Early Greek philosophy /
Jonathan Barnes
- London : Penguin Group, c2001
- xlix, 282 pages ; 20 cm.
Includes indices.
Map -- Preface to the second edition -- Introduction -- Synopsis -- Notes to the reader -- 1. Precursors -- 2. Thales -- 3. Anaximander -- 4. Anaximenes -- 5. Pythagoras -- 6. Alcmaeon --7. Xenophanes -- 8. Heraclitus -- 9. Parmenides -- 10. Melissus -- 11. Zeno -- 12. Empedocles -- 13. Fifth-century Pythagoreanism -- 14. Hippasus -- 15. Philolaus -- 16. Ion of Chios -- 17. Hippo -- 18. Anaxagoras -- 19. Archelaus -- 20. Leucippus -- 21. Democritus -- 22. Diogenes of Apollonia -- Appendix: The source -- Further reading -- Subject index -- Index of quoted texts -- Index to Diels-Kranz -- b-Texts.
"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." -- Back cover