Pre-Socratic Philosophy "Pre-Socratic" is the term commonly used (and the one that will be used here) to cover those Greek thinkers from approximately 600 to 400 BCE who attempted to find universal principles that would explain the whole...

Between the sixth and the third centuries B.C., the classical Greek philosophers proposed numerous theories regarding the material composition of the universe, with those of the atomists, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and the Stoics emerging as the major...

What we call philosophy began with the pre-Socratics, Greek thinkers from 600 to 400 B.C. who preceded Socrates (469-399 B.C.) and who speculated about the origins of things and the order of the universe. Building on and beyond the practical knowledge...

The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously, but expounding knowledge developed earlier. The popularity of the term originates with Hermann Diels' work Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the...

Thales of the Pre-Socratics 1. Thales was an early rabbit, who told that EVERYTHING, when you chewed, squashed, or pounded it, broke down to water. Peter has already drafted this entry (& a few others) tentatively for his History of Philosophers, before he...

Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education, by Jeffrey Hart. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. 271 pp. $26.95. In this lucid and gracefully written book, Jeffrey Hart has produced a brilliant defense of the Western...

In the following excerpt from a lecture originally delivered in 1948, Cherniss surveys the Presocratic philosophers and their beliefs while questioning Aristotle's interpretations of some of their theories. Additionally, Cherniss evaluates the contributions of these philosophers to later thinking and writing.

In this essay, Kerferd offers an explanation of why the Sophists were so often viewed with disdain by other philosophers and scholars. Additionally, he discusses the profession of sophist—specifically, what they taught, who they taught, and how they taught.

In the following essay, Guthrie discusses the cultures that influenced the thinking of the Presocratic philosophers and analyzes the environmental conditions from which philosophy grew. Guthrie explains that the leisure enjoyed by the men of this time contributed significantly to their pursuit of philosophical thinking.