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The Committee on Social Thought, one of several PhD
PHD

PHD may refer to:* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian reform organization* PHD, a track on The Crystal Method album Tweekend* PHD finger, a protein sequence...
-granting committees at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
, was started in 1941 by historian John U. Nef along with economist Frank Knight
Frank Knight

Frank Hyneman Knight was an important economist of the twentieth century. He was born in McLean County, Illinois in a devoutly Christian family of farmers....
, anthropologist Robert Redfield
Robert Redfield

Robert Redfield was an United States anthropology and ethnolinguist. Redfield graduated from the University of Chicago, eventually with a JD from its law school and then a Doctor of Philosophy in cultural anthropology, which he began to teach in 1927....
, and University President Robert Maynard Hutchins.

The committee is interdisciplinary, but it is not centered on any specific topic; rather, the committee has, since its inception, drawn together noted academics and writers to "foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry" .

Notable past members of the committee have included T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

'Thomas Stearns Eliot', Order of Merit , was a poet, dramatist, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are the poems The Love Song of J....
, Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek Order of the Companions of Honour was an Austrian economist and philosopher known throughout the world for his defense of classical liberalism and free market capitalism against socialism and collectivism thought....
, Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day....
, Edward Shils
Edward Shils

Edward Shils was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and in Sociology at the University of Chicago and one of the world's most influential sociologists....
, Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom

Allan David Bloom was an American philosopher, essayist and academic. Bloom championed the idea of 'Great Books' education, as did his mentor Leo Strauss....
, Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow , was an acclaimed Canada-United States writer born in Canada of Russian-Jewish origin. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1988....
, David Grene
David Grene

David Grene was a professor of classics at the University of Chicago from 1937 until his death. He was a co-founder of the Committee on Social Thought and is best known for his translations of ancient Greek literature....
, Victor Turner, Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt was an influential Germany-Jewish political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theory because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on...
, Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss was a Germany-born Jewish-American Political philosophy who specialized in classical political philosophy. He spent most of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published 15 books....
, poet and philologist A. K. Ramanujan
A. K. Ramanujan

Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada language. Ramanujan wore many hats as a scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright....
, Stephen Toulmin
Stephen Toulmin

Stephen Edelston Toulmin is a United Kingdom philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of ethics....
, Paul Ricouer and J.






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The Committee on Social Thought, one of several PhD
PHD

PHD may refer to:* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian reform organization* PHD, a track on The Crystal Method album Tweekend* PHD finger, a protein sequence...
-granting committees at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
, was started in 1941 by historian John U. Nef along with economist Frank Knight
Frank Knight

Frank Hyneman Knight was an important economist of the twentieth century. He was born in McLean County, Illinois in a devoutly Christian family of farmers....
, anthropologist Robert Redfield
Robert Redfield

Robert Redfield was an United States anthropology and ethnolinguist. Redfield graduated from the University of Chicago, eventually with a JD from its law school and then a Doctor of Philosophy in cultural anthropology, which he began to teach in 1927....
, and University President Robert Maynard Hutchins.

The committee is interdisciplinary, but it is not centered on any specific topic; rather, the committee has, since its inception, drawn together noted academics and writers to "foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry" .

Notable past members of the committee have included T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot

'Thomas Stearns Eliot', Order of Merit , was a poet, dramatist, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are the poems The Love Song of J....
, Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek Order of the Companions of Honour was an Austrian economist and philosopher known throughout the world for his defense of classical liberalism and free market capitalism against socialism and collectivism thought....
, Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day....
, Edward Shils
Edward Shils

Edward Shils was a Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and in Sociology at the University of Chicago and one of the world's most influential sociologists....
, Allan Bloom
Allan Bloom

Allan David Bloom was an American philosopher, essayist and academic. Bloom championed the idea of 'Great Books' education, as did his mentor Leo Strauss....
, Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow , was an acclaimed Canada-United States writer born in Canada of Russian-Jewish origin. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1988....
, David Grene
David Grene

David Grene was a professor of classics at the University of Chicago from 1937 until his death. He was a co-founder of the Committee on Social Thought and is best known for his translations of ancient Greek literature....
, Victor Turner, Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt was an influential Germany-Jewish political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she always refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theory because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on...
, Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss was a Germany-born Jewish-American Political philosophy who specialized in classical political philosophy. He spent most of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published 15 books....
, poet and philologist A. K. Ramanujan
A. K. Ramanujan

Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada language. Ramanujan wore many hats as a scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright....
, Stephen Toulmin
Stephen Toulmin

Stephen Edelston Toulmin is a United Kingdom philosopher, author, and educator. Influenced by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of ethics....
, Paul Ricouer and J. M. Coetzee.

Current faculty include renowned Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
ist Wendy Doniger
Wendy Doniger

Wendy Doniger is an American scholar of the history of religions. Much of her work has focused on translating, interpreting and comparing narratives and myths of Hinduism....
, theologian David Tracy, theorist of German literature David Wellbery, classicist James M. Redfield
James M. Redfield

James M. Redfield is the Edward Olson Distinguished Service Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. He has made numerous contributions to current scholarship on Homer and Herodotus, probably the most notable of which is his book, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector , an anthropological reading of the Iliad w...
, psychologist and philosopher Jonathan Lear
Jonathan Lear

Jonathan Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago....
, philosopher Jean-Luc Marion
Jean-Luc Marion

Jean-Luc Marion is among the best-known living philosophers in France, former student of Jacques Derrida and one of the leading Catholic thinkers of modern times....
, philosopher Robert B. Pippin
Robert B. Pippin

Robert B. Pippin is an American philosopher. He is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago....
, Nobel Laureate
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
 economist Robert Fogel
Robert Fogel

Robert William Fogel is an United States economic historian and scientist, and winner of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He is best known as a leading advocate of cliometrics, a name for the use of quantitative methods in history....
, historian of science Lorraine Daston
Lorraine Daston

Lorraine Daston is an American historian of science, presently the executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin....
, physician and philosopher Leon Kass
Leon Kass

Leon Richard Kass is an United States physician, educator, and public intellectual, best known as an opponent of human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia; as a critic of unrestrained technological progress; and for his controversial tenure as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005....
 (former chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics), and poet Adam Zagajewski
Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski is a Poland poet, novelist, and essayist. Subsequently lyrical on meta-physical and cultural problems.He had lived in Paris since 1982....
.

See also

  • Social theory
    Social theory

    Social theory is the use of theoretical frameworks to study and interpret social structures and phenomena within a particular school of thought....


External links