The World of Parmenides ─ Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment

With a new foreword by Scott Austin

'I hope that these essays may illustrate the thesis that all history is or should be the history of problem situations, and that in following this principle we may further our understanding of the Presocratics and other thinkers of the past. The essays also try to show the greatness of the early Greek philosophers, who gave Europe its philosophy, its science, and its humanism.' - Karl Popper, from the preface

The World of Parmenides is a brilliant exploration of the complexity of ancient Greek thought and science by one of the twentieth century’s leading philosophers. It reveals the great importance of Presocratic philosophy to Popper’s thought as a whole and shows the profound enlightenment he experienced reading not only Parmenides but the wider world of Greek science and philosophy including Xenophanes and Heraclitus.

Edited by Arne F. Petersen, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen.

Sir Karl Popper (1902-94). Philosopher, born in Vienna. One of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century.

Foreword by Scott Austin Editor's Preface List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Back to the Presocratics 2. The Unknown Xenophanes 3. How the Moon Might Shed Some of Her Light upon the Two Ways of Parmenides (I) 4. How the Moon Might Shed Some of Her Light upon the Two Ways of Parmenides (1989) 5. Can the Moon Throw Light on Parmenides' Ways? (1988) 6. The World of Parmenides: Notes on Parmenides' Poem and its Origin in Early Greek Cosmology 7. Beyond the Search for Invariants 8. Comments on the Prehistoric Discovery of the Self and on the Mind-Problem in Ancient Greek Philosophy 9. Plato and Geometry 10. Concluding Remarks on Support and Countersupport Appendix Index