A Study On Allan Bloom’s Critical Thoughts

Increasing interest has been arisen by Allan Bloom, the most important inheritor of Leo Strauss, was a great modern humanistic thinker. The study on his academic work was mostly focused on talking about liberal education and political philosophy, yet no few attentions was paid to his critical thoughts, which based on the ethics view. Concerning on this point, this thesis was dedicated to interpret Allan Bloom’s critical thoughts and its inspiration to the Chinese context by combing his critical thoughts, which was composed of the philosophical basis, ethical dimension and poetic policy.Allan Bloom’s critical thoughts was based on the questioning closely for rebellious discourse and criticism on modern logic. His reflecting on the pioneers of enlighten and questioning on specialization caused by modernization brought the thought that specialization was the reason for the crisis of liberal education, its solution was the study on classics and the further return to the question of the entirety. Bloom searched for the root of the rebellious discourse, which came from the scholars’ rebellion. He was cautious of the appearance of "cave" after the enlightenment and was following on the question whether it should be reconstructed after the deconstruction. The most important part of his criticism was the ethics dimension and the project of poetic policy. Allan Bloom rejected the modern classification of subjects and the specialization; meanwhile he broadened his view from philosophy and politic philosophy to literature. He re-claimed that different value-orientations are no equal and made it clear whether good or evil. He never stopped his effort on bridging the gap between philosophy and poetic. He dug out poetic from philosophy, and vice versa. Bloom left behind a series of serious critical thoughts as his efforts on reproducing the strength, danger and beauty of the Eros and reconstructing the Eros in the de-Erosive era.His reflection on modern logic, asking for rebel statement, project of poetic policy and horizon of ethics are all deeply buried under his criticisms on Plato’s dialogues, Rousseau’s literature and Shakespeare’s drama, reflecting his concerning on Western civilization. It will be helpful for both deepening thoughts of classics, philosophy and literature and aesthetic ethics, and paying more attention to the entirety of human and reconstruction of Eros during production in the Chinese context by understanding all sides of Allan Bloom’s thoughts and practices of criticism.