A History of Ancient Philosophy I

<p>Beginning with the origins of Western philosophy the profound creation of the Hellenic genius Reale presents an appreciation of the Naturalists the Sophists Socrates and the Minor Socratics.</p><p>Special attention is paid to the Eleatics because their problems decisively mark Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy.</p><p>Interpretation of the Sophists benefits from the recent reevaluation of their thought. Socrates himself would be inconceivable without the Sophists since he is one of them.</p><p>Socrates is given major prominence. Plato Aristotle and all of Hellenistic philosophy are deeply impregnated with his words and spirit.</p><p>The teachings of the Minor Socratics are interpreted as one-sided reductions of the pluralistic values of Socratic thought and as anticipations of some issues that explode later in the Hellenistic Age.</p><p>There are two appendices. The first concerns Orphism and contains a series of documents indispensable for the comprehension of some aspects of pre-Socratic and Platonic thought. The second explains the key to understanding the message of the Greeks-the message of theorein.</p>