A Boa Vista Serviços S.A., administradora do SCPC, foi condenada pelo TJMS (Tribunal de Justiça de Mato Grosso do Sul) a deixar de disponibilizar ou comercializar a terceiros dados pessoais de uma consumidora de Campo Grande sem autorização prévia e específica. A empresa também terá de pagar R$ 5 mil por danos morais. Com a decisão, a Boa Vista terá 15 dias para deixar de disponibilizar ou comercializar a terceiros as informações cadastrais e de adimplemento da autora sem autorização prévia e específica. O compartilhamento permitido entre bancos de dados fica ressalvado. Em caso de descumprimento, foi estabelecida multa diária de R$ 1 mil, limitada a R$ 30 mil. A decisão foi tomada por maioria de votos pela 2ª Câmara Cível, em sessão virtual realizada no dia 29 de setembro, e reverte sentença da 1ª Vara Cível de Campo Grande, que havia julgado improcedentes os pedidos da mulher. Em primeiro grau, o entendimento foi de que não havia sido comprovado ato ilícito praticado pela Boa Vista. A ação foi apresentada inicialmente à Justiça em 29 de julho de 2025, depois que a consumidora identificou, por meio de uma consulta paga, a disponibilização de informações pessoais nos serviços oferecidos pela Boa Vista. Segundo o processo, entre os dados acessíveis estavam nome, CPF, data de nascimento, endereço, renda estimada, telefones e e-mail. Documentos juntados aos autos mostram, por exemplo, relatório da Boa Vista com informações sobre comportamento de pagamento e consumo da mulher. O documento apresenta uma “renda presumida positiva”, estimada entre R$ 1.401 e R$ 2 mil mensais, além de informações cadastrais e de localização. A consumidora sustentou que não havia autorizado a comercialização das informações e pediu que a empresa fosse proibida de disponibilizá-las, além de indenização por danos morais. Na ação original, a defesa dela havia pedido reparação de pelo menos R$ 15 mil. A Boa Vista contestou as acusações. A empresa argumentou que a LGPD (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais) permite o tratamento de dados para proteção do crédito e sustentou que não houve compartilhamento indevido das informações. Também defendeu que não seria possível determinar a exclusão dos dados sem justificativa e afirmou que não houve dano moral que justificasse indenização. Ao apresentar as contrarrazões ao recurso da consumidora, a Boa Vista pediu que a sentença de primeira instância fosse mantida integralmente. A defesa sustentou que a empresa “não explorou dados sensíveis” da autora e que não houve falha na prestação do serviço. Também argumentou que a disponibilização de dados pessoais, por si só, não seria suficiente para caracterizar dano moral, sendo necessária a demonstração de efetivo prejuízo aos direitos da personalidade. A tese, porém, não prevaleceu na 2ª Câmara Cível. Relatora do recurso, a desembargadora Sandra Artioli entendeu que o caso não se confunde com o credit scoring, sistema usado para calcular a pontuação de risco de crédito. Segundo o voto, precedentes do STJ (Superior Tribunal de Justiça) sobre esse sistema não autorizam a disponibilização de dados cadastrais a terceiros. A magistrada considerou que, embora a legislação permita determinados tratamentos de dados para proteção do crédito sem consentimento prévio, isso não significa autorização para comercializar informações cadastrais livremente. A Lei nº 12.414/2011 estabelece regras específicas para o compartilhamento desse tipo de informação. Outro argumento da Boa Vista era de que o acesso às informações ocorria em ambiente restrito aos associados da empresa. Para a relatora, porém, isso não elimina a irregularidade, porque os associados continuam sendo terceiros em relação à consumidora. A disponibilização mediante pagamento de relatório contendo as informações pessoais foi considerada ilícita. A Câmara também reconheceu dano moral. O entendimento foi de que o acesso indevido de terceiros às informações pessoais provoca insegurança ao titular e gera responsabilidade para o gestor do banco de dados.  A reportagem não conseguiu contato com a empresa para saber se irá recorrer da decisão.

Je présenterai une communication au congrès de la Société canadienne de philosophie continentale, le jeudi 22 octobre 2026, de 13h00 à 13h45. Titre: «Charles Taylor par-delà le tournant linguistiqu…

Professionals Demand Overhaul of Mental Health Model The Catalan Society of Clinical Psychology (SCPC-ACAPIR) has issued a stark warning: without urgent reform, many patients will…

Presidenta i vicepresident de la Societat Catalana de Psicologia Clínica (SCPC-ACAPIR)

Owen Ware, _Return of the Gods Mythology in Romantic Philosophy and Literature_** _._** Oxford University Press, 2026; 280 pp.; $46.00 (hardback) _Chris Satoor, York University_ “We can divine a golden age, a time when truth becomes fable and fable truth; but what holds this golden age back?” (Schelling, _Ages of the World_ , 1813, pg. 114). We live in an era where diverse ideologies wrestle with one another on the world stage. Consequently, it remains a difficult task to win over any audience when speaking about a specific historical movement like romanticism, which was extremely influenced by the creativity of mythology. The term ‘romanticism’ is heavily laden with Hollywood tropes, and quite often romantic mythologies embracing this _romantic spirit_ were viewed suspiciously. Many philosophers in the 20th century argued that philosophical mythologies were often employed due to humanity’s disenchantment with the world. This line of argumentation relied heavily on how our fragmented existence impelled us to resort to turning back to the past, invoking a nostalgia for a golden age, or actively reaching up to the heavens seeking guidance from a supernatural power in order to regain a lost innocence. Many of these suspicions surrounding both the romantics and their use of mythology have been largely inaccurate and have often been viewed through a distorted lens from various hasty generalizations. This is why Owen Ware’s _Return of the Gods_ is a pivotal text, not only for battling these misguided generalizations, but for also for presenting a well-rounded and researched presentation. Ware devotes the first part of the book to ending these false narratives that imply that romantic mythologies lead to radical nationalist movements or somehow conjure up a peculiar secularized natural supernaturalism (13). Neither of these distortions surrounding romantic mythologies, Ware explains, get to the heart of the matter of what the romantics were searching for in their various projects. In the second part of the text, Ware shows us why both the romantics and the employment of mythologies are important today, including for academic philosophy. Ware’s thesis relies on presenting central figures from the German romantics: Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), Novalis (1772-1801), the Schlegel brothers, Friedrich Hӧlderlin (1770-1843), and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854); as well as the central figures from British romanticism: William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822), John Keats (1795-1821), and William Blake (1757-1827). According to Ware, the romantics had grand metaphysical and moral ambitions behind their creative projects. Essentially, the romantics were seeking out a method of enacting _unitive cognitions_ through the creative medium of mythology (13). Ware’s investigation is aimed at deciphering the role that mythology played for the romantics and how both the English and the Germans employed common sources of influence. Both circles use romantic mythologies as a vehicle to express what Ware, borrowing from Blake, calls the vegetative eye (10). The vegetative eye allowed the romantics to focus on the ideal aspects of _wholeness_. This ideal of wholeness was extremely multi-faceted and contained numerous relational parts that brought forward a corresponding concept of wholeness. The concept of wholeness that they were seeking aimed to capture the self-to-self relationship, the self-to-other relationship, and finally the self-to-world relationship (10). Ware explains that both English and German romantics resisted the Enlightenment model, which often consisted of rationalizing the cosmos into subjective and objective, natural and supernatural poles. Instead, the romantics were seeking creative ways to escape these set divisions in favor of exploring and unifying their experiences. This process would blossom, allowing for more unities to naturally emerge together like self and nature. How could the romantics unify these worldly commitments? Ware argues that the sole device that lies behind the romantics’ usage of mythology surrounds a common principle. The principle of contraries served as a universal law of polarity. This was a principle that unified opposites. The principle, Ware explains, had numerous names, and was even employed by philosophers under the name of the principle of reciprocal interaction (10). The usage of this principle, argues Ware, is a master category that the romantics used to revitalize, reanimate, and invent new myths, all with the sole aim of grasping a union of contraries. What exactly are these unitive cognitions? Ware states that the romantics’ philosophical position used the term ‘unitive cognition’ to express a new fundamental representation of wholeness disclosing the jointure between self and world. The romantics would apply both cognitive and affective registers, states Ware, in order to awaken in mythology the human powers of intellect and feeling (11). Poetry also had a decisive role to play in leading the romantics to a path of wholeness. Ware shows how important the myth of Orpheus is to harmonizing the connection between the self and the world. According to Ware, Orpheus’ heroic gesture to save his wife, Eurydice, with song and lyre is used by the romantics as both a musical and an aural metaphor of enchanting nature, animal and rock; and likewise offers the reader a deeper sympathy towards nature. The poet is capable of creating moments that can harmonize the self with others and of using musical language as a continuous orphic song (11). One of the most difficult tasks of the text, Ware explains, is showing how both English and German romantics’ philosophical and poetic projects were interconnected. Due to the breadth and scope of all the thinkers that Ware mentions, unifying their motivations and projects is a large endeavor. Ware relies on the Platonic tradition as a mediator between the English and German traditions. The Platonic tradition was in fact successful in connecting complex theories that invoked both mythology and transcendent knowledge in order to create a stable knowledge of the self and world. Ware provides a brief appendix for readers to see this fertile Platonic tradition and its reception in Britain and Germany (13). Ware’s text begins with Schiller and the question of whether modern poets and philosophers should return to the world of pagan mythology. According to Schiller, the forces of modernity have separated humanity from nature. In order to regain a sense of wholeness between self and world, the modern scholar must continue forward by reconnecting our powers of reason and imagination together. Schiller implies that it was the dominance of reason that left us estranged from the world, and thus his method is to merge the power of the imagination, which is the sole ground of mythology, with reason in order to create a unified experience with the world. Schiller’s new ideal is what Ware calls complex wholeness (25). Ware’s second chapter offers an impressive survey of two romantic philosophers, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling. Both Schlegel and Schelling agree with Schiller that a new bond must be made in order to reconcile the modern divided self. They both seek to enrich the role of mythmaking for self-consciousness. Schlegel is an important figure in the text because he is in search of a new poetic sensibility (64). A new mythology is sought by Schlegel as an answer to the problem of self-fragmentation. What ancient mythology encompassed was an original bond of self-unity and imagination. Ware presents Schlegel as committed to revitalizing the spirit for active thinking in order to reconstruct our experience with the world. Schlegel’s projects sought an active idealism of the _subject_ that would reunite the bonds of a social, and cosmic, object or soul of the world. The process of going outside of ourselves and seeing something wholly other is a fundamental moment in the text. This process discloses how the human subject can realize their own cognitive powers and return to themselves with a greater grasp of self-recognition. Ware’s research on the young Schelling and his relationship to mythology is one of the book’s striking features. Ware begins by looking at Schelling’s first philosophical essays in 1793, as well as focusing on his role in _the Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism._ Ware also delves deep into investigating the complex philosophical ideas behind the _System of Transcendental Idealism._ Ware sees a dedicated mission in early Schellingian philosophy devoted to creating a new mythology. Schelling leaves this project open-ended and returns to the mission of creating a philosophy of mythology in his old age. According to both Schelling and Hӧlderlin, a new mythology must be cultivated as the modern age has seen a devastating decline in the mythopoetic worldview. It was this mythopoetic worldview that expressed the full powers of the human imagination in its most vivid state (59). Schelling saw the value in mythical philosophy especially through the Platonic dialogues. He had a profound connection with the cosmic creation story in the _Timaeus_. For Schelling, mythical philosophy can be metaphysical, and this early idea would stay with him throughout his philosophical career (49). The reason why Schelling is an important player in Ware’s text is that in Schelling’s works mythology has a fundamental role as a medium for bringing a greater synthesis together between ideas and images where other forms of representation were unsuccessful (48). The English poets, too, saw the birth of a new mythology awakening in the human mind, a metaphysical truth of unity. Blake’s poetry, for Ware, contains the basic kernel of the romantic spirit enacted through the unity of opposites, such as: soul and body, reason and imagination, and self and other (12). The English romantics, like their German counterparts, were seeking a possible return to self-unity. Blake has similar influences through Neo-Platonism and the theosophy of Jacob Boheme. However, for Ware, Blake plays an important role in creating new symbols and stories to trace the path of how humanity fell into this state of self-fragmentation. Blake’s goal is devoted to a possible return to unity (12). According to Ware, Schelling’s unfinished works leave the spark for a new mythology. This open-ended mission for a new mythology is the beating heart to the fourth chapter in Ware’s book. It focuses on Hӧlderlin’s _Hyperion_ , Schlegel’s _Lucinde_ , and Novalis’s _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_. Through all of these works, Ware shows that Hӧlderlin’s, Schlegel’s, and Novalis’ works embody the attempts to create a new mythology. What the fourth chapter shows is how these works revolutionize the vision of a new world grounded in the power of poetry (12). Mythology and poetry can reanimate the spirit of philosophy by putting ‘flesh and blood’ back on it so that the medium can finally speak the language of the heart to humanity. The conclusion of the book offers positive insight for the role that romantic mythologies play in human life. Ware explains that the romantics were not seeking the reactionary power of nationalism or hoping to uncover some supernatural-naturalism. Both the English and the German romantics’ sole mission was to create new symbols and stories guiding humanity back to a path of wholeness in order to end our fragmentation from ourselves and from the world. Ware’s text expertly shows how the romantics’ creative, poetic, and philosophical projects were attempts to make us “become conscious of our poetic powers, whether we look to the past in interpreting old myths or to the future in inventing new ones” (216). The text is a fantastic example of what interdisciplinary scholarship can offer to the humanities. ## Related Posts 1. Owen Ware, Indian Philosophy and Yoga in Germany. 2. Owen Ware, Fichte’s Moral Philosophy 3. Devin Zane Shaw, Freedom and Nature in Schelling’s Philosophy of Art 4. G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1825–26, Volume I 5. Daniele Fulvi, Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent: From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics

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D. T. Sheffler, _Plato and Christian Personalism_. Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Press, 2025; 188 pages. ISBN: 978-1-939773-24-1. _Reviewed by Bruce Gilbert, Bishop’s University_ D. T. Sheffler’s thoughtful and insightful book takes on a serious challenge. He holds, first, that the classic interpretation of Plato is essentially correct, that in which Plato’s forms are eternal and unchanging universals. But if this is the case, how then is serious engagement with the unique experience of individual human persons possible? Is not the singular person a serious lacuna in Platonic metaphysics? More broadly, if philosophy can only engage with that which is held in common between persons (in no matter what account), then our irreducible uniqueness is left out, if not seriously violated. If the whole tradition can be said to be guilty of this, as phenomenologists often do say, then perhaps Plato is the ultimate culprit. In exploring this extremely important issue, Sheffler’s work demonstrates not only a deep knowledge of Plato (to which I turn in a moment), but also a creative capacity to defend the thesis that the traditional account of Plato in fact inaugurates a tradition that leads directly to personalism. _Plato and Christian Personalism_ is published under the auspices of the Hildebrand Project, which demonstrates why Sheffler’s project is of interest to phenomenologists as well. Dietrich von Hildebrand worked through many facets of the mutual implication of Husserlian phenomenology and personalism; and phenomenology, of course, has as its irreducible starting point _my own_ lived experience and thus shares some very important common ground with personalism. I will summarize each of the book’s five chapters and then make some general comments. In the first chapter, “The Personalist Charges Against Plato,” Sheffler very capably summarizes the putatively telling challenges made against Plato by (among others) four prominent personalist philosophers: Etienne Gilson (20th century philosopher and historian), Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Karol Wojtyla (later Pope Jean Paul II), and John Zizioulas (Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan). If I allow the latter to represent the others, Zizioulas says that for Plato, “(e)verything concrete and ‘individual’ is ultimately referred to the abstract idea which constitutes its ground and final justification” (cited in Sheffler, 8–9). Sheffler’s first strategy is to switch the focus away from the question of whether Plato proposes a concept of the person, which he surely does not, to the question of whether there is ultimate “continuity or discontinuity” with personalism (12). Now, for this question to be posed at all, the reader must understand what personalism means, and thus Sheffler provides an extremely helpful and clear eleven-point summary: Personalism has a view of the individual human being as having specialness (compared to animals, etc.), self-knowledge, interiority, a “True Self,” agency/freedom, personal identity, uniqueness, incommunicability, dignity, and to have been created in the image of God. The second challenge, another formidable one, is the infamous Platonic “dualism,” which Sheffler takes on in Chapter Two, “Soul, Body and Person.” The personalist, after all, sees the “person as the whole human being, who is both his body and his soul” (22). In this chapter Sheffler shows his exegetical chops, working painstakingly and rigorously through classic Platonic passages on the relationship of soul and body in _Laws_ , _Alcibiades_ , _Phaedo_ , _Gorgias_ , _Republic_ , and _Phaedrus_. Sheffler’s point here is to show that in each case the careful study of the text reveals a picture much more complex and subtle than the dualistic legend would have it. For example, Sheffler is able to argue, in the case of the _Republic_ , that the real issue is not despising the body and the material, but the condemnation of that which is superficial: “Hence, the Socratic turn toward the soul is not primarily a turn away from materiality, but a turn away from surface and convention” (58). That is, the crucial lesson of the first chapter is that the soul is called away from conventional and lower human practices and towards the transcendence of virtue. Shifting from a consideration of body and soul to the differentiation of the soul within itself, Chapter Three, “Tripartition,” has as it goal less to show that there is a consistent kind of Platonic interiority in the dialogues than to show that the possibility of a tradition of interiority is set up within Plato, and is thereby consistently developed by later Platonists, notably Augustine. Sheffler quite expertly demonstrates how the three parts of the Platonic soul can be in tension and conflict (cf. the chariot in the _Phaedrus_ and the Leontius story in the _Republic_), but that their harmonization by _nous_ is a kind of “turn towards the inside” (93). This leads progressively, as Sheffler argues, from a consideration of the soul itself, to the _rational_ soul, and finally to the highest attainment of a human being: self-identification with _nous_. Here, Sheffler demonstrates considerable affinities between Hildebrand’s objectivity of value and the Platonic tradition, leading elegantly into a consideration of the “divine element in our souls” (94). The real gem of this book, in my view, is Chapter IV, “ _Nous_ , Divinity and _Theosis_.” Sheffler starts off by posing a question: if the Platonic world is made up of eternal forms and spatio-temporal things, where does the rational soul fit into this picture? It seems, after all, to ply between them, as Diotima says in the _Symposium_. _Nous_ , considered carefully in this light, especially of the _Timaeus_ and _Phaedo_ , becomes the “golden thread” (cf. the metaphor of Ariadne’s thread and the labyrinthine logos of the _Phaedo_) that leads to _theosis_. Sheffler then makes good on his title, _Plato and Christian Personalism_ , by making the link between this Platonic _theosis_ and key aspects of Hildebrand’s philosophy, especially his transition from “person” (that in which we all share) to “personality” (our perfection) (122), as well as features of the Christian commitment like prayer, worship and atonement. The final chapter’s denouement (“Individuality and Uniqueness”) steps away a little bit from the tight and highly attentive exegesis of the previous three chapters to consider the irreducible importance of our uniqueness as singular beings and the philosophical consideration thereof. While Plato most certainly never posits a form for the individual person, such forms are nonetheless “compatible with a Platonic metaphysics.” While it is clear that Plato himself “just did not get that far” (130), he nonetheless sets up a trajectory that results in exactly this, as Sheffler then goes on to sketch. The form of the individual person, he argues, is “unique, unrepeatable” and “valuable” such as to motivate love (135). This means, emphatically, that the person is not to be dissolved into the “Great Noetic Soup” (157), but that the form of “Peterness” and of all other singulars is eternal. All this allows Sheffler to conclude the following with admirable and justified confidence: “Should we think of Plato, then, as a personalist before personalism? Hardly. Should we rather think of personalism as the natural and logical development of Platonism? Most definitely” (158). Sheffler makes a very strong case for his position, and this text is rigorously argued. There are, however, at least two ways in which I think Sheffler might have further developed this thesis. First, in so far as Sheffler’s project explicitly belongs within the tradition of Christian personalism, he could have made more of Plato’s admittedly tentative exploration of personalist theism. This is most obvious in the case of the Demiurge in Plato’s _Timaeus_. This dialogue can be read, of course, as indicating that when Plato himself came face to face with the causal inertness of the forms, he had recourse to a personal divine agency in the Demiurge. This is a significant step in the direction of the unification of a personal God and the Platonic forms with Christian creationism, as found in Augustine and many others thereafter. Moreover, Plato’s explorations of theism in Book X of the _Laws_ all invoke personal gods. Sheffler has insightful things to say about the Demiurge in general (_e.g._ , 102–103, 124), but he could have developed this into a key feature of his argument. Second, Hegel is famous for his theory of the unity of form and content in beautiful art: the material form of an artwork harmonizes with the thematic content of the artwork. This insight is highly relevant for Plato the philosopher/artist. While Sheffler’s text is at its best in the explication of the _content_ of Platonic personalism, he does not discuss at length the fact that Platonic dialogues are, qua _form_ , personalist texts _par excellence_. The colourful and fascinating individual persons of Platonic corpus are in great abundance. Indeed, Edith Stein uses Socrates as her prime example (along with Bismarck and Achilles) in an exploration of the form of the singular individual (Stein, 33–43). But Socrates is just the beginning, for one readily thinks of the stumbling vivacity of Alcibiades, the naïve curiosity of Phaedrus, the charming romantic love of Simmias and Cebes, and many other examples. The Platonic dialogue is a scintillating tableau of individual persons struggling with personal questions, their vices and virtues and the search for Truth and Goodness. From the formal point of view, then, Plato’s dialogues are arguably the greatest personalist texts in the history of Western philosophy. Sheffler could have devoted an entire chapter to personalism and the dialogue form. But a consideration of Platonic personalist theism and the dialogue form would only strengthen Sheffler’s already very ably defended claim that Plato inaugurates a tradition that most certainly has personalism as one of its direct offspring. This makes his book of great interest not just to Plato scholars and personalist philosophers, but also phenomenologists concerned with the irreducible standpoint of first-person experience. References Stein, Edith. _Finite and Eternal Being_. Translated by Walter Redmond. Washington: ICS Publications, 2023. ## Related Posts 1. Michael Naas, Plato and the Invention of Life 2. Drew Hyland, Plato and the Question of Beauty 3. Gerald A. Press, Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed 4. Tanja Staehler, Plato and Levinas 5. Paul Ricoeur, Being, Essence and Substance in Plato and Aristotle

D. T. Sheffler, _Plato and Christian Personalism_. Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Press, 2025; 188 pages. ISBN: 978-1-939773-24-1. _Reviewed by Bruce Gilbert, Bishop’s University_ D. T. Sheffler’s thoughtful and insightful book takes on a serious challenge. He holds, first, that the classic interpretation of Plato is essentially correct, that in which Plato’s forms are eternal and unchanging universals. But if this is the case, how then is serious engagement with the unique experience of individual human persons possible? Is not the singular person a serious lacuna in Platonic metaphysics? More broadly, if philosophy can only engage with that which is held in common between persons (in no matter what account), then our irreducible uniqueness is left out, if not seriously violated. If the whole tradition can be said to be guilty of this, as phenomenologists often do say, then perhaps Plato is the ultimate culprit. In exploring this extremely important issue, Sheffler’s work demonstrates not only a deep knowledge of Plato (to which I turn in a moment), but also a creative capacity to defend the thesis that the traditional account of Plato in fact inaugurates a tradition that leads directly to personalism. _Plato and Christian Personalism_ is published under the auspices of the Hildebrand Project, which demonstrates why Sheffler’s project is of interest to phenomenologists as well. Dietrich von Hildebrand worked through many facets of the mutual implication of Husserlian phenomenology and personalism; and phenomenology, of course, has as its irreducible starting point _my own_ lived experience and thus shares some very important common ground with personalism. I will summarize each of the book’s five chapters and then make some general comments. In the first chapter, “The Personalist Charges Against Plato,” Sheffler very capably summarizes the putatively telling challenges made against Plato by (among others) four prominent personalist philosophers: Etienne Gilson (20th century philosopher and historian), Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Karol Wojtyla (later Pope Jean Paul II), and John Zizioulas (Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan). If I allow the latter to represent the others, Zizioulas says that for Plato, “(e)verything concrete and ‘individual’ is ultimately referred to the abstract idea which constitutes its ground and final justification” (cited in Sheffler, 8–9). Sheffler’s first strategy is to switch the focus away from the question of whether Plato proposes a concept of the person, which he surely does not, to the question of whether there is ultimate “continuity or discontinuity” with personalism (12). Now, for this question to be posed at all, the reader must understand what personalism means, and thus Sheffler provides an extremely helpful and clear eleven-point summary: Personalism has a view of the individual human being as having specialness (compared to animals, etc.), self-knowledge, interiority, a “True Self,” agency/freedom, personal identity, uniqueness, incommunicability, dignity, and to have been created in the image of God. The second challenge, another formidable one, is the infamous Platonic “dualism,” which Sheffler takes on in Chapter Two, “Soul, Body and Person.” The personalist, after all, sees the “person as the whole human being, who is both his body and his soul” (22). In this chapter Sheffler shows his exegetical chops, working painstakingly and rigorously through classic Platonic passages on the relationship of soul and body in _Laws_ , _Alcibiades_ , _Phaedo_ , _Gorgias_ , _Republic_ , and _Phaedrus_. Sheffler’s point here is to show that in each case the careful study of the text reveals a picture much more complex and subtle than the dualistic legend would have it. For example, Sheffler is able to argue, in the case of the _Republic_ , that the real issue is not despising the body and the material, but the condemnation of that which is superficial: “Hence, the Socratic turn toward the soul is not primarily a turn away from materiality, but a turn away from surface and convention” (58). That is, the crucial lesson of the first chapter is that the soul is called away from conventional and lower human practices and towards the transcendence of virtue. Shifting from a consideration of body and soul to the differentiation of the soul within itself, Chapter Three, “Tripartition,” has as it goal less to show that there is a consistent kind of Platonic interiority in the dialogues than to show that the possibility of a tradition of interiority is set up within Plato, and is thereby consistently developed by later Platonists, notably Augustine. Sheffler quite expertly demonstrates how the three parts of the Platonic soul can be in tension and conflict (cf. the chariot in the _Phaedrus_ and the Leontius story in the _Republic_), but that their harmonization by _nous_ is a kind of “turn towards the inside” (93). This leads progressively, as Sheffler argues, from a consideration of the soul itself, to the _rational_ soul, and finally to the highest attainment of a human being: self-identification with _nous_. Here, Sheffler demonstrates considerable affinities between Hildebrand’s objectivity of value and the Platonic tradition, leading elegantly into a consideration of the “divine element in our souls” (94). The real gem of this book, in my view, is Chapter IV, “ _Nous_ , Divinity and _Theosis_.” Sheffler starts off by posing a question: if the Platonic world is made up of eternal forms and spatio-temporal things, where does the rational soul fit into this picture? It seems, after all, to ply between them, as Diotima says in the _Symposium_. _Nous_ , considered carefully in this light, especially of the _Timaeus_ and _Phaedo_ , becomes the “golden thread” (cf. the metaphor of Ariadne’s thread and the labyrinthine logos of the _Phaedo_) that leads to _theosis_. Sheffler then makes good on his title, _Plato and Christian Personalism_ , by making the link between this Platonic _theosis_ and key aspects of Hildebrand’s philosophy, especially his transition from “person” (that in which we all share) to “personality” (our perfection) (122), as well as features of the Christian commitment like prayer, worship and atonement. The final chapter’s denouement (“Individuality and Uniqueness”) steps away a little bit from the tight and highly attentive exegesis of the previous three chapters to consider the irreducible importance of our uniqueness as singular beings and the philosophical consideration thereof. While Plato most certainly never posits a form for the individual person, such forms are nonetheless “compatible with a Platonic metaphysics.” While it is clear that Plato himself “just did not get that far” (130), he nonetheless sets up a trajectory that results in exactly this, as Sheffler then goes on to sketch. The form of the individual person, he argues, is “unique, unrepeatable” and “valuable” such as to motivate love (135). This means, emphatically, that the person is not to be dissolved into the “Great Noetic Soup” (157), but that the form of “Peterness” and of all other singulars is eternal. All this allows Sheffler to conclude the following with admirable and justified confidence: “Should we think of Plato, then, as a personalist before personalism? Hardly. Should we rather think of personalism as the natural and logical development of Platonism? Most definitely” (158). Sheffler makes a very strong case for his position, and this text is rigorously argued. There are, however, at least two ways in which I think Sheffler might have further developed this thesis. First, in so far as Sheffler’s project explicitly belongs within the tradition of Christian personalism, he could have made more of Plato’s admittedly tentative exploration of personalist theism. This is most obvious in the case of the Demiurge in Plato’s _Timaeus_. This dialogue can be read, of course, as indicating that when Plato himself came face to face with the causal inertness of the forms, he had recourse to a personal divine agency in the Demiurge. This is a significant step in the direction of the unification of a personal God and the Platonic forms with Christian creationism, as found in Augustine and many others thereafter. Moreover, Plato’s explorations of theism in Book X of the _Laws_ all invoke personal gods. Sheffler has insightful things to say about the Demiurge in general (_e.g._ , 102–103, 124), but he could have developed this into a key feature of his argument. Second, Hegel is famous for his theory of the unity of form and content in beautiful art: the material form of an artwork harmonizes with the thematic content of the artwork. This insight is highly relevant for Plato the philosopher/artist. While Sheffler’s text is at its best in the explication of the _content_ of Platonic personalism, he does not discuss at length the fact that Platonic dialogues are, qua _form_ , personalist texts _par excellence_. The colourful and fascinating individual persons of Platonic corpus are in great abundance. Indeed, Edith Stein uses Socrates as her prime example (along with Bismarck and Achilles) in an exploration of the form of the singular individual (Stein, 33–43). But Socrates is just the beginning, for one readily thinks of the stumbling vivacity of Alcibiades, the naïve curiosity of Phaedrus, the charming romantic love of Simmias and Cebes, and many other examples. The Platonic dialogue is a scintillating tableau of individual persons struggling with personal questions, their vices and virtues and the search for Truth and Goodness. From the formal point of view, then, Plato’s dialogues are arguably the greatest personalist texts in the history of Western philosophy. Sheffler could have devoted an entire chapter to personalism and the dialogue form. But a consideration of Platonic personalist theism and the dialogue form would only strengthen Sheffler’s already very ably defended claim that Plato inaugurates a tradition that most certainly has personalism as one of its direct offspring. This makes his book of great interest not just to Plato scholars and personalist philosophers, but also phenomenologists concerned with the irreducible standpoint of first-person experience. References Stein, Edith. _Finite and Eternal Being_. Translated by Walter Redmond. Washington: ICS Publications, 2023. ## Related Posts 1. Michael Naas, Plato and the Invention of Life 2. Drew Hyland, Plato and the Question of Beauty 3. Gerald A. Press, Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed 4. Tanja Staehler, Plato and Levinas 5. Paul Ricoeur, Being, Essence and Substance in Plato and Aristotle

D. T. Sheffler, _Plato and Christian Personalism_. Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Press, 2025; 188 pages. ISBN: 978-1-939773-24-1. _Reviewed by Bruce Gilbert, Bishop’s University_ D. T. Sheffler’s thoughtful and insightful book takes on a serious challenge. He holds, first, that the classic interpretation of Plato is essentially correct, that in which Plato’s forms are eternal and unchanging universals. But if this is the case, how then is serious engagement with the unique experience of individual human persons possible? Is not the singular person a serious lacuna in Platonic metaphysics? More broadly, if philosophy can only engage with that which is held in common between persons (in no matter what account), then our irreducible uniqueness is left out, if not seriously violated. If the whole tradition can be said to be guilty of this, as phenomenologists often do say, then perhaps Plato is the ultimate culprit. In exploring this extremely important issue, Sheffler’s work demonstrates not only a deep knowledge of Plato (to which I turn in a moment), but also a creative capacity to defend the thesis that the traditional account of Plato in fact inaugurates a tradition that leads directly to personalism. _Plato and Christian Personalism_ is published under the auspices of the Hildebrand Project, which demonstrates why Sheffler’s project is of interest to phenomenologists as well. Dietrich von Hildebrand worked through many facets of the mutual implication of Husserlian phenomenology and personalism; and phenomenology, of course, has as its irreducible starting point _my own_ lived experience and thus shares some very important common ground with personalism. I will summarize each of the book’s five chapters and then make some general comments. In the first chapter, “The Personalist Charges Against Plato,” Sheffler very capably summarizes the putatively telling challenges made against Plato by (among others) four prominent personalist philosophers: Etienne Gilson (20th century philosopher and historian), Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Karol Wojtyla (later Pope Jean Paul II), and John Zizioulas (Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan). If I allow the latter to represent the others, Zizioulas says that for Plato, “(e)verything concrete and ‘individual’ is ultimately referred to the abstract idea which constitutes its ground and final justification” (cited in Sheffler, 8–9). Sheffler’s first strategy is to switch the focus away from the question of whether Plato proposes a concept of the person, which he surely does not, to the question of whether there is ultimate “continuity or discontinuity” with personalism (12). Now, for this question to be posed at all, the reader must understand what personalism means, and thus Sheffler provides an extremely helpful and clear eleven-point summary: Personalism has a view of the individual human being as having specialness (compared to animals, etc.), self-knowledge, interiority, a “True Self,” agency/freedom, personal identity, uniqueness, incommunicability, dignity, and to have been created in the image of God. The second challenge, another formidable one, is the infamous Platonic “dualism,” which Sheffler takes on in Chapter Two, “Soul, Body and Person.” The personalist, after all, sees the “person as the whole human being, who is both his body and his soul” (22). In this chapter Sheffler shows his exegetical chops, working painstakingly and rigorously through classic Platonic passages on the relationship of soul and body in _Laws_ , _Alcibiades_ , _Phaedo_ , _Gorgias_ , _Republic_ , and _Phaedrus_. Sheffler’s point here is to show that in each case the careful study of the text reveals a picture much more complex and subtle than the dualistic legend would have it. For example, Sheffler is able to argue, in the case of the _Republic_ , that the real issue is not despising the body and the material, but the condemnation of that which is superficial: “Hence, the Socratic turn toward the soul is not primarily a turn away from materiality, but a turn away from surface and convention” (58). That is, the crucial lesson of the first chapter is that the soul is called away from conventional and lower human practices and towards the transcendence of virtue. Shifting from a consideration of body and soul to the differentiation of the soul within itself, Chapter Three, “Tripartition,” has as it goal less to show that there is a consistent kind of Platonic interiority in the dialogues than to show that the possibility of a tradition of interiority is set up within Plato, and is thereby consistently developed by later Platonists, notably Augustine. Sheffler quite expertly demonstrates how the three parts of the Platonic soul can be in tension and conflict (cf. the chariot in the _Phaedrus_ and the Leontius story in the _Republic_), but that their harmonization by _nous_ is a kind of “turn towards the inside” (93). This leads progressively, as Sheffler argues, from a consideration of the soul itself, to the _rational_ soul, and finally to the highest attainment of a human being: self-identification with _nous_. Here, Sheffler demonstrates considerable affinities between Hildebrand’s objectivity of value and the Platonic tradition, leading elegantly into a consideration of the “divine element in our souls” (94). The real gem of this book, in my view, is Chapter IV, “ _Nous_ , Divinity and _Theosis_.” Sheffler starts off by posing a question: if the Platonic world is made up of eternal forms and spatio-temporal things, where does the rational soul fit into this picture? It seems, after all, to ply between them, as Diotima says in the _Symposium_. _Nous_ , considered carefully in this light, especially of the _Timaeus_ and _Phaedo_ , becomes the “golden thread” (cf. the metaphor of Ariadne’s thread and the labyrinthine logos of the _Phaedo_) that leads to _theosis_. Sheffler then makes good on his title, _Plato and Christian Personalism_ , by making the link between this Platonic _theosis_ and key aspects of Hildebrand’s philosophy, especially his transition from “person” (that in which we all share) to “personality” (our perfection) (122), as well as features of the Christian commitment like prayer, worship and atonement. The final chapter’s denouement (“Individuality and Uniqueness”) steps away a little bit from the tight and highly attentive exegesis of the previous three chapters to consider the irreducible importance of our uniqueness as singular beings and the philosophical consideration thereof. While Plato most certainly never posits a form for the individual person, such forms are nonetheless “compatible with a Platonic metaphysics.” While it is clear that Plato himself “just did not get that far” (130), he nonetheless sets up a trajectory that results in exactly this, as Sheffler then goes on to sketch. The form of the individual person, he argues, is “unique, unrepeatable” and “valuable” such as to motivate love (135). This means, emphatically, that the person is not to be dissolved into the “Great Noetic Soup” (157), but that the form of “Peterness” and of all other singulars is eternal. All this allows Sheffler to conclude the following with admirable and justified confidence: “Should we think of Plato, then, as a personalist before personalism? Hardly. Should we rather think of personalism as the natural and logical development of Platonism? Most definitely” (158). Sheffler makes a very strong case for his position, and this text is rigorously argued. There are, however, at least two ways in which I think Sheffler might have further developed this thesis. First, in so far as Sheffler’s project explicitly belongs within the tradition of Christian personalism, he could have made more of Plato’s admittedly tentative exploration of personalist theism. This is most obvious in the case of the Demiurge in Plato’s _Timaeus_. This dialogue can be read, of course, as indicating that when Plato himself came face to face with the causal inertness of the forms, he had recourse to a personal divine agency in the Demiurge. This is a significant step in the direction of the unification of a personal God and the Platonic forms with Christian creationism, as found in Augustine and many others thereafter. Moreover, Plato’s explorations of theism in Book X of the _Laws_ all invoke personal gods. Sheffler has insightful things to say about the Demiurge in general (_e.g._ , 102–103, 124), but he could have developed this into a key feature of his argument. Second, Hegel is famous for his theory of the unity of form and content in beautiful art: the material form of an artwork harmonizes with the thematic content of the artwork. This insight is highly relevant for Plato the philosopher/artist. While Sheffler’s text is at its best in the explication of the _content_ of Platonic personalism, he does not discuss at length the fact that Platonic dialogues are, qua _form_ , personalist texts _par excellence_. The colourful and fascinating individual persons of Platonic corpus are in great abundance. Indeed, Edith Stein uses Socrates as her prime example (along with Bismarck and Achilles) in an exploration of the form of the singular individual (Stein, 33–43). But Socrates is just the beginning, for one readily thinks of the stumbling vivacity of Alcibiades, the naïve curiosity of Phaedrus, the charming romantic love of Simmias and Cebes, and many other examples. The Platonic dialogue is a scintillating tableau of individual persons struggling with personal questions, their vices and virtues and the search for Truth and Goodness. From the formal point of view, then, Plato’s dialogues are arguably the greatest personalist texts in the history of Western philosophy. Sheffler could have devoted an entire chapter to personalism and the dialogue form. But a consideration of Platonic personalist theism and the dialogue form would only strengthen Sheffler’s already very ably defended claim that Plato inaugurates a tradition that most certainly has personalism as one of its direct offspring. This makes his book of great interest not just to Plato scholars and personalist philosophers, but also phenomenologists concerned with the irreducible standpoint of first-person experience. References Stein, Edith. _Finite and Eternal Being_. Translated by Walter Redmond. Washington: ICS Publications, 2023. ## Related Posts 1. Michael Naas, Plato and the Invention of Life 2. Drew Hyland, Plato and the Question of Beauty 3. Gerald A. Press, Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed 4. Tanja Staehler, Plato and Levinas 5. Paul Ricoeur, Being, Essence and Substance in Plato and Aristotle

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_Symposium_ vol. 30, no. 1 (Spring 2026) is now online. The table of contents and article abstracts are available in the Latest Issue section. ## Related Posts 1. Symposium Vol. 28 No. 1 Now Online 2. Symposium Vol. 29 No. 1 Now Online 3. Table of Contents, _Symposium_ vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 2018) now online 4. Table of Contents for Symposium Vol. 24 No. 1 Now Online 5. Table of Contents for Symposium Vol. 25 No. 1 Now Online

_Symposium_ vol. 30, no. 1 (Spring 2026) is now online. The table of contents and article abstracts are available in the Latest Issue section. ## Related Posts 1. Symposium Vol. 28 No. 1 Now Online 2. Symposium Vol. 29 No. 1 Now Online 3. Table of Contents, _Symposium_ vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 2018) now online 4. Table of Contents for Symposium Vol. 24 No. 1 Now Online 5. Table of Contents for Symposium Vol. 25 No. 1 Now Online

_Symposium_ vol. 30, no. 1 (Spring 2026) is now online. The table of contents and article abstracts are available in the Latest Issue section. ## Related Posts 1. Symposium Vol. 28 No. 1 Now Online 2. Symposium Vol. 29 No. 1 Now Online 3. Table of Contents, _Symposium_ vol. 22, no. 1 (Spring 2018) now online 4. Table of Contents for Symposium Vol. 24 No. 1 Now Online 5. Table of Contents for Symposium Vol. 25 No. 1 Now Online

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Piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers (PUTs) are extensively used in diverse technological fields, yet further enhancement in acoustic sensitivity and hydrostatic figure of merit dhgh have plateaued in conventional 1–3 piezocomposites, whose structures have remained largely unchanged for decades. Herein, we report a (1–0)–3 single-crystal piezocomposite (SCPC) based on the [011]-oriented Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PIN-PMN-PT) single-crystal, featuring a dual-piezo-charge (DPC) mechanism arising from the piezoelectric and piezoelectret synergy effect. The ordered and polar 0-phase microholes with aligned dipoles are intentionally introduced in 1-phase piezo-pillars, yielding a uniquely low effective dielectric constant, reduced acoustic impedance, and DPC properties unattainable in conventional SCPCs. Both Simulations and experiments confirm that this DPC mechanism in (1–0)–3 SCPC enables an ultrahigh dhgh of ~ 8089 × 10−15 m2 N−1, representing increases of 443.2% and 890.6% over commercial 1–3 SCPC and 1–3 piezoceramic composite, respectively. The engineered microhole structure and DPC strategy also significantly enhance underwater acoustic sensitivity while maintaining a broad − 3 dB bandwidth of 130 kHz, crucial for maritime safety and collision avoidance. Meanwhile, the long-term testing further verifies the PUT’s operational stability. This design approach offers a promising pathway for next-generation piezocomposites and PUT technologies.

Transparency International-Macedonia (TI-M) and the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption (SCPC), on April 27, at the premises of the SCPC, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the aim of a...