Allan Bloom

Also known as

Add other possible names for this topic

Allan David Bloom (14 September, 1930 in Indianapolis, Indiana – 7 October, 1992 in Chicago, Illinois) was an American philosopher, essayist and academic. Bloom championed the idea of 'Great Books' education, as did his mentor Leo Strauss. Bloom became famous for his criticism of contemporary American higher education, with his views being expressed most forcibly in his bestselling 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind. In 2000, years after Bloom's death, Saul Bellow, Bloom's friend and... full article at wikipedia

Write new description for Freebase.com »

Add a type

People

Person

9 empty fields

Gender

Male

Edit	Date of birth

Sep 14, 1930

Edit	Place of birth

Country of nationality

detail view »

United States

Profession

detail view »

Religion

Ethnicity

Parents

Children

Siblings

Spouse (or domestic partner)

Employment history

employer
University of Chicago
Cornell University
University of Toronto
detail view »

Education

institution
University of Chicago
detail view »

Height

Weight

Quotations

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.

The most important function of the university in an age of reason is to protect reason from itself.

We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.

Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency --the belief that the here and now is all there is.

The spirit is at home, if not entirely satisfied, in America.

As soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.

There is no real teacher who in practice does not believe in the existence of the soul, or in a magic that acts on it through speech.

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion.

detail view »

Places lived

location
Indianapolis

detail view »

Deceased Person

5 empty fields

Edit	Date of death

1992

Edit	Place of death

Cause of death

detail view »

AIDS

Edit	Date of cremation

Place of cremation

Edit	Date of burial

Place of burial

Influence

Influence Node

1 empty field

Influenced By

Peers

Influenced

People (narphorium) | user-created view »

NNDB Person

0 empty fields

With the exception of Wikipedia summaries and some images the content on this page is typically distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution license or Public Domain.

The original description for this topic was automatically generated from the Wikipedia article "Allan Bloom" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License .