Averroes on Plato's "Republic" (Agora Editions)

For the most part, the first two treatises are summaries of main plot lines in The Republic. There is more of a hint of the incisive philosophical claims that may have led to exile in Ibn Rushd's analysis of the decline of virtuous cities. His commentary on timocratic cities and by extension timocratic men who strive for honor obsessively must have raised eyebrows in the court at Cordoba.

Great book! Simple and easy to understandFor anyone like politics. Give ideas about how ideal govt will be. Highly recommended.

Great

I'll just make two quotations to stress the link on will and politics, one from Averroes and one from L.Wittgenstein:"We say: This science, known as practical science, differsessencially from the theoretical sciences. Now this is clearinasmuch as its subject differs from the subject of each and every one of the theoretical sciences and its priciples differ from their principles. This is because the subject of this science is volitional things, the doings of which is within our power, and the principle of these things is WILL and choice;"Averroes on Plato's Republictrans. Ralph Lerner, Cornel University Press 1975.,p.3.(Capital letters in WILL are mine.)To understand the political aims and thoughts of Muslims which I observe that getting quite important for the US and her Allies nowadays, one has to master the use of the "UMMAT,MELLAT,DEEN,QAWM" as they are established in the Quran.L.Wittgenstein said: "If you understand the workings of WILL in alanguage, then you understand the language."

of course, the material published is of high quality but the paper and printing is not of the standard usually expected.

Whereas the translation is standard and does not necessarily lack what is to be expected of any mediocre translation, I will bring attention to the translator's introduction, the footnotes and comments. The translator - incorrectly viewing Ibn Rushd (his real name) as an atheistic philosopher - completely disregards of the fact that Ibn Rushd was a reactionary Islamic jurist and, politically, viewed that law was ultimately revealed by God in a very literal sense. Despite this - whether due to his agenda or plain ignorance - the translator insists that Ibn Rushd viewed that a non-Islamic society can be a virtuous society. Anyone with a basic background in Islamic law would know that after Islam revealed itself as the universal revealed law, any truly virtuous society must derive its laws from the Qur'an and Hadith, as any jurist - such as himself - would.