| Title | Ibn Bajja: An Independent Reader of the Republic |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2022 |
| Published in | Plato's Republic in the Islamic Context. New Perspectives on Averroes's Commentary |
| Pages | 40–66 |
| Categories | Ibn Bāǧǧa, Influence |
| Author(s) | Josep Puig Montada |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| Averroes (1126–98) wrote a commentary, or be’ur in the only extant Hebrew translation, on Plato's Republic that is the subject matter of the present anthology. He insists there that his aim is to present Plato's doctrines without provoking polemics and that the dialectical arguments are not necessary to the understanding of those doctrines. Just as he did in his epitome of, or short commentary on, Aristotle's Metaphysics, Averroes neither follows the strict order of the Greek original nor preserves the original division of books. While he gives his reasons for the rearrangement in the case of the Metaphysics, he does not give any for the Republic. Although Averroes's work follows Plato's text in many passages, the independent structure of the work fits better into an epitome than into a middle commentary. As for the Arabic translation he was reading, we know that it preserved the division into ten books but probably not the dialogue form, since Averroes never mentions the names of the figures participating in the dialogue. In the Republic, Socrates narrates in the first person, but in his commentary, Averroes give no hint of Socrates's peculiar role in that work; on the contrary, he presents Socrates only once, referring to him in the third person and mentioning that he held the belief that death is preferable to life without human dignity. Averroes lived two generations after Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣā̔igh Ibn Bājja (d. 1139; henceforth Ibn Bajja), who did not write a specific commentary on the Republic. But he did compose a treatise, titled the Governance of the Solitary, in which he deals with some of the political issues raised by Plato. There, as in some other works that we will discuss below, Ibn Bajja refers to the Republic and to the Phaedo. In this chapter the attempt will be made to reconstruct the influence of Plato's Republic on Ibn Bajja through his own texts, and incidentally, to learn about the text that Ibn Bajja was using. |
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| Title | Ibn Bajja: An Independent Reader of the Republic |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2022 |
| Published in | Plato's Republic in the Islamic Context. New Perspectives on Averroes's Commentary |
| Pages | 40–66 |
| Categories | Ibn Bāǧǧa, Influence |
| Author(s) | Josep Puig Montada |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| Averroes (1126–98) wrote a commentary, or be’ur in the only extant Hebrew translation, on Plato's Republic that is the subject matter of the present anthology. He insists there that his aim is to present Plato's doctrines without provoking polemics and that the dialectical arguments are not necessary to the understanding of those doctrines. Just as he did in his epitome of, or short commentary on, Aristotle's Metaphysics, Averroes neither follows the strict order of the Greek original nor preserves the original division of books. While he gives his reasons for the rearrangement in the case of the Metaphysics, he does not give any for the Republic. Although Averroes's work follows Plato's text in many passages, the independent structure of the work fits better into an epitome than into a middle commentary. As for the Arabic translation he was reading, we know that it preserved the division into ten books but probably not the dialogue form, since Averroes never mentions the names of the figures participating in the dialogue. In the Republic, Socrates narrates in the first person, but in his commentary, Averroes give no hint of Socrates's peculiar role in that work; on the contrary, he presents Socrates only once, referring to him in the third person and mentioning that he held the belief that death is preferable to life without human dignity. Averroes lived two generations after Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣā̔igh Ibn Bājja (d. 1139; henceforth Ibn Bajja), who did not write a specific commentary on the Republic. But he did compose a treatise, titled the Governance of the Solitary, in which he deals with some of the political issues raised by Plato. There, as in some other works that we will discuss below, Ibn Bajja refers to the Republic and to the Phaedo. In this chapter the attempt will be made to reconstruct the influence of Plato's Republic on Ibn Bajja through his own texts, and incidentally, to learn about the text that Ibn Bajja was using. |
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