Customer Reviews

The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts

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I first read Kirk and Raven's `Presocratic Philosophers' as an undergrad. I was being taught pre-socratic philosophy by a Cambridge Classical Greek philosopher. Since then it has become one of my favourite and most valuable philosophy texts. Kirk and Raven present us with all the credible `fragments' of presocratic philosophy as quoted in later philosophers. They present the original greek and a (most times) definitive english translation and analysis. Although, what I learned through my professor via Kirk and Raven is that you sift or decant yourself through these most ancient and profound fragments - more akin to an approach to the `I Ching' and poetry than contemporary analytic philosophy. Kirk and Raven present us with the `holy' text of western philosophy which never fails to produce the wonder of thinking - a true thinking that is rare and primordial. Even if you usually don't like reading philosophy, the presocratics are really `post-modern' and poetic in their fragmentary and oracular collages of meaning. T.S. Eliot's `The Four Quartets' is soaked with pre-socratic philosophy.

The Pre-socratics deserve more attention because `all', and I mean all, of the basic philosophic and scientific positions are contained within these seeds of the western tradition.

Don't buy this edition. Get the first edition, put together by the original editors, G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven (ISBN 0521091691), which is readily available through Amazon. The current edition has been hopelessly corrupted by M. Schofield, who has edited out crucial fragments in order to support his own "Analytical Philosophy" take on the Presocratics. As an example, he has removed crucial fragments which link Parmenides with the Pythagoreans.

So make sure you acquire the 1st Edition of this crucial sourcebook which was edited in an honest fashion by G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, and ignore any later edition which has been corrupted and invalidated by M. Schofield.

Also, take a look at Peter Kingsley's trilogy of books on Parmenides and Empedocles: "Reality," "In the Dark Places of Wisdom," and "Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition." These books will give you the real fragments, and provide you with a real take on why scholars with the intellectual dishonesty of an M. Schofield will rewrite and even abandon the original texts in order to further their own misguided agendas.

'The Presocratic Philosophers' edited by G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven is, on a personal level, dear to me as it is the very first book I bought when I began studying philosophy as my major in college. This trade paperback cost but $3.95. For the philosophical amateurs who may have stumbled over this review while plowing through my cookbook reviews, the most dramatic aspect of this book is how little we actually have of what these great men who invented philosophy actually wrote. For the very first figure, Thales of Melitis (a town on the Asia Minor coast), we have practically nothing except second hand reports from Diogenes Laertius, Herodotus, Plutarch, and others. Also for amateurs is the great introductory essay on the difference between mythical cosmology and the beginnings of philosophy.

If you happen to have a strong amateur interest in the history of ideas and can pick up an inexpensive early edition (I have one from 1962), I recommend you give this a look.

For serious professionals, the most important aspect of this original text is the very scholarly presentation of the fragments in the original Greek with excellent translations and commentary on the sources.

Still the definitive introduction to the Pre-Socratics. It works for the (enthusiastic) general reader as much as it does for the committed classicist, thanks to remarkably clear translations (and glosses) for the generalist and an excellently edited selection of the original texts, helped by one of the more readable fonts used for the Greek text (the typographers of this book deserve special praise). However, while the authors editors and typographers may be hugely impressive, the binders must be criticised for a volume that falls apart when read repeatedly. That's the only reason I'm on my third copy.

This is the standard english language academic text book on the Presocratic Philosophers in Ancient Greece. It broke hundreds of years of tradition by including Orpheus, Musaeus, Pherecydes etc. - 'philosophers' before the Ionian Physicists.

Because of eurydike's review, I did a little looking around and, indeed, what eurydike states seems to be the case. Based on this review (Thanks, eurydike)), I purchased the First Edition. eurydike is absolutely correct. To knowingly remove precious, important fragments is heinous and inexcusable. I first got this text in the early seventies when I took the class as an elective..... The professor made us work excrutiatingly through (the I Ching method previously referred to in another review) the fragments, and a Greek 101/102/201/202 textbook was required. It was one of the most satisfying classes I have ever taken. Mr. Domino is also correct. This text isn't really for the non major or one without the time requirements to go from scratch. I was in college, had the time and didn't know any better. I don't know where to get the best of both worlds. Perhaps eurydike has an answer for a text that would contain the complete fragments (just absolutely essential, I cannot overstate this) and an honest interpretation. Interpretation is another area that presents the sorts of issues that eurydike refers to. Poor translation lead to poor understanding and mis-guided ideas. Certain carefully crafted and phrased (mis) interpretations (might) support certain academic agendas. I have not read the books eurydike refers to, particularly whether one book contains all of the fragments, the veracity of the interpretations or their timelines.......

NOTE: This a review of the original text, NOT the new version with the notorious Scofield editing.


The book is divided into what are roughly two even pieces of scholarship. Kirk has written a long introductory chapter on the "pre-pre-socratic" quasi-rational mythology of Homer, Hesiod and the like, as well as the sections on the early Ionian philosophers. Raven has gathered the information on the Pythagorean, Eleatic and post-Eleatic systems.

Raven is definitely a superior writer. Where Kirk's prose is dense and detail-oriented, covering little information in a myriad of tedious pages, Raven is more straight-forward and his commentary is easier to follow. I recommend the reader skip (as the prologue itself recommends) Kirk's pre-pre-socratic introductory chapter, as this is definitely the least interesting section of the work.

Looking over the whole work, it is an excellent source of information on the presocratic philosophers. It is more detailed and extensive than the Penguin Classics text on the presocratics (by J. Barnes) I had read earlier. That said, it is also much more "professional." The reader with no knowledge of Greek with at times stumble to understand the direction of the text, and certain scholarly tangents seem to drag the reader into the shadows of boredom. In end, its a demanding but rewarding work.

No, this is NOT the definitive collection of 'pre-Socratic' philosophical fragments. The definitive collection is, alas, still in the original Greek, to be found in the Diels-Kranz edition of "The Fragments of the Presocratics (Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker)." However, what Kirk, Raven and Schofield achieve in this 2nd edition is an anthology of the main pickings of that collection, with lots of illuminating commentary for those fragments that are singular or less than fragments and comparatively less commentary for those fragments that are more complete, thus helping to understand vocabulary and the philosophical thought in the context of ancient Greek times.

From Anaximander's mysterious 'limitlessness' to Democritus and Leucippus's atoms, these are thoughts about the nature of existence that children innocently ask and adults would do well to reconsider-- they are great mind-exercisers, and make one appreciate not only modern scientific knowledge but the process through which it has advanced since the day Thales suggested that 'water' was the universal principle of (material) existence.

I have yet to compare it to the 1st edition (1957); this 2nd edition (1983) supposedly takes into account the views of analytic philosophers in their studies of Presocratics like Pythagoras, Parmenides and Zeno, and does not look into the mystical link between ancient Greek religion and philosophy the way the 1st edition supposedly did (according to another book reviewer here). Hence, its incompleteness relative to the Greek compilation in Diels-Kranz's "Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker."

The best supplementary readings to this anthology, for the light they shine on mystical-spiritual currents in pre-Socratic thought, are:
1- F.M. Cornford's "From Religion to Philosophy (1912)" and "Principium Sapientiae- The Origins of Greek Philosophical Thought (1952)." Cornford's perspective was that the rational thought of the pre-Socratics belonged on a continuum with the mythico-religious mentality of the wider Greek world. That perspective was inspired by the syncretic Classics/Anthropology studies of his colleague Jane Ellen Harrison, author of "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903)," "Themis (1912)," and "Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1921)." I was referred to Cornford as I read the last chapter of Jean-Pierre Vernant's "Myth and Thought Among the Greeks (1965)."
2- Werner Jaeger's "The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (1947)." Jaeger's work points toward the theological spirit of much of the pre-Socratics' speculations.
3- E.R. Dodds's "The Greeks and the Irrational (1951)." Dodds makes one understand that behind that famed speculative rationality lay a spiritual process in which the Greek mentality began its questing as a natural development from propitiatory cultural practices, such as shamanism, and their perceived effectiveness through force of habit.

This is a useful academic tool - you have the Greek fragments followed by translations, and than the commentaries. For those interested in understanding the presocratics, rather than getting a map of the field of study as it presently stands, this is highly useless and even possibly inhibiting. The academic apparatus is overloaded and makes the book cumbersome to follow. The commentaries are extremely sterile, and the end seem to be sticking to the most common-sense and uninspiring interpretations in the name of scientific warrant, that you end up thinking you don't (and probably nobody) have much to learn from presocratics, unless you need to pass some exams and write some papers to get a job. Not recommended unless you are a pro in need of a reference tool.

I purchased this book out of curiosity. I haven't been a student for longer than I'd like to admit, but this book welcomed me home like I'd never left academia. The writing is superb. The analyses and time lines are expertly done. And, there is more than enough appropriate authorial humor. Edith Hamilton would have recommended this work of art.