Philosophy Before Socrates

An Introduction with Texts and Commentary

Richard D. McKirahan

• Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781603841825
• eBook ISBN: 9781603845618
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

Since its publication in 1994, Richard McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates has become the standard sourcebook in Presocratic philosophy. It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts and the special problems of interpretation they present.

In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the First Edition
• Acknowledgments to the First Edition
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments to the Second Edition
• Maps
• Abbreviations
• 1. The Sources of Early Greek Philosophy
• 2. Hesiod and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy and Science
• 3. Miletus in the Sixth Century: The Cultural Setting for the Beginnings of Philosophy
• 4. Thales of Miletus
• 5. Anaximander of Miletus
• 6. Anaximenes of Miletus
• 7. Xenophanes of Colophon
• 8. The Early Ionian Achievement
• 9. Pythagoras of Samos and the Pythagoreans
• 10. Heraclitus of Ephesus
• 11. Parmenides of Elea
• 12. Zeno of Elea
• 13. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae
• 14. Empedocles of Acragas
• 15. Melissus of Samos
• 16. Fifth-Century Atomism: Leucippus and Democritus
• 17. Diogenes of Apollonia
• 18. Philolaus of Croton
• 19. Early Greek Moral Thought and the Fifth-Century Sophists
• 20. The Nomos–Phusis Debate
• Appendix: Some Contemporary Texts
• Bibliography
• Concordance with Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn.
• Index of Passages Translated
• Subject Index