D. T. Sheffler, Plato and Christian Personalism<\/i>. Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Press, 2025; 188 pages. ISBN: 978-1-939773-24-1.<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Bruce Gilbert, Bishop\u2019s University<\/i><\/p>\n
D. T. Sheffler\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
Plato and Christian Personalism<\/i> is published under the auspices of the Hildebrand Project, which demonstrates why Sheffler\u2019s 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<\/em> lived experience and thus shares some very important common ground with personalism. I will summarize each of the book\u2019s five chapters and then make some general comments. <\/p>\n In the first chapter, \u201cThe Personalist Charges Against Plato,\u201d 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, \u201c(e)verything concrete and \u2018individual\u2019 is ultimately referred to the abstract idea which constitutes its ground and final justification\u201d (cited in Sheffler, 8–9).<\/p>\n Sheffler\u2019s 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 \u201ccontinuity or discontinuity\u201d 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 \u201cTrue Self,\u201d agency\/freedom, personal identity, uniqueness, incommunicability, dignity, and to have been created in the image of God. <\/p>\n The second challenge, another formidable one, is the infamous Platonic \u201cdualism,\u201d which Sheffler takes on in Chapter Two, \u201cSoul, Body and Person.\u201d The personalist, after all, sees the \u201cperson as the whole human being, who is both his body and his soul\u201d (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<\/i>, Alcibiades<\/i>, Phaedo<\/i>, Gorgias<\/i>, Republic<\/i>, and Phaedrus<\/i>. Sheffler\u2019s 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<\/i>, that the real issue is not despising the body and the material, but the condemnation of that which is superficial: \u201cHence, the Socratic turn toward the soul is not primarily a turn away from materiality, but a turn away from surface and convention\u201d (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. <\/p>\n Shifting from a consideration of body and soul to the differentiation of the soul within itself, Chapter Three, \u201cTripartition,\u201d 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<\/i> and the Leontius story in the Republic<\/i>), but that their harmonization by nous<\/i> is a kind of \u201cturn towards the inside\u201d (93). This leads progressively, as Sheffler argues, from a consideration of the soul itself, to the rational<\/em> soul, and finally to the highest attainment of a human being: self-identification with nous<\/i>. Here, Sheffler demonstrates considerable affinities between Hildebrand\u2019s objectivity of value and the Platonic tradition, leading elegantly into a consideration of the \u201cdivine element in our souls\u201d (94).<\/p>\n The real gem of this book, in my view, is Chapter IV, \u201cNous<\/i>, Divinity and Theosis<\/i>.\u201d 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<\/i>. Nous<\/i>, considered carefully in this light, especially of the Timaeus<\/i> and Phaedo<\/i>, becomes the \u201cgolden thread\u201d (cf. the metaphor of Ariadne\u2019s thread and the labyrinthine logos of the Phaedo<\/i>) that leads to theosis<\/i>. Sheffler then makes good on his title, Plato and Christian Personalism<\/i>, by making the link between this Platonic theosis<\/i> and key aspects of Hildebrand\u2019s philosophy, especially his transition from \u201cperson\u201d (that in which we all share) to \u201cpersonality\u201d (our perfection) (122), as well as features of the Christian commitment like prayer, worship and atonement.<\/p>\n The final chapter\u2019s denouement (\u201cIndividuality and Uniqueness\u201d) 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 \u201ccompatible with a Platonic metaphysics.\u201d While it is clear that Plato himself \u201cjust did not get that far\u201d (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 \u201cunique, unrepeatable\u201d and \u201cvaluable\u201d such as to motivate love (135). This means, emphatically, that the person is not to be dissolved into the \u201cGreat Noetic Soup\u201d (157), but that the form of \u201cPeterness\u201d and of all other singulars is eternal. All this allows Sheffler to conclude the following with admirable and justified confidence: \u201cShould 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\u201d (158).<\/p>\n 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\u2019s project explicitly belongs within the tradition of Christian personalism, he could have made more of Plato\u2019s admittedly tentative exploration of personalist theism. This is most obvious in the case of the Demiurge in Plato\u2019s Timaeus<\/i>. 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\u2019s explorations of theism in Book X of the Laws<\/i> all invoke personal gods. Sheffler has insightful things to say about the Demiurge in general (e.g.<\/i>, 102–103, 124), but he could have developed this into a key feature of his argument. <\/p>\n 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\u2019s text is at its best in the explication of the content<\/em> of Platonic personalism, he does not discuss at length the fact that Platonic dialogues are, qua form<\/em>, personalist texts par excellence<\/i>. 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 na\u00efve 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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n But a consideration of Platonic personalist theism and the dialogue form would only strengthen Sheffler\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n References<\/p>\n Stein, Edith. Finite and Eternal Being<\/i>. Translated by Walter Redmond. Washington: ICS Publications, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019s University D. T. Sheffler\u2019s 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\u2019s forms are eternal and unchanging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[328,38,17],"class_list":["post-14082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-hildebrand","tag-phenomenology","tag-plato","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-06 21:09:18","action":"Draft","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14082"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14087,"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14082\/revisions\/14087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-scp.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}