, and returned to Chicago in 1979.
His first book was a study of politics in Shakespeare. He then translated and commented on Plato's Republic (1968), in an essay that makes Socratic irony the key to reading the dialogue: the philosopher can see the tragic as comic and the comic as tragic. He also translated Rousseau's Emile. His writing divides into scholarly work and popular political commentary.
In The Closing of the American Mind (1987) he argued that American universities had given up on forming students in the pursuit of truth, and he criticised both analytic philosophy and deconstruction for setting aside ethical and political questions. Though often labelled a conservative, Bloom rejected the term and said he was defending the theoretical life. His last book, Love and Friendship, was dictated during his illness and published after his death. His friend and colleague Saul Bellow portrayed him in the novel Ravelstein. His influence endures in debates about the purpose of the university.
Key ideas
- The theoretical life: a life devoted to contemplation and the search for truth is, for Bloom, the highest form of human life and the true purpose of philosophy.
- Socratic irony: Plato's irony reveals the distance between philosophy and the city, so the Just City in Speech should not be read as a political model.
- Liberal education: the university should form students through the great books and questions of the good and justice, not only through professional specialisation.
- Relativism as crisis: the notion that all values are equivalent, in Bloom's view, empties the search for truth and the moral judgement of students of meaning.
Curiosities
A reading from adolescence
At thirteen he read a Reader's Digest article about the University of Chicago and told his parents he wanted to attend. They thought the idea was unrealistic.
An unexpected bestseller
The Closing of the American Mind, which was expected to sell modestly, sold close to half a million hardback copies and spent four months at the top of The New York Times nonfiction list.
A friendship with a former Labor Secretary
While living at Telluride House at Cornell University, he befriended Frances Perkins, former United States Secretary of Labor.
Teachers and influences
Teachers
- Leo Strauss 1899–1973
Pupils
- Francis Fukuyama b. 1952
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.