Early Greek Philosophy, Volume II: Beginnings and Early Ionian Thinkers, Part 1 (Loeb Classical Library)

Unlike volume 1 in the series on Early Greek Philosophy from Loeb, volume 2 – “Early Greek Philosophy – Beginnings and Early Ionians Thinkers” has a wealth of information. For these early Greek Philosophers, we have very few, if any, writings remaining from them to know exactly what they believed, and in some cases we don’t know if there were any writings at all. However, what we do have is other people writing about them, who write about what they have been told, or read about these early Philosophers.

The book has a “Preliminaries” section which includes a section on Doxography and successions, and this is followed by a “Background” section which discusses what was thought about the cosmos and gods and men. This sets show more up the first discussions on the earliest philosophers of which we have any kind of evidence. The four earliest philosophers discussed are Pherecydes, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. We get an impression of what was thought about each of these philosophers, but this serves more as a foundation for learning about Greek Philosophy and how it evolved than it does as evidence of what any of these Philosophers actually said or potentially wrote.

I would have preferred if Loeb and merged this volume with volume 1 to provide the full foundation of the methodology and earliest thoughts in one volume to provide a great start for this series of books, but even without that this volume has a lot of value in and of itself. show less

An excellent second volume in this series which collects original source material for the earliest Greek philosophers. The first half provides a curated selection of prose and poetry providing a flavor of the mythological, theological, and cultural background against which Greek philosophy arose. The second half provides ancient fragments, anecdotes, and attestations of the triumvirate of early Milesian thinkers: Thales, Anaximander, and Aniximanes. The presentation of material is clear and clean, and the few footnotes are thoughtful and brief. Altogether an enjoyable and enlightening read.