In the fifth century BCE, Melissus of Samos developed wildly counterintuitive claims against plurality, change, and the reliability of the senses. This book provides a reconstruction of the preserved textual evidence for his philosophy, along with an interpretation of the form and content of each of his arguments. A close examination of his thought reveals an extraordinary clarity and unity in his method and gives us a unique perspective on how philosophy developed in the fifth century, and how Melissus came to be the most prominent representative of what we now call Eleaticism, the monistic philosophy inaugurated by Parmenides. The rich intellectual climate of Ionian enquiry in which Melissus worked is explored and brought to bear on central questions of the interpretation of his fragments. This volume will appeal to students and scholars of early Greek philosophy, and also those working on historical and medical texts.
Discusses the importance of the early history of Greek mathematics to education and civic life through a study of the Parthenon and dialogues of Plato.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (Vth century BCE) is best known in the history of philosophy for his stance that there is a share of everything in everything. He puts forward this theory of extreme mixture a
The book focuses on Heidegger’s thoughtful repetition of early Greek thinking, and his receptive attention to the fragments of the Presocratics from our contemporary age. Their thought has a special v
Inventing Socrates is a book about the consequences of knowledge and the coming of age. It is written in knowledge's Western setting, making allegorical as well as literal use of the event known as th
Inventing Socrates is a book about the consequences of knowledge and the coming of age. It is written in knowledge's Western setting, making allegorical as well as literal use of the event known as th
Volume 35 of Heidegger’s Complete Works comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at
Heidegger, one of the twentieth century's most original and important thinkers, presents an elucidation of the fragments of Heraclitus, an early Greek thinker.
This is a comprehensive, authoritative and innovative account of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, one of the most enigmatic and influential philosophies in the West. In twenty-one chapters covering a timespan from the sixth century BC to the seventeenth century AD, leading scholars construct a number of different images of Pythagoras and his community, assessing current scholarship and offering new answers to central problems. Chapters are devoted to the early Pythagoreans, and the full breadth of Pythagorean thought is explored including politics, religion, music theory, science, mathematics and magic. Separate chapters consider Pythagoreanism in Plato, Aristotle, the Peripatetics and the later Academic tradition, while others describe Pythagoreanism in the historical tradition, in Rome and in the pseudo-Pythagorean writings. The three great lives of Pythagoras by Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry and Iamblichus are also discussed in detail, as is the significance of Pythagoras for the Middle
Aims to present an elucidation of the work of Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic philosopher as the author of "On Nature", the first sustained work of Greek prose. This book comprises two lecture courses deli
This volume contains the proceedings of a conference on the Presocratic philosophers Pythagoras and Heraclitus. Investigated by a team of international scholars are key problems in doxography, Pythago
The scholarly tradition of the Presocratics is the beginning of the "Greek Miracle," the remarkable flowering of arts and sciences in ancient Greece from the 600s to 400s BC. Greek thought turned from
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
The Greek word eoikos can be translated in various ways, being used to describe similarity, plausibility or even suitability. This book explores the philosophical exploitation of its multiple meanings by three philosophers, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato. It offers new interpretations of the way that each employs the term to describe the status of his philosophy, tracing the development of this philosophical use of eoikos from the fallibilism of Xenophanes through the deceptive cosmology of Parmenides to Plato's Timaeus. The central premise of the book is that, in reflecting on the eoikos status of their accounts, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato are manipulating the contexts and connotations of the term as it has been used by their predecessors. By focusing on this continuity in the development of the philosophical use of eoikos, the book serves to enhance our understanding of the epistemology and methodology of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato's Timaeus.
The mythical narrative of transmigration tells the story of myriad wandering souls, each migrating from body to body along a path of recurrence amid the becoming of the All. <
Who is Heraclitus and what is his "logos?"In his great painting The School of Athens which hangs in the Vatican, Raphael portrays the great thinkers and teachers of the ages talking and listening to o
Introduction to Presocratics presents a succinct introduction to Greek thinkers of the 6th and 5th century BCE and a thematic exploration of the topics and enquiries opened by these first philosophers
Introduction to Presocratics presents a succinct introduction to Greek thinkers of the 6th and 5th century BCE and a thematic exploration of the topics and enquiries opened by these first philosophers
