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)
- Parmenides
- Zeno
- Melissus
Pluralist Reply to Parmenides (M Luz Presocratics 9)
- 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[edit | edit source]
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)