Committee on Social Thought
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| Committee on Social Thought | |
|---|---|
| Name | Committee on Social Thought |
| University | University of Chicago |
| Established | 1941 |
| Type | interdisciplinary study program |
| Location | Chicago, Illinois |
| Notable faculty | Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, Hannah Arendt, Mortimer Adler |
| Notable alumni | Saul Bellow, Martha Nussbaum, Susan Sontag |
Committee on Social Thought
The Committee on Social Thought is an interdisciplinary scholarly program at the University of Chicago bringing together scholars from across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Greece, China, Japan, Israel, India, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere to study foundational texts ranging from Homer and Plato to Marx and Wittgenstein, combining approaches exemplified by figures such as Leo Strauss, Mortimer Adler, Hannah Arendt, Allan Bloom and Reinhold Niebuhr. The Committee emphasizes cross-disciplinary dialogue involving historians, philosophers, economists, literary critics, and political theorists associated with institutions like Harvard University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, Stanford University and cultural sites including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Library of Congress.
History
Founded in 1941 at the University of Chicago during the presidency of Robert Maynard Hutchins, the Committee assembled scholars responding to intellectual currents from the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the lead-up to World War II. Early affiliates included Mortimer Adler, Mircea Eliade, Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss and Richard McKeon, who interacted with visitors from Princeton University, Columbia University, Harvard University and émigré intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Committee’s development paralleled debates over figures such as Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx and engaged historians of ideas from the Annales School to the Chicago School of Milton Friedman. Over decades it hosted visiting scholars linked to Columbia Journalism School, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books and journals like The American Political Science Review, shaping careers that intersected with awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize, the Templeton Prize and the MacArthur Fellowship.
Mission and Program
The Committee pursues an integrated study of canonical texts and contemporary problems by convening faculty, postdoctoral fellows, visiting professors and graduate students from programs such as Philosophy, History, Comparative Literature, Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Religious Studies and Law School. Its seminars bring together perspectives shaped by works like Homeric Hymns, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics, Augustine's City of God, Dante's Divine Comedy, Machiavelli's Prince, Hobbes's Leviathan, Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Interpretation of Dreams, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, nurturing scholarship that crosses traditional departmental boundaries and connects with publishers such as University of Chicago Press, Cambridge University Press and Princeton University Press.
Faculty and Fellows
The Committee’s permanent and visiting scholars have included philosophers, historians, literary critics and social theorists such as Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, Hannah Arendt, Mortimer Adler, Richard McKeon, Paul Ricoeur, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Maritain, Mircea Eliade, Ernest Gellner, Harold Bloom, Martha Nussbaum, John Rawls, Isaiah Berlin, Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas, Raymond Aron, Karl Popper, Isaac Deutscher, Eric Hobsbawm, C. P. Snow, Susan Sontag, Saul Bellow, Edward Said, Tony Judt, Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Paul Ricoeur, Leszek Kołakowski, Edmund Burke scholars and others affiliated with centers like the Hutchins Center and institutes such as the Institute for Advanced Study.
Notable Alumni and Associates
Alumni and associates of the Committee include writers, public intellectuals and scholars who went on to win major recognitions: Saul Bellow, Martha Nussbaum, Susan Sontag, Allan Bloom, Gerald Holton, Charles Rosen, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Clifford Geertz, John Bayley, J. M. Coetzee, Harold Bloom, Seymour Martin Lipset, Richard Posner, Amitav Ghosh, Tony Judt, Ian McEwan, Amartya Sen, Paul Krugman, Michael Walzer, John Rawls, Isaiah Berlin and others who bridged institutions including Princeton University, Columbia University, Yale University, Harvard University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of California, Berkeley and London School of Economics.
Academic Structure and Curriculum
The Committee offers a small cohort program emphasizing seminars and tutorials rather than lecture-based coursework; graduate students pursue degrees in conjunction with departments such as Philosophy, History, Comparative Literature, Political Science, Economics and Religious Studies while drawing on faculty associated with the Divinity School and the Law School. Core readings span texts by Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Dante Alighieri, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Wittgenstein, supplemented by modern scholarship from presses such as University of Chicago Press, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.
Research and Public Engagement
Committee members produce monographs, edited volumes and public lectures that engage venues such as the New York Public Library, Public Theater, Brookings Institution, Hutchins Center, American Academy of Arts and Sciences gatherings and publications like The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Nation, London Review of Books and academic journals including The Journal of Modern History, Philosophical Review and American Historical Review. The Committee also collaborates with cultural organizations like the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smart Museum of Art and international research centers such as the Institute for Advanced Study, fostering public programs, lecture series and conferences that link scholarship to broader civic and cultural debates involving figures from Vladimir Nabokov to Jacques Derrida and from Simone de Beauvoir to Isaiah Berlin.