Translated into English for the first time, A History of Ancient Philosophy charts the origins and development of ancient philosophical thought.

How can we talk about the beginnings of philosophy today? How can we avoid the conventional opposition of mythology and the dawn of reason and instead explore the multiple styles of thought that emerged between them? In this acclaimed book, available in English for the first time, Maria Michela Sassi reconstructs the intellectual world of the early Greek "Presocratics" to provide a richer understanding of the roots of what used to be called "the Greek miracle." The beginnings of the long process leading to philosophy were characterized by intellectual diversity and geographic polycentrism. In the sixth and fifth centuries BC, between the Asian shores of Ionia and the Greek city-states of southern Italy, thinkers started to reflect on the cosmic order, elaborate doctrines on the soul, write in solemn Homeric meter, or, later, abandon poetry for an assertive prose. And yet the Presocratics whether the Milesian natural thinkers, the rhapsode Xenophanes, the mathematician and "shaman" Pythagoras, the naturalist and seer Empedocles, the oracular Heraclitus, or the inspired Parmenides all shared an approach to critical thinking that, by questioning traditional viewpoints, revolutionized knowledge. A unique study that explores the full range of early Greek thinkers in the context of their worlds, the book also features a new introduction to the English edition in which the author discusses the latest scholarship on the subject.--

The Beginning of PhilosophyBy Hans-Georg Gadamer

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit and specialist in the history of philosophy, created his history as an introduction for Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries. The 11-volume series gives an accessible account of each philosopher's work, and explains their relationship to the work of other philosophers.

Through a close reading of two presocratic philosophers, Heidegger demonstrates that all of Western philosophy is rooted in the question of Being. This volume 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 the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. Heidegger analyses two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present.

The book explores the development of Platonic philosophy by Roman writers between the first century BCE and the early fifth century CE. Discusses the interpretation of Plato's Timaeus by Cicero, Apuleius, Calcidius, and Augustine, and examines how they contributed to the construction of the complex and multifaceted genre of Roman Platonism.

A 1999 Companion to Greek philosophy, invaluable for new readers, and for specialists.