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The Presocratics:

Names, Dates and Linked Readings

I. The Seven Sages:

1. Thales:(floruit circa 585 B.C.E.)

"Thales and the Origins of Theoretical Reasoning" (Dmitri Pachenko)

2. Bias:(circa 570 B.C.E.)

Pertinent Passages on Bias in Herodotus, Apollodorus and Pausanias (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

3. Pittacus: (circa 600 B.C.E.)

Plato's Protagoras: sections 343a -347.

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

4. Solon: (archon 594 B.C.E.)

Herodotus, "Solon and Croesus" from THE HISTORIES.

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

5. Cleobulus: (circa 600 B.C.E.)

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

6. Myson: (circa 600 B.C.E.)

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Diodorus Siculus,THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

7. Chilon: (circa 560 B.C.E. [According to Plato's Protagoras])

Passages on Chilon from Herodototus, Apollodorus and Pausanias (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

Diogenes Laertius (500 C.E.), LIVES OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, adds to the list of seven the following:

8. Periander: (tyrant 625-585 B.C.E.)

Herodotus, Book III from THE HISTORIES; see Bks. I & V also.

9. Anacharsis: (floruit circa 591-588 B.C.E.)

Herodotus, Book IV from THE HISTORIES [approx. 25 pages into the text.]

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

10. Epimenides: (circa 600 B.C.E.)

Passages on Epimenides in Herodotus, Apollodorus and Pausanias: (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

11. Pherecydes: (circa 540 B.C.E.)

Citations in Herodotus, Pausanias and Apollodorus: (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

 

II. THE IONIAN THINKERS:

• Thales:(floruit circa 585 B.C.E.)

Dmitri Pachenko, "Thales and the Origin of Theoretical Reasoning"

Aristotle, METAPHYSICS [983 b]: [c/o The Perseus Project]

• Anaximander: (611-546 B.C.E.)

Articles on Anaximander by G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche and Theodore Gomperz [GREEK THINKERS] (1901) [c/o Charles Taylor's course on the Presocratics 1998]

• Anaximenes: (floruit circa 546 B.C.E.)

From Arthur Fairbanks, ANAXIMENES: Fragments and Commentary (1898)

S. Marc Cohen, "Anaximenes Lecture" (1997)

III. PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS:

• Pythagoras: (582-500 B.C.E.)

From Arthur Fairbanks, "Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans" (1898)

Pythagoras of Samos: A Resource Document: (c/o Mountain Man Graphics, Australia)

Diodorus Siculus, THE HISTORICAL LIBRARY (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.) [See sections 10.3.1 - 10.11.1]

• Philolaos of Croton: (late 5th Century B.C.E.)

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

• Archytas of Tarentum: (4th Century B.C.E.)

IV. Heraclitus of Ephesus: (floruit circa 500 B.C.E.)

Heraclitus, Biography and Fragments: (c/o Presocratic Philosophers site at Univ. of Tenn.-Martin.)

Richard Hooker, "Greek Philosophy: Heraclitus";

Martin Heidegger's Reading of Heraclitus;

Heraclitus Fragment #1; Fragment #48; Fragment #50;

Plato on Heraclitus (Theaetetus 180a);

Matthew Levy, "Nietzsche's Heraclitus";

Cynthia Freeland, "Heraclitus Lecture Notes";

S. Marc Cohen, "Heraclitus Lecture";

V. THE ELEATIC SCHOOL:

• Xenophanes of Colophon: (570-478 B.C.E.)

On Xenophanes (Short entry c/o the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.)

Xenophanes: Fragments and Commentary (Arthur Fairbanks, ed., First Philososphers of Greece.)

• Parmenides of Elea: (floruit circa 500 B.C.E.)

Plato's Parmenides (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

S.Marc Cohen, "Parmenides" Stage One and Stage Two.

• Zeno of Elea: (b. 490-485 B.C.E.)

Zeno's Fragments Adapted from John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy (1892): c/o James Fieser's Presocratic Fragments and Testimonials site; an excellent source which needs to be better presented. [To find Zeno's fragments, you will need to scroll down to the last quarter of the site.]

• Melissus of Samos: (floruit circa 444-441 B.C.E.)

Melissus's Fragments Adapted from John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy (1892): c/o James Fieser's Presocratic Fragments and Testimonials site. [The fragments of Melissus follow immediately after those of Zeno, three-quarters into the site.]

 

VI. EMPEDOCLES of ACRAGAS: (484-424 B.C.E.)

Empedocles on the Transmigration of the Soul (Fragments 115,117,118)

Aristotle's On Generation and Corruption (c/o the Internet Classics Archive): discusses Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Leucippus.

 

VII. ANAXAGORAS: (500-428 B.C.E.)

Aristotle's On Generation and Corruption (c/o Internet Classics Archive): discusses Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Leucippus.

• Archelaus of Athens:

Archelaus: Testimonial by Hippolitus Adapted from John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy (1892): c/o James Fieser's Presocratic Fragments and Testimonials site. [Hippolitus's testimonial on Archelaus follows the fragments of Diogenes of Apollonia (after Melissus), three-quarters into the site.]

VIII. The Atomists LEUCIPPUS & DEMOCRITUS:

• Leucippus of Miletus: (floruit circa 440-435 B.C.E.)

From Diogenes Laertius, LIVES OF THE EMINENT PHILLOSOPHERS.

Aristotle's On Generation and Corruption (c/o the Internet Classics Archive): discusses Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Leucippus.

• Democritus of Abdera: (?460-357 B.C.E.)

Brief Abstract on Democritus (c/o Dr. Ess's Presocratics section of his History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at Drury College.)

IX. The SOPHISTS:

• Protagoras of Abdera: (481-411 B.C.E.)

Plato's Protagoras (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

• Gorgias of Leontini: (483-375 B.C.E.)

Plato's Gorgias (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

• Socrates of Athens: (470-399 B.C.E.)

The Last Days of Socrates Homepage: Platonic dialogues Apology, Meno, Crito, Euthyphro and Phaedo. (c/o Clarke College.)

Sanderson Beck, "Ethics of Socrates, Xenophon and Plato".

• Xenophon:

Fourteen texts (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

X. PLATO & the Platonic Academy :

• Plato of Athens: (427-347 B.C.E.)

Thirty-six dialogues (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

Plato Websites.

• Speusippus of Athens: (circa 407-339 B.C.E./ head of Academy 347-339)

John Pepple, "The Unwritten Doctrines: Plato's Answer to Speusippus".

• Aristotle of Stagira: (384-322 B.C.E.)

Ten texts (c/o the Perseus Project at Tufts University.)

 

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: [in English & German]

I. Primary Sources (in English):

Aristotle, Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, New York , Random House, 1941.

Aristotle,Metaphysics, trans. Richard Hope, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1952.

Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, trans. Charles Burton Gulick, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press [Loeb Classical Library], 1927.

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (Miscellanies), trans......

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (2 Vols.), trans. R.D. Hicks, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press [Loeb Classical Library], 1925,1991.

Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt, London, Penguin Books, 1954, 1972.

Plato, The Dialogues of Plato (2. Vols.), trans. B. Jowett, New York, Random House, 1937.

Sextus Empiricus, Sextus Empiricus I: Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. R.G. Bury, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press [Loeb Classical Library], 1933,1976.

Xenophon, Socratic Discourses by Plato and Xenophon, New York, E.P. Dutton, 1918.

________, Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology, trans. E.C. Marchant and O. J. Todd, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press [Loeb Classical Library], 1923,1992.

II. Secondary Works:

Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, London, Penguin Books, 1987.

_____________, The Presocratic Philosophers, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.

Elizabeth Belfiore, "Wine and Catharsis of the Emotions in Plato's Laws," Classical Quarterly, xxxii, 2, 1982, 421-437.

J.D.P. Bolton, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1962.

N. Booth, "Zeno's Paradoxes," in Journal of Hellenic Studies [JHS], Vol. LXXVII (Part 2), 1957, 187-201.

Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. Edwin L. Minar, Jr., Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1972.

____________, "Góes: Zum griechischen 'Schamanismus," RhM [Rheinisches Museum] 105 (1962) 36-55.

John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (4th ed. 1930), New York, Meridian Books, 1957.

Marshall Clagett, Greek Science in Antiquity (1955), Princeton Junction, New Jersey, The Scholar's Bookshelf, 1988.

F.M. Cornford, Before and After Socrates, London, Cambridge University Press, 1932.

______________, From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation (1912), New York, Harper & Row, 1957.

______________, Principium Sapientiae: A Study of the Origins of Greek Philosophical Thought (1952), New York, Harper & Row, 1965.

Nancy Demand, "Plato, Aristophanes and the 'Speeches of Pythagoras,'" in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies [GRBS], vol. 23, Summer 1982, no. 2, 179-184.

D.R. Dicks, "More Astronomical Misconceptions," JHS XCII, 1972, 175-176.

D.R. Dicks, "On Anaximander's Figures," JHS LXXXIX, 1969, 120.

E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkely, California, Univeristy of California Press, 1951.

_________, "Plato and the Irrational," JHS, Vol. LXV, 1945, 16-25.

Benjamin Farrington, Greek Science, Vol. I: Thales to Aristotle, Harmondsworth & Middlesex, Pelican Books, 1944.

Hermann Fränkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, trans. M.Hadas and J. Willis, New York, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1962.

Henri Frankfort et al., The Intellectual Adventures of Ancient Man, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1946.

Kathleen Freeman, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers: Companion to Diehls, Fragmente derVorsokratiker, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1966.

_______________, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diehls Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1948, 1983.

Theodor Gomperz, Greek Thinkers: A History of Ancient Philosophy (4 vols.), Vol. I, trans. L. Magnus, London, 1901.

Peter Gorman, Pythagoras: A Life, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.

Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, (trans.), The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (1920), intro.& ed. D.R. Fideler, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Phanes Press, 1987.

W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy: Vol. I, The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1962.

______________,A History of Greek Philosophy: Vol. II, The Presocratics from Parmenides to Democritus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1965.

Lawrence J. Hatab, Myth and Philosophy: A Contest of Truths, La Salle, Illinois, Open Court Publishing Co., 1990.

Sir Thomas L. Heath, A Manual of Greek Mathematics (1931), New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1963.

G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Vol. I: Greek Philosophy to Plato, trans. E.S. Haldane (1892), Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

___________, Vorlesungen über Platon: (1825-1826) Unveröffentlichter Text [Lectures on Plato, 1825-1826, Unpublished Text], hrsg. Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron, Frankfurt a.M., Ullstein Verlag, 1979.

Martin Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, trans. D.F. Krell and F.A. Capuzzi, San Francisco, Harper & Row Publishers, 1975,1984.

Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979.

___________, "On Early Greek Astronomy," JHS XC, 1970, 99-116.

G.B. Kerford, "Protagoras' Doctrine of Justice and Virtue in the 'Protagoras' of Plato," in JHS LXXIII, 1953, 42-45.

G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (2nd ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1957,1983.

Helle Lambridis, Empedocles: A Philosophical Investigation, University of Alabama Press, 1976.

Ivan M. Linforth, The Arts of Orpheus, Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1941.

G.E.R. Lloyd, "The Hot and the Cold, the Dry and the Wet in Greek Philosophy," in JHS LXXXIV, 1964, 92-106.

J.S. Morrison, "Pythagoras of Samos," in Classical Quarterly [CQ] 50 (1956) 135-156.

Alexander P.D. Mourelatos, ed., The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, Garden City, NY, Doubleday/Anchor Press, 1974.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy / The Case of Wagner, trans. W. Kaufmann, New York, Vintage Books (Random House), 1967.

_______________, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. Marianne Cowan, Chicago, Henry Regnery Co. (Gateway Edition), 19 .

D. O'Brien, "Anaximander and Dr Dicks," JHS XC, 1970, 198.

_________, "Derived Light and Eclipse in the Fifth Century," JHS LXXXVIII, 1968, 114-127.

_________, Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969.

_________, "The Relation of Anaxagoras and Empedocles," JHS LXXXVIII, 1968, 93-113.

_________, "The Effect of a Simile: Empedocles' Theories of Seeing and Breathing," JHS XC, 1970, 140-179.

F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon, New York, New York Univerity Press, 1967.

J.A. Philip, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1966.

J.E. Raven, Pythagoreans and Eleatics (1966), Chicago, Ares Publishers Inc., (Reprint), 1981.

Kevin Robb, ed., Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy, La Salle, Illinois, Monist Library of Philosophy, 1983.

Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Ancient Greeks, trans. W.B. Hillis (1925), Chicago, Ares Publishers Inc. (Reprint), 1987.

Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature, trans. T.G. Rosenmeyer (1953), New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1982.

Michael C. Stokes, One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy, Washington, D.C., Center for Hellenic Studies, 1971.

Holger Thesleff, "Pythagoreanism," in Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th ed.), Macropaedia No. 15, 1977, 322-326.

George Thomson, The First Philosophers: Studies in Ancient Greek Society, London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1955.

______________, "The Greek Calendar," in JHS LXIII, 1943, 52-65.

______________, "From Religion to Philosophy," in JHS LXXIII, 1953, 77-83.

Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought, Ithaka, New York, Cornell University Press, 1982.

Stefan Weinstock, "Lunar Mansions and Early Calendars," in JHS LXIX/LXX, 1949/1950, 48-69.

M.L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.

Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, trans. L.R. Palmer (1931), New York, Meridian Books, 1955.