Early Greek Philosophy (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Solid introduction to the subject, but needs context
Review: I don't profess to be an expert in ancient Greek philosophy (or any other kind, for that matter), but I have wondered what roots Plato, via his Socrates, had drawn upon for his splendid work in a wide variety of subjects. This book is a solid introduction to those roots and cheap at the price.

The Pre-Socratics are important because they provide the first tenuous link in a great shift from explanation via religious belief to explanation via rational inquiry. These men, scattered throughout the Greek world and across several centuries, looked at the world around them and tried to construct the "first principles" that would explain how that world came to be and what it was made of. Democritus, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides and the many other authors presented here aren't household names, but they are the foundation of our view of the world both as physical object and mental representation.

It is striking how much of this thought will sound very familiar to anyone with exposure to current physics or, say, Heideggerian philosophy. The Pre-Socratics have much to say to our culture in particular despite the vast differences in intellectual frame of reference between the two.

That said, this is a good starting point for studying the Pre-Socratics. Johnathan Barnes has worked scrupulously to overcome a seemingly insurmountable historigraphic roadblock -- the fact that most of these philosophers are known to us only third-hand by quotation in works produced centuries after their deaths by Roman and medieval scholars. His documentation of the textual sources of the material is very helpful, although its arrangment on the page is often confusing and we're not sure whether we're listening to Barnes or one of the intermediary scholars.

This book needs more historical context and more intellectual context that will help neophytes like myself understand the impact these philosophers have had on Western thought. Penguin usually does a good job of supplying just such an essay with each book. Barnes does have a short introduction, but it's not enough.

These caveats aside, I have no qualms about recommending this collection for use in the classroom, especially if done so under the guidance of an instructor who is well-grounded in this era of Greek history. Those of us coming to these works later in life may want to supplement this with other, more scholarly interpretations and analyses.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: In a clear and scholarly manner, J. Barnes presents all the writings of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. It is a wonderful, well presented, easy to read book that brings the time and the people, with their ideas, alive.

Rating:
Summary: Not that great.
Review: Let the publisher be your guide.

It's by Penguin Press -- it's for someone who's browses a half-price book store and gets the idea that some familiarity with pre-socratic philsophy is something they want to add to their lives.

It lacks the critical richness of other works (I enjoy Patricia Curd et. al's ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY) -- so if you want depth, you won't find it here.

I read this book as part of an ancient greek philosophy class and I hated virtually everything on the reading list. This book was part of said curs-ed list.

Rating:
Summary: A good companion, but not the place to start
Review: Our present knowledge of the Presocratic philosophers is all second-hand: it consists of attributions made in later classical literature by a wide variety of authors, from pagans, like Aristotle and Iamblichus, to Christians, like Clement and Hippolytus. This book gives the reader who has been tantalized by these fragmentary citations a chance to view these quotes surrounded by the contexts in which they are preserved. That is both the strength and the bane of this volume. For instance, it is interesting to note how often Heraclitus is referred to as "obscure", but then, how much of what is attributed to him was actually said by him, how much does the citation represent the quoter's bias or training, and in what context or order were the sayings originally delivered? We will never know. So, if you have a passing acquaintance with the sayings of Zeno, Pythagoras, Empedocles et al., this may be the book to draw you deeper into the mysteries. The beginner may be merely mystified by the Presocratic palimpsest.