Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy VI

Before Plato

Edited by Anthony Preus

Subjects: Classics
Paperback : 9780791449561, 256 pages, May 2001
Hardcover : 9780791449554, 256 pages, May 2001

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Table of contents

Introduction
Anthony Preus

1. Anaximander's Measurements Revisited
Gerard Naddaf

2. Anaximander's Discovery of Space
Dirk L. Couprie

3. Anaximander's Infinite Worlds
Richard McKirahan

4. The Philolaic Method: The Pythagoreanism Behind the Philebus
Carl Huffman

5. Zeno Moves!
Wallace I. Matson

6. "Whole-Natured Forms" in Empedocles's Cosmic Cycle
Joel Wilcox

7. Atomic Independence and Indivisibility
Istvan M. Bodnar

8. Why Democritus Was Not a Skeptic
Patricia Curd

9. The Truth of Antiphon's Truth Michael Gagarin

10. The Dissoi Logoi and Early Greek Skepticism
Thomas M. Robinson

11. Moral Dilemmas and Integrity in Sophocles's Philoctetes
Carol Steinberg Gould

Bibliography
Contributors
Index of Proper Names
Index of Concepts
Index of Classical Passages Cited

An anthology devoted to the intellectual developments that led up to the philosophy of Plato.

Description

This collection of essays on early Greek philosophy focuses on the natural and moral philosophy and the intellectual developments that led up to the philosophy of Plato. Studies of the philosophies of Anaximander, Zeno of Elea, Empedocles, the Pythagoreans, Atomists, and Sophists are included.

These essays explore many of the liveliest topics in the study of early Greek philosophy today; they deal with a significant range of the most important figures in the period, and represent several varying methodological approaches. Among the issues addressed include the origins of Hellenic speculative philosophy; the beginnings of "naturalistic" or "scientific" thought; the development of philosophical "schools" of thought; the reevaluation of Hegel's view of early Greek philosophy as dominated by a dialectic between the immobility of being posited by Parmenides and the absolute flux of Heraclitus; and the ways in which the work of early Greek philosophers anticipate some of the recent epistemological concerns of skeptics and postmodern philosophers.

Anthony Preus is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and the secretary of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy.