Since its publication in 1994, Richard McKirahan s Philosophy Before Socrates
has become the standard sourcebook in Presocratic philosophy. It provides
a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy,
from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century.
A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author,
is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion.
An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic
texts and the special problems of interpretation they present. In its second
edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new
discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been
made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on
the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new
chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised,
as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides
translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus.

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