Customer Reviews

Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology

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The primary audience for this book is classical scholars, and they won't pay attention to reader reviews. But if you happen to be a curious layperson who somehow found your way to this page, don't be put off by the sole review from Anna C. Consider this. Kahn's book first appeared in 1960, was reissued in 1985 and 1994, and is still in print after 46 years. It is the only book-length study devoted primarily to Anaximander. It has been cited, in support or opposition, by virtually every subsequent author on the subject, including such leading scholars as Kirk and Raven, Jonathan Barnes, and W. K. C. Guthrie. If you want to understand the current state of scholarship on the Pre-Socratic philosophers, or if you want to think about Anaximander yourself, Kahn's book is indispensable. I never met the man, but I swear he writes without a British accent.

Continuing a theme that he has so adeptly developed over the course of his "academic" career, Kahn, long the paragon of philosophical pomposity, provides a work that is as pompous and fake as his affected English accent. The inarticulate Kahn once again makes his reader wonder if he possesses any capabilities of basic reasoning at all, basing his entire thesis on the kind of unsubstantiated leaps that are the hallmark of grade school essays. Your time would be better spent taking a fork to your own eye; it would be less masochistic than reading "Anaximander".