The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy

The Western tradition of philosophy began in Greece with a cluster of thinkers often called the Presocratics, whose influence has been incalculable. They include the early Ionian cosmologists, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, the Eleatics (Parmenides, Melissus, and Zeno), Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the atomists and the sophists. All these thinkers are discussed in this volume both as individuals and collectively in chapters on rational theology, epistemology, psychology, rhetoric and relativism, justice, and poetics. A chapter on causality extends the focus to include historians and medical writers.

• Usual features of a Companion: it is systematic, comprehensive, and accessible • Enormous interest in early Greek philosophy both in philosophy and classics • No knowledge of Greek is required to read this book • A. A. Long, the editor, is a selling point. He is the editor of our highly successful anthology: The Hellenistic Philosophers (1987) and of a more recent book Stoic Studies (1996)

1. The scope of early Greek philosophy A. A. Long; 2. Sources Jaap Mansfeld; 3. The beginnings of cosmology Keimpe Algra; 4. The Pythagorean tradition Carl A. Huffman; 5. Heraclitus Edward Hussey; 6. Parmenides and Melissus David Sedley; 7. Zeno Richard D. McKirahan Jr; 8. Empedocles and Anaxagoras: responses to Parmenides Daniel W. Graham; 9. The atomists C. C. W. Taylor; 10. Rational theology Sarah Broadie; 11. Early interest in knowledge J. H. Lesher; 12. Soul, sensation, and thought André Laks; 13. Culpability, responsibility, cause: philosophy, historiography and medicine in the fifth century Mario Vegetti; 14. Rhetoric and relativism: Protagoras and Gorgias Paul Woodruff; 15. Protagoras and Antiphon: Sophistic debates on justice Fernanda DeCleva Caizzi; 16. The poetics of early Greek philosophy Glenn W. Most.