THE PRE-SOCRATICS
(c.620 - c.470 BCE)

The Pre-Socratics were philosophers who preceded Socrates.  They rejected traditional mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favour of more rational explanations.  Some questions which they posed include:

• From where does everything come?
• From what is everything created?
• How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?
• How might we describe nature mathematically?

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SUB-PAGES

Philosophers / Theorists:

• Milesians:

  • Thales (c. 625 - ? BCE)

  • Anaximander (c.610 - ? BCE)

  • Anaximenes

• Pythagoreans:

  • Pythagoras (c. 570 - ? BCE)

  • Philolaus (470 - 380 BC)

  • Archytas (428 - 347 BC)

• Eleatics:

  • Xenophanes (c. 570 - ? BCE)

  • Parmenides of Elea (c. 515 - ? BCE)

  • Zeno of Elea (c. 490 - ? BCE)

  • Melissus of Samos (c.470 - ? BCE)

• Heraclitus of Ephesus (c.540 - ? BCE)

• Pluralists:

  • Anaxagoras (c. 500 - ? BCE)

  • Empedocles (c.492 - ? BCE) )

• Atomists:

  • Leucippus (5th Century BCE)

  • Democritus (c.460 - ? BCE)

• Diogenes of Apollonia (c.460 BCE)

CONFERENCES

2007:

2006:

2005:

2004:

• II Symposium Praesocraticum, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Settembre 16-18

• Sessione Presocratica 2004, Cattedra di Storia della Filosofia Antica, Universita di Perugia, luglio 19-20 

2003:

• Pre-Platonic Philosophy, with special reference to Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Southern Association of Ancient Philosophy, Somerville College, University of Oxford, September 18-20

2002:

2001:

2000:

Annual:

SOURCES: PRIMARY

Off-Line:

• Anthologies:
  • Barnes, Jonathan, ed.  Early Greek Philosophy.  Ed. Jonathan Barnes.  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.  Rev. Ed.  2002.

  • Burnet, John.  Early Greek Philosophy.  1892.  Rpt. New York: Meridian, 1957.

  • Curd, Patricia, and Richard D. McKirahan, eds.  A Presocratics Reader.  Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996.
  • Diels, Hermann, ed.  Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.  Berlin: Weidmann, 1903.  Rpt. 6 times up to 1952.
    • Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: a Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.  Trans. Kathleen Freeman.  Oxford: Blackwell, 1956.  Rpt. 1983.
  • Gagarin, Michael, and Paul Woodruff, eds.  Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists.  1995.
  • McKirahan, Richard D., ed.  Philosophy Before Socrates: an Introduction With Text and Commentary.  Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
  • Waterfield, Robin, ed.  The First Philosophers: the Presocratics and the Sophists.  Oxford: OUP, 2000.
  • Wheelwright, Philip, ed.  The Pre-Socratics.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966.

• Selected Individual Works:

  •  

On-Line:

• Archives:
  • Burnet, John: Early Greek Philosophy
  • Philoctetes
• Selected Individual Works:

SOURCES: SECONDARY

Off-Line:

• Anthologies:
• Selected Individual Works:
  • Barnes, Jonathan.  The Presocratic Philosophers.  2 Vols. London: Routledge, 1979.  One-volume edition, 1982.

  • Boudoris, K.  Ionian Philosophy.  Athens: International Society for Greek Philosophy, 1989.

  • Cornford, Francis Macdonald.  From Religion to Philosophy.  London: Edwin Arnold, 1912.  Rpt. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991. 

  • Desmond, William D.  The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism.  Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2006.

  • Frankfurt, H., et al.  Before Philosophy.  Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949.

  • Freeman, Kathleen.  A Companion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers.  1966.

  • Furley, D.  The Greek Cosmologists.  Cambridge: CUP, 1987.

  • Graham, Daniel W.  Explaining the Cosmos: the Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy.  Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006.

  • Guthrie, W. K. C.  The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus.  Vol. 2 of History of Greek Philosophy.  6 Vols.  Cambridge: CUP, 1965.

  • Guthrie, W. K. C.  The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans.  Vol. 1 of History of Greek Philosophy.  6 Vols.  Cambridge: CUP, 1962.

  • Hussey, Edward.  The Presocratics.  London: Duckworth, 1972.

  • Janaway, Christopher.  "Ancient Greek Philosophy I: the Pre-Socratics and Plato."  Philosophy: a Guide Through the Subject.  Ed. A. C. Grayling.  Oxford: OUP, 1995.  336-397.

  • Kirk, G. S., and J. E. Raven.  The Presocratic Philosophers: a Critical History with a Selection of Texts.  Cambridge: CUP, 1957.  Rev. ed. by G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and Malcolm Schofield.  1983. 

  • Long, A. A., ed.  The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy.  Cambridge: CUP, 1999.

  • McKirahan, Richard D., Jr.  Philosophy Before Socrates,  Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994.
  • Osborne, Catherine.  Presocratic Philosophy: a Very Short Introduction.  Oxford: OUP, 2004. 
  • Ring, Merrill.  Beginning With the Pre-Socratics.  Mayfield, 1987; Rpt. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.

  • Robinson, John Manley.  An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.

  • Waterfield, Robin.  Before Eureka: the Presocratics and their Science.  Bristol: Bristol Classic Press, 2000.

On-Line:

• Curd, Patricia: Presocratic Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Dunkle, Roger: Philosophical Background of the Fifth Century BC: PreSocratics and Sophists

• Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

  • Pre-Socratic Philosophy:

    • Atomism

    • Eleatics

    • Milesian School

    • Pluralist School

    • Pythagoreanism

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