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2019, The Chronology of the Early Greek Natural Philosophers
This book is the first complete collection and analysis of ancient testimony relating to the chronology of the early Greek natural philosophers, astronomers, and geometers who were active before Aristotle. New estimates are given for the dates of thirty-nine different individuals, ranging from Thales to Eudoxus; these include substantial downdatings of the lives of the two Milesian philosophers Anaximander and Anaximenes and significant revisions to the chronology of Pythagoras. It also demonstrates how errors and variants crept into the late chronographical tradition as changes from one dating format to another led to the loss of contextual information.
in: The Presocratics from the Latin Middle Ages to Hermann Diels, Akten der 9. Tagung der Karl und Gertrud Abel-Stiftung vom 5.-7. Oktober 2006 in München, Herausgegeben von Oliver Primavesi u. Katharina Luchner, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart.
IONIAN PHILOSOPHY AND ITALIC PHILOSOPHY: FROM DIOGENES LAERTIUS TO DIELS2011 •
This paper traces the history of a particular cliché of scholarship on the Presocratic philosophers which has persisted from ancient commentators until the present day, and in whose development Hermann Diels work constitutes an important stage. This cliché concerns the division of early Greek philosophy into an Ionian tradition founded by Thales and an Italic one founded by Pythagoras – although a tripartite division is also often found, in texts in which the Eleatic lineage is also given a certain importance and autonomy. I examine in detail how this model, which was originally inspired simply by considerations regarding the different places in which the traditions ß ourished, developed in various phases of ancient and modern philosophy along with reß ections on the distinct theoretical characteristics of the different traditions and on their relations to Plato, whose philosophical system has generally been seen as a synthesis of them. However, even in its simplest, geographical form the
Aristeas. Philologia classica et historia antiqua
Lebedev _ The origins of Greek thought. Review of M. Sassi, 'Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece'2021 •
This is a full text of the review of M. Sassi's monograph 'The beginnings of philosophy in Greece' (2018), a very brief exposition of which has been published previously in Classical Review. While passing a generally favorable verdict on the value of Sassi''s contribution to the study of this much-debated topic, the author also criticizes somewhat excessive 'pluralism' of 'beginnings' admitted by Sassi, by emphasizing the fundamental and leading role of the two main 'beginnings', represented by the Ionian Peri physeos historia, a detached scientific study of nature (physis), on the one hand, and the Italian (Pythagorean and Eleatic) 'search for wisdom' (philosophy as a way of life), primarily centered on psyche and setting life-building and educational goals. By engaging in a dialogue with Sassi, the author takes opportunity to expose his own views on the origin of Greek philosophy and science that disagree with much of what one can read in modern histories of ancient philosophy about Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoreans, Alcmaeon and other Pre-Platonic thinkers. This disagreement results not so much from the invention of new interpretations, as from the rejection of the 19th - 20th centuries hypercritical approach to the sources of Preplatonic philosophy, as well as from the rejection of the false category of 'Presocrastics' together with the ill-founded doxographical theory of Diels, and a return to the ancient tradition combined with respect to the opinion of the ancient readers of the lost Preplatonic works: the study of 'hermeneutical isoglosses' and reliance on the consensus of independent ancient readers who possessed the complete texts of the lost Pre-Platonic works. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae provides a powerful tool for this research, unknown to previous generations of scholars.
Logos and Mythos: Philosophical Essays on Greek Literature (ed. W. Wians), Albany: SUNY Press, 99-131
Allegory and the Origins of Philosophy2009 •
The birth of philosophy is generally identified with the rejection of mythopoiesis and the adoption of rational explanations in terms of causality (e.g., Cornford, Guthrie, Vernant, Burkert, West, Curd, Laks, Long), whence the popular expression from muthos to logos or from myth to reason. Much has been written on this famous transition, which many once considered as a “miracle.” However, there is little on how the proponents of myth responded. They fought back with mutho-logia, that is, with a logos about myth. This “rational” approach invoked the same logos that is generally associated with philosophia. In fact, philosophia and muthologia are at times so intimately connected that, until the Enlightenment period, it is often difficult to distinguish between them. This is due to the “spell” of myth, particularly Greek/Homeric myth, or to be more precise, because of the allegorical interpretation of Homeric myth. In this essay, I examine the origins and development of this unremarked —albeit remarkable—“story.” I want to show to what degree the pre-Platoic project of philosophy was at time overshadowed by the allegorical approach to myth. Given the importance of allegoresis, that is, allegorizing as a conscious interpretative mode, it is most surprising that histories of ancient philosophy rarely mention the notion in the development of early Greek philosophy. The seeds of my later work on reflective self-consciousness and the origins of philosophy are already found here.
This is the original English text of the essay "La naissance de la philosophie" in Histoire de la philosophie edited by Jean-Francois Pradeau, Editions du Seuil 2009.
This book belongs to a series of books that collect the homework quizzes of my lectures given at the National Taipei University, the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and Chung-Yuan Christian University of Taiwan. The history of science contains a broad range of knowledge and a wealth of lessons, stories, and anecdotes. However, unlike the college General Physics and General Astronomy, this field lacks comprehensive and updated textbooks and test banks. This series of books aim to cover quizzes in history, philosophy, general astronomy, general physics, general chemistry, and other fields of sciences. The contents refer to several online tests such as the Fun Trivia Quizzes. The solutions will not be released in the first edition. Students should try to read the abundant online information to solve the questions. I hope that these quizzes can benefit the teaching and learning of history and science.
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2006 •
The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World. Oxford, 2018, 171-194.
Early Mathematics and AstronomyIndo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology
Parmenides, ΑΝΗΡ ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΕΙΟΣ. Monistic Idealism (Mentalism) in Archaic Greek Metaphysics [abstract and table of contents p. 535].2017 •
Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía, monográfico «Presocráticos»
Revisiting the Religion of the Early Greek Philosophers, and Socrates' Contribution to the Controversy2019 •
Oxford Handbook of Ancient Biography
Diogenes Laertius and Philosophical Lives2020 •
Philosophy in the Contemporary World
No Goddess Was Your Mother: Western Philosophy's Abandonment of its Multicultural Matrix1995 •
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Thales - the 'first philosopher'? A troubled chapter in the historiography of philosophy2022 •
Philosophy Study
Diogenes Laërtius: A Moderate Skeptic in the History of Philosophy (Book IX) * The Singular Book IX of "The Lives"2021 •
2019 •
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010, 25-39.
The Transmission of Ancient Wisdom. Texts, Libraries, DoxographiesJournal of the History of the Neurosciences
Alcmaeon of Croton's Observations on Health, Brain, Mind, and Soul2012 •
Cambridge University Press
Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology: A Study of Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides2017 •
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Review of Early Greek Philosophy, 9 vol., edd André Laks and Glenn W. Most, 2016 & Les débuts de la philosophie, ibid., Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, October 2018.2018 •
Myth, ritual and literature
The Aegean origin and early history of the Greek doctrines of reincarnation and immortality of the soul: Epimenides, Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Onomacritus' Orphica.2021 •
Indo-European linguistics and classical philology
Idealism (Mentalism) in Early Greek Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Xenophanes and others. With some remarks on the "Gigantomachia over being" in Plato's Sophistes (2019).2019 •
Journal of Juristic Papyrology (Supplement vol.)
Slim Pickings or Russian Dolls? Presocratic Fragments in Peripatetics after Aristotle2017 •