The Pre-Socratic Reader

Hello, my name is John and this is the start of my new blog. I've created this blog mainly to write responses for a philosophy class I'm taking at Baylor. The class is called the History of Classical Philosophy and will cover a variety of ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle.

This first post will be focused on a book called The Pre-Socratic Reader by Patricia Curd. The term Pre-Socratic refers to the thinkers and philosophers who came before Socrates, as Socrates is supposed to represent a significant change in western thought. Curd's gives a brief history of some of the first philosophical thinkers. I find it particularly fascinating that these men were already trying to use logic and reason, even if some of their reasoning was flawed, to comprehend the world around them. The account of Thales and his belief that all things come from water is an excellent example of this. With modern science it is easy for us to dismiss his idea as silly, but I agree with Curd in that it is easy to follow how he would have reached such a conclusion.

Another aspect that Curd hits on that has always intrested me about the ancient Greek philosophers is that they were really the original Renaissance men. As Curd mentions, these thinkers were not only studying the broad philosophical questions such as what is all matter made of, but tried to educate themselves in a variety of fields such as math, geometry, and engineering.

One fact that I had never realized about these Pre-Socratic thinkers until reading the Hurd's introduction is that we do not possess any of their complete works. Only fragments of their original work have survived and the rest of our knowledge of them comes from other, less ancient thinkers, mentioning them in their works. It makes me wonder what could have been if their complete works survived and the world had taken a liking to Thales instead of Socrates.