Description: Ernst Bloch gives a striking account of materialism that traces emancipatory elements of modern thought to medieval Islamic philosophers' encounter with Aristotle. He argues that the great medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) planted the seeds of a radical materialism still relevant for critical theory today.
Brief description: Loren Goldman (PhD, Political Science, Chicago) is Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published articles in Political Theory, William James Studies, and Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society and is currently completing a book titled Hope, Modernity, and Politics.
Review Quotes: Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left is seminal for understanding the utopian theory and cosmological interpretation of nature provided by one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century: Ernst Bloch. Its linkage of two philosophical worlds is unique and it should refashion conventional views on materialism and the 'canon.' The translators deserve our gratitude for making available a difficult work whose boldness and cosmopolitan character will surely inspire the intellectuals of our own time.--Stephen Eric Bronner, author of Modernism at the Barricades: Aesthetics, Politics, Utopia