Just published

The International Plato Society's journal, Plato Journal, has released its 22nd volume for 2021, available now at impactum-journals.uc.pt/platojournal. (See here for the full PDF.) Introduction by Richard Perry, with dossiers from Michael Augustín, Renato Matoso, Xin Liu, George Rudebusch, Thomas Tuozzo, and Roslyn Weiss, and a book review by Francisco Lisi. Articles by Marco Donato, Jens Kristian Larsen, Rasmus Sevelsted, Jan Szaif, Jonathan Lavilla de Lera, Javier Aguirre Santos, and Stephen Oppong Peprah. Plato Journal is available free access on line and printed on demand by Coimbra University Press. Are you interested in submitting to Plato Journal? Please, see the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the Submissions page.

Models of Desire in Graeco-Arabic Philosophy: From Plotinus to Ibn Ṭufayl By Bethany Somma. 2021. xii, 271 pp. 120.00 EUR / 144.00 USD, hardcover/PDF. ISBN: 978-90-04-46083-6 [hardcover]/978-90-04-46084-3 [PDF]. Leiden: Brill. (Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition 27) This study argues that late ancient Greek and medieval Islamic philosophers interpret human desire along two frameworks in reaction to Aristotle’s philosophy. The investigation of the model dichotomy unfolds historically from the philosophy of Plotinus through the Graeco-Arabic translation movement in 8th-10th century Baghdad to 12th century al-Andalus with the philosophy of Ibn Bāǧǧa and Ibn Ṭufayl. Diverging on desire’s inherent or non-inherent relation to the desiring subject, the two models reveal that the desire’s role can orient opposed accounts of human perfection: logically-structured demonstrative knowledge versus an ineffable witnessing of the truth. Understanding desire along these models, philosophers incorporated supra-rational aspects into philosophical accounts of the human being.

Plato in Poland, 1800–1950 By Tomasz Mróz 2021. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag. 480 pp. 99.00 EUR. ISBN: 978-3-89665-946-0 (hardcover). [English description] The book attempts to make the Polish reception of Plato available to non-Polish readers. The years 1800-1950 cover essential phaenomena in modern Polish philosophy, for they encompass periods of reception of Western philosophical trends and the development of the Lvov-Warsaw school, neo-Messianism and neo-Scholasticism. The book discusses how each of these phaenomena contributed to interpreting Plato. The material is divided into three main parts focused on various types of reception. [German description] Das vorliegende Buch unternimmt den Versuch, die polnische Platon-Rezeption einem breiten Publikum zugänglich zu machen. Die Jahre 1800–1950 umfassen die Schwerpunkte der Geschichte der polnischen Philosophie: Die Rezeption westlicher philosophischer Strömungen, die Entwicklung der Lemberg-Warschauer Schule, des Neo-Messianismus und der Neo-Scholastik. Das Buch erörtert, wie diese Phänomene in der modernen polnischen Philosophie zur Interpretation von Platon beigetragen haben. See [...]

Montrer l'âme: Lecture du Phèdre de Platon By Anca Vasiliu 2021. Paris: Sorbonne Université Presses. 486 pp. 18.00 EUR. ISBN: 979-10-231-0669-5 (softcover). [English description] Like the Phaedrus, this study is presented as an open book. By scrutinizing the details down to the very transience of the impressions produced, and at the same time descending into the deepest waters of Plato's sources, we get as close as possible to the heart of the dialogue, while preserving its secret intimacy and facing at our own risk the fascination it exerts. This book pursues an idea, but is careful not to make it the key to the Phaedrus. The dialogue places Socrates in the role of the best that a singular soul can give: to show himself through his speech by being one with it to prevent the animate from going astray and to avoid the danger of forgetting. Socrates thus shows the way [...]

Plato’s Conception of Justice and the Question of Human Dignity By Marek Piechowiak 2021. Second edition. Berlin: Peter Lang Academic Publishers. 328 pp. 57.00 EUR/47.00 GBP/68.95 USD. ISBN: 978-3-631-84524-0 (hardcover), 978-3-631-84841-8 (e-book: EPUB format), 978-3-631-84544-8 (e-book: PDF format) This book is the first comprehensive study of Plato’s conception of justice. The universality of human rights and human dignity—recognized as the source of the former—are among the crucial philosophical problems in modern-day legal orders and in contemporary culture in general. If dignity is genuinely universal, then human beings also possessed it in ancient times. Plato not only perceived human dignity, but a recognition of dignity is also visible in his conception of justice, which forms the core of his philosophy. Plato’s Republic is consistently interpreted in the book as a treatise on justice, relating to the individual and not the state. The famous myth of the cave is a story about education [...]

THE ORIGINS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF TIME: PLATO AND PREDECESSORS ИСТОКИ ФИЛОСОФИИ ВРЕМЕНИ: ПЛАТОН И ПРЕДШЕСТВЕННИКИ By Aleksei Pleshkov 2021. 328 pp. ISBN: 978-5-7598-2312-4 (hardcover), 978-5-7598-2221-9 (e-book) The book proposes the reconstruction of Plato’s philosophy of time in its connection with early Greek thought. Analyzing texts by ancient Greek poets, historians, rhetoricians, tragedians, and early Greek philosophers, the author traces the evolution of images and notions of time that were peculiar to the ancient Greek culture. A careful study of their genesis provides the basis for a reconstruction of Plato’s philosophy of time. The author argues that the conventional ‘time – eternity’ interpretive scheme adopted in the European philosophical tradition is inadequate for Plato’s theory and transforms it into a tripartite ‘eternity–time–instantaneousness’ scheme. Eternity characterizes the existence of the forms, while time pertains to the world of becoming. Instantaneousness is the third temporal status, proper to the receptacle, the lowest [...]

Eros in Neoplatonism and its Reception in Christian Philosophy: Exploring Love in Plotinus, Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite By Dimitrios A. Vasilakis 2020. 232 pp. 76.50 GBP Hardcover/61.20 GBP E-Book. ISBN: 9781350163867. Showing the ontological importance of eros within the philosophical systems inspired by Plato, Dimitrios A. Vasilakis examines the notion of eros in key texts of the Neoplatonic philosophers, Plotinus, Proclus, and the Church Father, Dionysius the Areopagite. Outlining the divergences and convergences between the three brings forward the core idea of love as deficiency in Plotinus and charts how this is transformed into plenitude in Proclus and Dionysius. Does Proclus diverge from Plotinus in his hierarchical scheme of eros? Is the Dionysian hierarchy to be identified with Proclus' classification of love? By analysing The Enneads, III.5, the Commentary on the First Alcibiades and the Divine Names side by side, Vasilakis uses a wealth of modern scholarship, including contemporary [...]

Framing the Dialouges: How to Read Openings and Closings in Plato Volume edited by Eleni Kaklamanou, Maria Pavlou, and Antonis Tsakmakis. 2021. xii, 318 pp. 120.00 EUR Hardcover/E-Book PDF. ISBN: 978-90-04-44398-3 [hardcover]/978-90-04-44399-0 [e-book]. (Brill's Plato Studies Series 6) Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato is a collection of 14 chapters with an Introduction that focuses on the intricate and multifarious ways in which Plato frames his dialogues. Its main aim is to explore both the association between inner and outer framework and how this relationship contributes to, and sheds light upon, the framed dialogues and their philosophical content. All contributors to the volume advocate the significance of closures and especially openings in Plato, arguing that platonic frames should not be treated merely as ‘trimmings’ or decorative literary devices but as an integral part of the central philosophical discourse. The volume will prove to be an invaluable [...]

Plato's Timaeus: Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium Platonicum Pragense Volume edited by Chad Jorgenson, Filip Karfík, and Štěpán Špinka 2021. x, 293 pp. 94.00 EUR Hardcover; Open Access/free PDF. ISBN: 978-90-04-43606-0 [hardcover]/978-90-04-43708-1 [e-book]. (Brill's Plato Studies Series 5) Plato's 'Timaeus' brings together a number of studies from both leading Plato specialists and up-and-coming researchers from across Europe. The contributions cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from the literary form of the work to the ontology of sense perception and the status of medicine in Timaeus' account. Although informed by a commitment to methodological diversity, the collection as a whole forms an organic unity, opening fresh perspectives on widely read passages, while shedding new light on less frequently discussed topics. The volume thus provides a valuable resource for students and researchers at all levels, whether their interest bears on the Timaeus as a whole or on a particular passage.

The First Principle in Late Neoplatonism: A Study of the One's Causality in Proclus and Damascius By Jonathan Greig 2021. 360 pp. 138.00 EUR. Hardcover/E-Book. ISBN: 978-90-04-43905-4 [hardcover]/978-90-04-43909-2 [e-book]. (Philosophia Antiqua 156) In The First Principle, Jonathan Greig examines the philosophical theology of the two Neoplatonists, Proclus and Damascius (5th–6th centuries A.D.), on the One as the first cause. Both philosophers address a tension in the Neoplatonic tradition: namely that the One was seen as absolutely transcendent, yet it was also seen as intimately related to other things as the source of their unity and being. Proclus’ solution is to posit intermediate causes after the One, while Damascius posits a distinct principle, the ‘Ineffable’, above the One. This book provides a new, thorough study of the theories of causation that lead each to their respective position and reveals crucial insights involved in a rigorous negative theology employed in metaphysics.