Hackett Publishing

The 1st edition of A Presocratics Reader is out of print and no longer available for sale. It has has been replaced by a new 2nd edition. For more information on the 2nd edition, please click here.

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Ideal for a two-to-three week introduction to the Presocratics and Sophists, this volume offers a selection of the extant remains of early Greek philosophical thought on cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, together with unobtrusive, minimally interpretive editorial material: an Introduction, brief headnotes, maps, and a concordance.

“One of the virtues of A Presocratics Reader is that students seeking to learn about Presocratic philosophy will be able to go directly to the primary materials without having to extract them from a surrounding commentary. The introductory essays place the philosophers in their historical setting, and identify the main interpretive questions, but let the philosophers speak for themselves. The translations of the fragments are clear and accurate, and reflect many of the advances in our understanding of the Presocratics made during the last several decades. A Presocratics Reader provides an excellent way into the study of Presocratic philosophy.”
    —J. H. Lesher, University of Maryland

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Maps. Time Line. Introduction.

Milesians (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes)
Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism (Philolaus)
Xenophanes
Heraclitus
Parmenides
The Pluralists: Anaxagoras and Empedocles
Zeno of Elea
Atomism: Leucippus, Democritus
Melissus
Diogenes of Apollonia
The Sophists (Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Critias)
Concordance and Sources.