Description

Book Synopsis
The 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 Contents
Part 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.

Early Greek Philosophy

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    A Paperback / softback by Jonathan Barnes, Jonathan Barnes

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      Book details

      Publisher Penguin Random House Group
      Imprint Penguin Classics
      Published 26 September 2002
      ISBN-13 9780140448153
      978-0140448153
      ISBN-10 0140448152
      Also in:
      Politics, Philosophy & Society Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      The 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 Contents
      Part 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.

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