The Presocratic Philosophers
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Long before Socrates defined the philosophical tradition we recognise today, a remarkable group of thinkers in the ancient Greek world dared to ask the most fundamental questions about the nature of reality, existence, and the cosmos — and Jonathan Barnes's The Presocratic Philosophers presents their extraordinary intellectual legacy with rigorous scholarly precision. A Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Barnes chronicles the arguments of Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and their contemporaries, reconstructing their philosophical systems from surviving fragments and ancient testimonies to reveal a world of startling intellectual ambition. This is not a passive survey of dusty historical curiosities; Barnes argues forcefully that these thinkers established the very foundations of Western logic, metaphysics, and natural science, engaging their ideas as living philosophical arguments that demand serious critical attention. Barnes writes with the dual authority of a classical scholar and an analytic philosopher, subjecting the Presocratics to the same logical scrutiny one might apply to a modern philosophical text — an approach that is at once illuminating and revelatory. His style is precise yet accessible, stripping away centuries of received interpretation to confront these ancient minds directly. For anyone who wishes to understand where Western thought truly begins, this landmark work remains an essential, indispensable guide — one that raises as many profound questions as it answers.
Author: Jonathan Barnes
Format: Paperback
Published: 1982, Routledge & Kegan Paul
Genre: Philosophy
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Long before Socrates defined the philosophical tradition we recognise today, a remarkable group of thinkers in the ancient Greek world dared to ask the most fundamental questions about the nature of reality, existence, and the cosmos — and Jonathan Barnes's The Presocratic Philosophers presents their extraordinary intellectual legacy with rigorous scholarly precision. A Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Barnes chronicles the arguments of Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and their contemporaries, reconstructing their philosophical systems from surviving fragments and ancient testimonies to reveal a world of startling intellectual ambition. This is not a passive survey of dusty historical curiosities; Barnes argues forcefully that these thinkers established the very foundations of Western logic, metaphysics, and natural science, engaging their ideas as living philosophical arguments that demand serious critical attention. Barnes writes with the dual authority of a classical scholar and an analytic philosopher, subjecting the Presocratics to the same logical scrutiny one might apply to a modern philosophical text — an approach that is at once illuminating and revelatory. His style is precise yet accessible, stripping away centuries of received interpretation to confront these ancient minds directly. For anyone who wishes to understand where Western thought truly begins, this landmark work remains an essential, indispensable guide — one that raises as many profound questions as it answers.