Description
Book SynopsisThe works collected in this volume form the true foundation of Western philosophy - the base upon which Plato and Aristotle and their successors would eventually build. Yet the importance of the Pre-Socratics thinkers lies less in their influence - great though that was - than in their astonishing intellectual ambition and imaginative reach. Zeno''s dizzying ''proofs'' that motion is impossible; the extraordinary atomic theories of Democritus; the haunting and enigmatic epigrams of Heraclitus; and the maxims of Alcmaeon: fragmentary as they often are, the thoughts of these philosophers seem strikingly modern in their concern to forge a truly scientific vocabulary and way of reasoning.
Table of ContentsPart 1: precursors; Thales; Anaximander; Anaximenes; Pythagoras; Alcmaeon; Xenophanes; Heraclitus. Part II: Parmenides; Melissus; Zeno. Part III: Empedocles; fifth-century Pythagoreanism; Hippasus; Philolaus; Ion of Chios; Hippo; Anaxagoras; Archelaus; Leucippus; Democritus; Diogenes of Apollonia.
