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5561758 No.5561758 [Reply] [Original]

What is a good book on pre-socratic philosophers?

I have Plato and Aristotle but I want to start at the very beginning.

>> No.5561798

>>5561758
stard wit da greeks :-DDD

>> No.5561816

>>5561798
what was the point of even posting that.

i know it's a meme but it's a meme with good reason, the greeks form the foundation of western literature and philosophy.

>> No.5561893

I was about to drop a bunch of names, but then I noticed you said "on pre-socratics... so I'll point out that Wikipedia's article on Pre-Socratics has some good basic info, which is apparently based on Daniel W. Graham's "The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: the Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics" which sounds like it might be what you're looking for.

>> No.5561898

>>5561893
Thanks.

>> No.5561908

the best commentary out there is "Philosophy Before Socrates" by Richard McKirahan. if you just want fragments/primary texts, you can get a cheap collection of good translations through Hackett (the one edited by Patricia Curd)

>> No.5561993

>>5561758
Start with the Achaeans.

>> No.5562060

>>5561758
Hegel's History of Philosophy is great for the pre-socratics. Just skip the Introduction since it's about Hegel himself.

>> No.5562727

>>5561758

Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge UP), or the second edition by Kirk, Rave, and Schofield.

The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, ed. AA Long; and The Presocratics by Edward Hussey.

There are also some translated collections of texts (mostly fragments and testimonia, of course): Jonathan Barnes' Early Greek Philosophy in Penguin, and Robin Waterfield's The First Philsosophers in Oxford World's Classics. The latter covers the "sophists" too, for which Penguin has a separate volume, The Greek Sophists, by John Dillon and Tania Gergel. The Penguin volumes are by people with academic expertise in the subject. All of these have bibliographies that will point you to further reading.