Pre-Socratics

The authoritative collection of Pre-Socratic texts has been collected by Hermann Alexander Diels (1848 - 1922).

An English translation of the Diels collection is available by Kathleen Freeman. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1978)

Map of Ancient Greeks: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/greece.html

For Background on the Pre-Socratics see Lecture Notes from Menahem Luz (Univ. of Haifa)

Milesian Philosophers (M Luz Presocratics 4)
 * Thales
 * Anaximandros
 * Anaximenes

Xenophanes of Colophon (M Luz Presocratics 5)

Heraclitus of Ephesus (M Luz Presocratics 6)

Pythagoras of Samos (M Luz Presocratics 7)

Eleatic Philosophy (M Luz Presocratics 8) Pluralist Reply to Parmenides (M Luz Presocratics 9)
 * Parmenides
 * Zeno
 * Melissus
 * Empedocles
 * Anaxagoras
 * Leucippus
 * Democritus

Sophists, Protagoras, Gorgias etc. (M Luz Presocratics 10)
 * Protagoras of Abdera
 * Gorgias of Leontini
 * Hippias of Elis
 * Prodicus of Ceos

Nietzsche's Pre-Platonic Philosohers
Notes from Friedrich Nietzsche. The Pre-Platonic Philosophers. Trans. by Greg Whitlock. Urbana: U of Illinois Press, 2006.

From lectures given 1869-1876

INTRODUCTION

"The Greeks produced archetypal philosophers" (Nietzsche 4).

"Plato is the first grand mixed character" [Socratic reflective dialectics; Pythagorean melancholy, secrets, and laws; Heraclitean regal pride] (Nietzsche 5).

"the true characteristic of the philosophical drive: wonderment at that which lies before everyone" (Nietzsche 6)

"Becoming, purpose, knowledge: the contents of Pre-Platonic philosophy" (Nietzsche 6)

WISE (love of wisdom)

"Thales overcomes (1) the mythic preliminary stage of philosophy, (2) the sporadic-proverbial form of philosophy, and (3) the various sciences . . . by creating one [unified] view of the world. Philosophy is therefore that art that presents an image of universal existence in concepts . . ." (Nietzsche 7 - 8)

"[wise] receives the character of the useless" (Nietzsche 8)

(recall who fell into the well)

THALES

"We may certainly assume that he sojourned in Egypt [where he found teachers and students]" (Nietzsche 24)

All is water: "To conceive the entirety of such a multifarious universe as the merely formal differentiation of one fundamental material belongs to an inconceivable freedom and boldness!" (Nieetzsche 28)

ANAXIMANDER

"all that becomes is not true. Water also becomes: he believes it to arise from contact with warmth and coldness . . . he needs a background unity . . . the Unlimited . . . something like the 'thing-in-itself' . . . to be described by us only negatively" (Nietzsche 33)

thus "countless worlds" (Nietzsche 37; ref. eternal recurrence)

"acceptance of a metaphysically true Being; a world in opposition to Becoming . . . and in contrast to it, all things qualitatively definite, individual, and particular as afflicted with injustice" (Nietzsche 37)

(Buddha's dukkha?)

ANAXIMENES

not a student of Anaximander: his answer to becoming as process between dual principles of "thinning and thickening" belongs to a later age as rejection of Parmenides (Nietzsche 42)

PYTHAGORAS

important founder of a school with two distinct branches

HERACLITUS

"His vision has been locked onto two sorts of considerations: eternal motion and the negation of all duration and persistence in the world" (Nietzsche 60)

In support of Heraclitus, Nietzsche discusses the "heart-rate" theory of perception; rate of duration relative to heart-rate of perceiver (Nietzsche 60-62)

Yet, Justice and Law reign, but not as status quo, rather as war and strife (Nietzsche 64)

(Krsna speaking to Arjuna?)

PARMENIDES

"Becoming cannot be conceived [because it would require the ultimate deception of not-being]" (Nietzsche 87)

"an unnatural tearing apart of the intellect . . . void of content . . . least fruitful" (Nietzsche 86-87)