A Presocratics Reader (Second Edition)

"Curd and McKirahan's A Presocratics Reader is by far the best sourcebook for the Presocratics I've ever used in forty years of teaching ancient philosophy. Pieces I used to have to translate myself, such as the Dissoi Logoi, and Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, are included in the text, in much more skilled translation. The enlarged 2nd edition made a good book better."
     —Samuel C. Wheeler III, University of Connecticut

SKU
27013g

Selected Fragments and Testimonia

Edited, with Introduction, by Patricia Curd
Translations by Richard D. McKirahan and Patricia Curd

2011 - 200 pp.

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Paper 978-1-60384-305-8
$15.00
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-1-60384-305-8
$3.00

eBook available for $12.50. Click HERE for more information.

Building on the virtues that made the first edition of A Presocratics Reader the most widely used sourcebook for the study of the Presocratics and Sophists, the second edition offers even more value and a wider selection of fragments from these philosophical predecessors and contemporaries of Socrates.

With revised introductions, annotations, suggestions for further reading, and more, the second edition draws on the wealth of new scholarship published on these fascinating thinkers over the past decade or more, a remarkably rich period in Presocratic studies.

At the volume’s core, as ever, are the fragments themselves—but now in thoroughly revised and, in some cases, new translations by Richard D. McKirahan and Patricia Curd, among them those of the recently published Derveni Papyrus.

 

Reviews:

"Curd and McKirahan's A Presocratics Reader is by far the best sourcebook for the Presocratics I've ever used in forty years of teaching ancient philosophy. Pieces I used to have to translate myself, such as the Dissoi Logoi, and Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, are included in the text, in much more skilled translation. The enlarged 2nd edition made a good book better."
     —Samuel C. Wheeler III, University of Connecticut


Review of the First Edition:

“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. . . . A Presocratics Reader provides an excellent way into the study of Presocratic philosophy.”
     —J. H. Lesher, University of Maryland

 

Contents:

On Abbreviations and Notes
Maps
Time Line
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. The Milesians
    2.1. Thales
    2.2. Anaximander
    2.3. Anaximenes
3. Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism
4. Xenophanes of Colophon
5. Heraclitus of Ephesus
6. Parmenides of Elea
7. Zeno of Elea
8. Empedocles of Acragas
9. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae
10. Leucippus and Democritus: Fifth-Century Atomism
11. Melissus of Samos
12. Philolaus of Croton
13. Diogenes of Apollonia
14. The Sophists
     14.1. Protagoras
     14.2. Gorgias
     14.3. Prodicus
     14.4. Hippias
     14.5. Antiphon
15. The Derveni Papyrus, Columns IV–XXVI

Concordance

 

About the Authors:

Patricia Curd is Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University.

Richard D. McKirahan is Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College.