The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists by Robin Waterfield Waterfield organizes the fragments of all the Greek philosophers we have (which are scarce), offering some small...
The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists by Robin Waterfield
Waterfield organizes the fragments of all the Greek philosophers we have (which are scarce), offering some small introductions to each thinker before laying out, in full, what pieces of information we have from each, along with some blurbs about how each thinker was treated by his contemporaries.
It is very interesting to see how the Presocratics treated their own religion, believing both in polytheism and a quasi-monotheism. By favorite line so far is from Xenophanes:
No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even known they had done so.
And his annoyance at the gods were anthropomorphized with human emotions:
One god, greatest (heis theos…megistos) among gods and human beings,
Not at all like mortals in either body or thought…
It's very interesting, too, to see how the Greeks attempted to understand the cosmic origins of the world. Some (like Thales) seemed to believe that Water was an important element, and was the basis of all existence (which is not a bad guess!).
The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists by Robin Waterfield
Waterfield organizes the fragments of all the Greek philosophers we have (which are scarce), offering some small introductions to each thinker before laying out, in full, what pieces of information we have from each, along with some blurbs about how each thinker was treated by his contemporaries.
It is very interesting to see how the Presocratics treated their own religion, believing both in polytheism and a quasi-monotheism. By favorite line so far is from Xenophanes:
And his annoyance at the gods were anthropomorphized with human emotions:
It's very interesting, too, to see how the Greeks attempted to understand the cosmic origins of the world. Some (like Thales) seemed to believe that Water was an important element, and was the basis of all existence (which is not a bad guess!).