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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 [...]