About this topic
Summary Pre-Socratic philosophy is the period of Greek philosophy up to the time of Socrates. It conventionally begins with the work of Thales (sixth century BC). Many discussions of the early period also consider the pre-philosophical background (religion, myth, epic poetry, popular ethical thought) and investigate the origins of philosophy and possible causes for its emergence in Greece at this time, as well as the question "what is philosophy?" and "Did they think of themselves as doing philosophy, and if so what kind?". The distinction between philosophy and science is an issue. All the texts are fragmentary (preserved mainly as quotations in later writers). Much of the literature is concerned with the task of reconstructing the lost views of these obscure philosophers from the fragments and using the third person testimonies of later writers. The Sophists (active around the time of Socrates) are generally included as Pre-Socratic in that their work is not influenced by Socrates.
Key works The standard edition of the Greek texts is known as Diels Kranz (DK) which refers to the edition by Hermann Diels (revised by W. Kranz) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (sixth edition 1951). Fragments are cited by their numbers in that collection (which includes a German translation). But many of the texts have been revised and corrected in later collections, and there have also been some further discoveries and revisions to which fragments are widely accepted as genuine. The best recent editions are usually collections of just one author (see the bibliographies for individual Presocratics). Handy recent collections with all the latest material included, but conservative editing and interpretation, are  Die Vorsokratiker edited by Jaap Mansfeld and Oliver Primavesi (Greek and facing German with brief introductions, one small pocket volume) and Graham 2010 (Greek and facing English, with brief introductions, two substantial volumes). Recommended editions in English include  Barnes 1987 (which helpfully integrates the texts into their quoting authorities to show context of the fragment), Waterfield 2000 and Richard McKirahan's philosophy before Socrates. General introductions to the Presocratics include Osborne 2004 and James Warren Presocratics.
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  1. Foro Internacional de Filosofía Antigua, Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, Colombia.Estiven Valencia Marín - 2024 - Revista de Humanidades 49 (1):479-482.
    Dada la necesidad de formalizar un espacio de reflexión y discusión sobre los problemas y autores correspondientes al período de la antigüedad grecorromana, desde la Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira ingeniaron y materializaron el desarrollo de un foro académico. Con miras a la difusión y acrecentamiento de los estudios sobre el pensamiento grecolatino, se piensa para la región cafetera colombiana un avance importante en cuanto a la propuesta de proyectos y de actividades de talante dialógico a ejemplo de los países latinoamericanos (...)
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  2. Who am I ?Cheng Gong - manuscript
    The question of Who am I?” is the end of philosophy. The famous ancient Greek philosopher Socrates raised three ultimate questions in philosophy when he looked up at the starry sky: “Who am I?” “Where do I come from?” “Where am I going?”. For thousands of years, humans have explored and answered questions about them, including various disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, biology, and neurology etc., but none of them have been recognized. This article starts with the cosmology and worldview (...)
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  3. Nietzsche e a metafísica de artista: apropriações de fórmulas kantianas, schopenhauerianas e pré-socráticas em O nascimento da tragédia.Gabriel Herkenhoff Coelho Moura - 2023 - Estudos Nietzsche 14 (1):63-93.
    In his debut book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche presents what he understands as a metaphysics of art or metaphysics of the artist. As it becomes clear throughout the argument developed in the work, his aim is to favor a justification of the world and of existence as an aesthetic phenomenon. The path to his metaphysics passes through the interaction with Kantian and, mostly, Schopenhauerian formulations, and through a deep dialogue with Greek culture in general and, indirectly, with Pre-Socratic thought. (...)
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  4. Eudaimonia socratica e cura dell’altro | Socratic Eudaimonia and Care for Others.Santiago Chame, Donald Morrison & Linda Napolitano Valditara (eds.) - 2021
    Special volume of "Thaumàzein - Rivista di Filosofia" dedicated to the theme of Socratic Eudaimonia and care for others. It is a multilingual volume comprising twenty papers divided into six sections with an introduction by Linda Napolitano. Edited by Santiago Chame, Donald Morrison, and Linda Napolitano. -/- Despite the appearances given by certain texts, the moral psychology of Socrates needs not imply selfishness. On the contrary, a close look at passages in Plato and Xenophon (see Plato, Meno 77-78; Protagoras 358; (...)
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  5. Bernard Williams on Philosophy and History.Marcel van Ackeren & Matthieu Queloz (eds.) - forthcoming - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    For Bernard Williams, philosophy and history are importantly connected. His work exploits this connection in a number of directions: he believes that philosophy cannot ignore its own history the way science can; that even when engaging with philosophy’s history primarily to produce history, one needs to draw on philosophy; and that when doing the history of philosophy primarily to produce philosophy, one still needs a sense of how historically distant past philosophers are, because the point of reading them is to (...)
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  6. Tōkyō kaichakumai meigara shindan.Ryūkichi Takanashi - 1969
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  7. The Compulsion of Bodies: Infection and Possession in Gorgias' Helen.Ryan Drake - 2021 - Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (2):249-268.
    This essay seeks to understand Gorgias’ reflections upon language and perception in the Encomium of Helen through the threefold vocabularies of medicine, enchantment, and oratory that were often taken together in the fifth century. I demonstrate that the two modes of sorcery to which Gorgias refers have to do with language and its effect on opinion, on the one hand, and perception and its effect upon one’s affective bearing, on the other. Both effects, I claim, are grasped through their forceful (...)
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  8. Classical Antiquity Die Fragmente des Eudoxos von Knidos. Herausgegeben, übersetzt und kommentiert von François Lasserre. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co. 1966. Pp. viii + 299. DM 52. [REVIEW]C. J. Scriba - 1968 - British Journal for the History of Science 4 (2):186-187.
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  9. Prospectus of a Course of Lectures, Historical and Biographical, on... Philosophy From Thales and Pythagoras to the Present Times by S.T. Coleridge.Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1818
  10. Political Fragments of Archytas, Charondas, Zaleucus, and Other Ancient Pythagoreans, Preserved by Stobæs; and Also, Ethical Fragments of Hierocles, Preserved by the Same Author. Tr. By T. Taylor.Thomas Archytas & Taylor - 1822
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  11. A Critical Analysis of the Philosophical Fragments of Epicharmus.Eddie Leroy Miller - 1965 - Dissertation, University of Southern California
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  12. Review of G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven: The Presocratic Philosophers. A Critical History with a Selection of Texts[REVIEW]Andrew Barker - 1985 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (4):465-469.
  13. Héraclite, "Fragments." ed. Marcel Conche. [REVIEW]Jacques Brunschwig - 1989 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 27 (1):145.
  14. On Patricia Curd, "The Legacy of Parmenides". [REVIEW]Mitchell H. Miller - 1999 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 37 (1):157-159.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Legacy of Parmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought by Patricia CurdMitchell MillerPatricia Curd. The Legacy of Parmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 280. Cloth, $45.00.Curd confronts a puzzle in early Greek philosophy. Parmenides’ teaching is traditionally understood as “numerical monism”: “there is only one thing or item in the universe” (66). But his successors, though accepting his (...)
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  15. Melissus of Samos: A Commentary on the Sources and Fragments.Brian Leon Merrill - 1998 - Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin
    Until recently, Melissus of Samos has been undeservedly neglected by scholars, largely because of Aristotle's harsh criticism and because, as a result, Melissus has been perceived as a second-rate philosopher clinging to the coattail of Parmenides. In the last half-century, however, several scholars have been re-examining Melissus' arguments and his role in the development of ancient philosophy. They have discovered that Melissus' influence upon later thinkers such as Plato has been far greater than Aristotle's assessment would lead us to believe (...)
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  16. The Comic Reason of Herman Kahn: Conceiving the Limits to Uncertainty in 1960.Sharon Mindel Helsel - 1993 - Dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz
    The subject of the dissertation is the futurological problem of the containment and structure of uncertainty by means of systems analysis and related techniques in a book written by the nuclear strategist Herman Kahn entitled On Thermonuclear War published in 1960. The dissertation closely examines how Kahn articulated specific contents for fighting and and surviving a hypothetical and uncertain future war. Kahn considered his mode of systems analyses, scenarios, war-games, and analogies to comprise a scientific method which was both more (...)
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  17. 'Peri Phiseos': On Being and the World. The Development of Metaphysics From Thales to Parmenides.Diana Scesny Greene - 1975 - Dissertation, University of Colorado at Boulder
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  18. Pre-Socratic Studies, 1953-1966.E. L. Minar - 1966 - Classical World: A Quarterly Journal on Antiquity 60 (4):143.
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  19. The Earliest Cosmologies. [REVIEW]J. Dewey - 1910 - Ancient Philosophy (Misc) 20:478.
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  20. Aristocles of Messene. Testimonia and Fragments. [REVIEW]M. Bonazzi - 2003 - Elenchos 24 (1).
  21. David Gallop, Parmenides of Elea: Fragments. [REVIEW]Mohan Matthen - 1985 - Philosophy in Review 5:113-116.
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  22. A.H. Coxon, The Fragments Of Parmenides. [REVIEW]Carl Huffman - 1988 - Philosophy in Review 8:337-339.
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  23. Clarifying Obscurity: Heraclitean Darkness in Plato and Aristotle.Christopher Alan Mclaren - 2003 - Dissertation, Stanford University
    This dissertation analyzes the language of clarity and obscurity in Plato and Aristotle. For each of them Heraclitus serves as a paradigm of obscurity. Against this foil, a strictly philosophical notion of clarity comes to be defined. ;Chapter One frames the topic by examining Lucretius' critique of Heraclitus in the first book of De Rerum Natura. In it I take Lucretius' condemnation of Heraclitus' obscura lingua as exemplifying the dominant conception of what philosophical language must be after Plato and Aristotle. (...)
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  24. The Fragments of Parmenides A critical text with introduction, translation, the ancient testimonia and a commentary A. H. Coxon Phronesis, suppl. vol. 3 Assen/Maastricht, The Netherlands; Wolfeboro, NH: Van Gorcum, 1986. Pp. viii, 277. $30.00 cloth. [REVIEW]Richard Bodéüs - 1988 - Dialogue 27 (3):563-565.
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  25. Parmenides Fragment 8. 4: a Correction.Thomas J. Reilly - 1976 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 58 (1):57.
  26. The Contemporary Pre-Socratics.Jean Brun - 1958 - Philosophy Today 2 (1):3.
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  27. FREEMAN, K. -Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. [REVIEW]A. H. Armstrong - 1949 - Mind 58:123.
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  28. The Search for Control: A Study of the Origins of the Thought of Empedocles and Heraclitus.Martin D. O'keefe - 1969 - Dissertation, Michigan State University
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  29. MOURELATOS, Alexander P. D.: The Route of Parmenides. [REVIEW]Peter Bicknell - 1971 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 49:226.
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  30. CLEVE, Felix M.-"The Giants of Pre-Sophistic Greek Philosophy". [REVIEW]A. R. Lacey - 1967 - Philosophy 42:287.
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  31. Pre-Socratic Use of Phyche As.Thomas Aquinas - 2016 - [National Capital Press].
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  32. Platon Heracliticul.Ion Banu - 1972 - București,: [Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România].
  33. The Fragments of Heracleitus the Greek Text with a New English Translation. Heraclitus - 1976 - Printed at the Guild Press.
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  34. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers a Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.Mary Fitt & Hermann Diels - 1962 - Blackwell.
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  35. Etudes Sur Parménide.Pierre Parmenides, Denis Aubenque, Jean O'brien & Frère - 1987
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  36. Fragments.T. M. Heraclitus & Robinson - 1987 - Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press.
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  37. Parmenides of Elea: Fragments : a Text and Translation with an Introduction.David Parmenides & Gallop - 1991 - University of Toronto Press.
    David Gallop provides a Greek text and a new facing-page translation of the extant fragments of Parmenides' philosophical poem. He also includes the first complete translation into English of the contexts in which the fragments have been transmitted to us, and of the ancient testimonia regarding Parmenides' life and thought. All of the fragments have been translated in full and are arranged in the order that has become canonical since the publication of the fifth edition of Diels-Rranz's Die Fragmente der (...)
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  38. Prospectus of a Course of Lectures, Historical and Biographical, on the Rise and Progress, the Changes and Fortunes, of Philosophy, From Thales and Pythagoras to the Present Times. --.Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1818 - S.N.
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  39. Ancilla to the pre-Socratic philosophers.Kathleen Freeman & Hermann Diels (eds.) - 1948 - Cambridge,: Harvard University Press.
    This book is a complete translation of the fragments of the pre-Socratic philosophers given in the fifth edition of Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.
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  40. Parménide: Le poème: fragments.Marcel Conche - 1996 - Paris: Presses Universitaires de France - PUF. Edited by Marcel Conche.
    Sous l'influence d'Anaximandre, Parménide radicalise la pensée d'Héraclite : comme tout ce qui est au monde, le monde lui-même est à la merci de la puissance universelle et annihilante du temps. Reste pourtant ce sur sur quoi le temps n'a aucune prise : non ce qu'il y a, mais le fait même qu'il y ait.
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  41. Notes et fragments: Iéna 1803-1806.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel & Catherine Colliot-thélène - 1991 - Editions Aubier.
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  42. Xenophanes: Fragments 1 and 2.Ed L. Miller - 1970 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2):143.
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  43. Parmenides, Fragment 10.P. J. Bicknell - 1968 - Hermes 96 (4):629-631.
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  44. Aristotle on Empedokles B 100.Nathaniel Booth - 1975 - Hermes 103 (3):373-375.
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  45. A Pseudo-fragment Of Zeno Stoicus.Jaap Mansfeld - 1980 - Hermes 108 (2):255-258.
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  46. New Readings of Three Heraclitean Fragments.Serge Mouraviev - 1973 - Hermes 101 (1):114-127.
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  47. Gli Eleati: Testimonianze e Frammenti. [REVIEW]D. S. M. - 1940 - Journal of Philosophy 37 (2):51-51.
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  48. Fragments in Philosophy and Science.F. C. French - 1903 - Philosophical Review 12 (4):471-474.
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  49. Parmenides of Elea: Fragments.David Gallop - 1987 - Philosophical Review 96 (3):464-466.
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  50. Heraclite d'Ephese.Maurice Solovine - 1932 - Philosophical Review 41:96.
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