All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

Greek ways of thinking -- Matter and form: (ionians and pythagoreans) -- The problem of motion: (Heraclitus, Parmenides and the pluralists) -- The reaction towards humanism: (the Sophists and Socrates) -- Plato (I): the doctrine of ideas -- Plato (II): ethical and theological answers to the sophists -- Aristotle (I): the aristotelian universe -- Aristotle (II): human beings.

W.K.C. Guthrie has written a survey of the great age of Greek philosophy - from Thales to Aristotle - which combines comprehensiveness with brevity. Without pre-supposing a knowledge of Greek or the Classics, he sets out to explain the ideas of Plato and Aristotle in the light of their predecessors rather than their successors, and to describe the characteristic features of the Greek way of thinking and outlook on the world. Thus The Greek Philosophers provides excellent background material for the (...) general reader - as well as providing a firm basis for specialist studies. (shrink)

This book is a general survey of the Greeks' extraordinarily rapid advance from a mythological to a rational view of the world and of man's origins and place in the universe. The continuity of this development and the influence of myth on philosophy are closely studied. There is also a constant assessment of the Greeks' approach to modern scientific and philosophical conceptions, including the Darwinian theory, but the affinity of our civilization to theirs is never overstressed.

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

Plato's views on the nature of the soul, by W.K.C. Guthrie.--Die Erneuerung der Philosophie in der Zeit Ciceros, von O. Gigon.--Gott und Seele im kaiserzeitlichen Denken, von W. Theiler.--Interprétations néo-platonisantes du livre VI de l'Énéide, par P. Courcelle.--Der Platonismus und die altchristliche Gedankenwelt, von J.H. Waszink.--Humanisme et christianisme chez Clément d'Alexandrie d'après le "Pédagogue," par H.I. Marrou.--Some aspects of Platonism in Islamic philosophy, by R. Walzer.