The Pre-Socratic philosophers have made a comeback of sorts in the philosophy of quantum gravity. This book tells why they are important, still -- such as how they would view three dimensional space and relativity. Boltzmann's defense of atomism is in a chapter, anti-Parmenidean philosophy on modern physics is also present, and it's not all physics, the mind-body problem is also explored. Popper has some counter comments to the Kirk, Raven and Schofield book, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (which I also highly recommend). All in all the book is easy to read because it is set in very small chapters, each complete unto themselves -- some chapters have 80 notations and 50 references.

Still, the best part is how this era of thought fits into modern science.

Popper's philosophical view is captured in his summary of Aristotle. Popper credits Aristotle with the invention of logic, and for being a great biologist and scholar. But, "Aristotle was the first dogmatist..." "...[W]ith Aristotle's theory, that science is...certain knowledge, it may be said that the great enterprise of Greek critical rationalism came to an end." (5) And so Popper lovingly examines the great Pre-Socratic philosophers, Xenophanes, Heraclitus and Parmenides, as exemplars of critical rationalism, and makes them relevant to the 21st century.

"Beyond the Search for Invariants" is the centerpiece of this book, an absolutely brilliant 65-page essay tracing the influence of Parmenides on modern science. You may have heard the quote from Alfred North Whitehead -- "The medieval world was an age of faith based on reason, while the modern world is an age of reason based on faith." (Science and the Modern World, 1925) Popper makes a convincing case that the metaphysical assumption underpinning modern science is much older than Christianity. Heraclitus said "you can never step in the same river twice." His was a metaphysics of constant flux. Parmenides, on the other hand, logically deduced that the world is a motionless block! A motionless block universe. It sounds absurd, but what Popper shows is that this metaphysical assumption has influenced great minds ever since, giving rise to the view that the universe is closed, and entirely deterministic. Only recently, with Darwin and Einstein, has Laplacean determinism given way to an open, indeterministic universe. Popper summarizes the essay like this in his 1993 preface -- "It tries to show that Heraclitus (everything changes) and Parmenides (nothing changes) have been reconciled and combined in modern science, which looks for Parmenidean invariance within Heraclitean flux." (viii)

You might conclude that Popper is harshly judging Parmenides. On the contrary, he praises him as a great rationalist -- he simply disagrees with a powerful idea of Parmenides. There are 9 other essays here, and they are not all equally compelling, but the best are among the best of anything I've read in the philosophy of science!

PARMENNIDES GARCIA SALDAÑA (1944-1982), SEÑALADO EN SU MOMENTO COMO UNO DE LOS AUTORES MAS CONTROVERTIDOS, NACIO EN ORIZABA VERACRUZ. FUE UNO DE LOS PRIMEROS CRITICOS DE ROCK EN MEXICO Y EL UNICO DE SU GENERACION QUE ACEPTO SER ESCRITOR DE LA ONDA. pUBLICO PASTO VERDE ( NOVELA, 1968), EN LA RUTA DE LA ONDA ( ENSAYO,1974), MELODIA (POESIA , 1975) Y POSTUMAMENTE EL CALLEJON DE BLUES ( CUENTOS, 1992).MURIO EN 1982 DE UNA PULMONIA MAL CUIDAD.

I am not a classicist or a Plato scholar but with that proviso in place: I first read Prof. Sinaiko's text while finishing the PhD coursework for my doctorate in philosophy. Sinaiko's interpretation of the Cave Allegory opened my eyes to the depths of Plato's work in ways no other text has -- before or since. [Hadot's work on Socrates, greatly to be admired, is probably the closest thing I've seen in recent years.] Sinaiko's treatment of love and dialectic made whole swaths of Plato transparent to me for the first time. Much of it dovetails beautifully into notions of Socratic method as therapeutic and, for instance, Derrida's discussion of philosophy as pharmakon. Anyway, all of this created a lasting effect on my own appropriation of dialectical methodologies in areas as diverse as Hegel and environmental ethics. So, wahoo. Buy this book.

This is a new edition of the 1793 translation by Thomas Taylor, reset in modern typeface, with Taylor's extensive commentaries, (not included in the 55 Dialogs of 1804) plus Critias added. The original Greek has also been reset, and comprises a substantial portion of the footnotes, which are numerous. The appendix includes a complete listing of all of Taylor's works, which is most useful for students of Neo-Platonism. Being one of the Secret Doctrine Reference Series, the publisher has added a 15 page section of excerpts from the Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky, concerning Plato. These are quite interesting. The main text has Taylor's introduction preceeding each dialog, and is often necessary due to the abstruse nature of the dialogs. Certainly the Parmenides is one of the most challanging of all philosophical treatises, and is perhaps one reason why Plato continues to facinate us after 2,500 years. Taylor has been criticized by academics devoted to the literal Greek, but his translations are of far greater depth of understanding than say , Benjamin Jowett. If one is enamoured with the appeal to higher mind without the encumberance of dogmatic religion, then Platonic reasoning finds its ultimate expression in Taylor's translations, and this tome is certainly one of the best. There is a frontispiece with Taylor's portrait, attractive plates throughout, a fine binding with gold stamp and red lable spine, and heavy black morroco cloth. Limited to 1,000 numbered copies.

This is one of the best books by Proclus Diadochus and we are also lucky to have this excellent translation by G.R. Morrow and J.M. Dillon. If anybody is interested in the Neo-Platonic philosophy, or in the ancient philosophy, he should not miss this book. Even if it is rather difficult for a beginner to read long discourses of Proclus on the most important topics of the philosophy, noone should leave this book without careful reading. If you have read the Elements of Theology by Proclus, then you are able to understand everything Proclus is telling us. This book thinks about the most difficult dialogue of Plato - about the Parmenides. In the beginning you are connected with the amazing world of Proclus' allegorical interpretation of Plato's dialogue. Then you can study the world of Ideas as seen by Proclus - you can learn about four problems concerning the Ideas, i.e. whether there are Ideas; what things have Ideas; what is the participation like; and finally where are the Ideas. Proclus shows you all the levels of the realms of the One (Hen) and the Mind (Nous) and you can enjoy also the Proclus' dialectics in the end of the Commentary. The author also tells us a lot of Ideas about the negative theology tells in the last book. The translation is as well of the best value.

Guthrie covers all of the earlier Platonic dialogs in this volume, up to and including THE REPUBLIC. The next volume in the series (THE LATER PLATO AND THE ACADEMY) covers the rest. Each chapter covers one or two dialogs. Guthrie mentions work published by previous philosophers, and indicates where he agrees and disagrees. The book has a particular emphasis on the development of Plato's theory of the Forms and the influence of the Pythagoreans and Parmenides on Plato's thought. It's very reader-friendly yet packed with information. I can recommend both volumes to casual Plato fans.

This six-volume history of Greek philosophy, which Guthrie unfortunately left unfinished, is a monument of scholarship. His knowledge of Greek is staggering, his treatments are thorough, and he is generally careful to let you know where the facts leave off and interpretations begin. My one reservation is that he sometimes betrays more interest in historical minutiae than in philosophy; for instance, his treatment of Plato (vols. 4-5) attaches far too much importance to the order in which the dialogues were written (as if we could be really sure of that!). And there's no question that these books are expensive and meant only for the serious student. But if Greek philosophy is your passion, you can't overlook these volumes.

Heidegger conducts a brilliant tour of Parmenides' fragments, with boatloads of illuminating detours through nearly all of Greek philosophy and history, and much of Western history as well. His insights into the nature of Greek gods and myth, truth as "un-concealment" or "dis-closure", and the development of human thought are indispensable. At times, however, he takes undue liberties - his interpretation of aidos (shame) as "reverence" is particularly far from the mark. As always, the prose is dense, but worth slogging through.

The official title of this series of lectures is "Parmenides and Heraclitus". Although Heraclitus quickly slips out of the picture, and Heidegger often gets of the track of Parmenides as well, this book offers commanding vistas not only of the pre-Socratics, but also of the question of being, the nature of the Greek gods, and all of Western history. Heidegger's interpretation of truth as "un-concealment" or "dis-closure" is truly mind-opening. A caveat though: Heidegger often takes too many liberties with Greek terms; his explanation of aidos (shame or reverence), for instance, owes more to German peasant mystical Catholicism than to anything Greek.

The "Parmenides and Heraclitus" lecture course of 1942-3 is decisive for understanding the relationship between the Greek experience of truth as a-letheia and Heidegger's exposition of Being in Being and Time (the lecture on Plato's Sophist is equally important). This lecture course also helps to clarify Heidegger's relationship with Nietzsche and is essential for a confrontation with the Nietzsche lectures (sp. Heidegger's characterization of the will to power as the will to will). In addition, although Heidegger rarely mentions Hegel directly, this lecture course enters into an implicit dialogue with Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy. Heidegger's characterization of history as the "transformation of the essence of truth" is momentous. Incidentally, Liddell-Scott defines aidos as "moral feeling, reverence, awe, respect for the feeling or opinion of others or for one's own conscience, and so shame, self-respect." In fact in the detailed analysis it goes so far as to say "personified, Reverence, Pi.O.7.44," that is, it specifically defines the "aidos" mentioned by Heidegger in the 7th Olympian Ode as the personification of reverence. Undermining Heidegger's so-called linguistic analysis/exegesis on the basis of his affiliation with Nazism or Catholocism is a sign of the refusal to take Heidegger's comments to heart.

Well, if you don't mind a LOT of repetitions, some errors on the evaluation of ancient greek words (i am greek and i studied ancient greek for ages _at post-graduate level, too), a bit of harshness on Platonic philosophy and it's thereafter, some bitter remarks (''barbaric subordination of women'' in ancient Athens, p. 241; do you know what was the standard that time all around?) and some farfetching conclusions (the Athenians ''led the West think to believe it owes almost everything to them'' and ''...histories of the ancient world are still based on Athenian propaganda'', p.222), it could make a good read. The fact is that what burns Mr. Kingsley is the easiness with which he states things. But that is not a new thing to meet with some authors. I would expect more responsible statements, on a firm basis, and not so lighthearted: ''...people at Athens invented the fiction of a united Greece'' or ''Many greek centers of culture preferred to side with the Persians rather with the Athenians. They considered them more civilized.'' p. 222. Well..., not from a professor of Simon Fraser University ! If you read Isokrates' "Panegyrikos" (Thucydides, et.al., also) you will know more than that. Some Greeks really partied the Persians, but the issue was quite political and definitely not cultural (By the way, have you read Chrestos Lazos' books on ancient Greek technology?). As for the domination of the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, cf. Marsilio Ficcino and the Scholastics' interpretation of them as responsible to that. Anyway, the book is nice to read for it presents some (well, not so) unknown aspects of the Underworld ''drwmena'' in the ancient Greek world. If the author payed more attention to the Orphics and to the soothsaying in Homerus' epics, it would be better. Read it, but beware.

Until I read this book, I thought philosophy was boring. I thought that there was no way for me to really understand the ancient Greeks. It seems like everything that I learned about them in school was dusty and tired. Their mythology was no more than a bunch of immortal clowns constantly creating scandals and dragging mortals intio their own grudges. It's hard to find anything spiritual about tales of adultery and malice.

In this book I discovered that there is a lot lost in our narrow modern understanding of this mythology. Apollo is suddenly a dynamic character. He is the father of both science and mysticism. In his hands the two blend together as though they are one. He is also the representation of eternal youth and eternal life. I came away with a spiritual understanding and a much greater respect for the fore fathers of our medical practice and our society.

You need this book.

I've written thousands of reviews and all for pay, so this is a measure of my appreciation of Kingsley's book. Much of my reviewing was small press stuff, mystical or psychological preferred. I have shelves and boxes of books that I enjoyed and planned to re-read for a deeper understanding, but there they sit. Meanwhile I'm on my eighth re-reading of Wisdom and finding more each time. For me it compares to the challenging, roguish perplexities of Robert Graves' White Goddess. It opens a new room in my mind. And I agree with those who have the highest praise for Kingsley's writing style. I've made my living as a writer for 40 years and so studied popular styles - Kingsley is accessible yet intriguing. A clean, well-lighted room, yes, but with shape-shifters flitting through to tease you along. I can see why academics are shocked and appalled. Just great, can't recommend it enough. I found this book after 18 months of immersion in Idries Shah's brand of sufism, reading all of Shah and lots of related stuff, a hint at my attitude toward the academic. I'm not reading it for so-called facts but as a manual for real travel, as fuel, as a work that clicks with my intuition.

Coxon's project sounds modest: "a simple text with fuller critical apparatus, with epic parallels, a revised collection of testimonia, introduction, and commentary." In the event, Coxon's wide-ranging knowledge of early Greek poetry does more than just provide epic parallels. It makes his opinions on the numerous textual cruces more persuasive and his philosophical interpretation more sound. Throughout, he steers clear of the mysticism and allusive eclecticism that has plagued many other interpreters of Parmenides' poem. Coxon's Parmenides is a monument of scholarship, a work no lover of Presocratic thought can afford to ignore.

The biggest virtue of this book is that the author sees a major problem with the standard interpretation of Parmenides and his influence. Its biggest defect is that she ignores all the OTHER major problems with that interpretation.

The standard interpretation says that Parmenides was brilliant, he believed that only one thing existed, he had an enormous influence on his successors, and his philosophy received its first genuine refutation in Plato's Sophist. The problem that Professor Curd finds is that none of his successors ever produced any arguments against the second claim. They simply assumed that there was more than one thing, even though they seemed to accept other things that Parmenides had argued for. She then concludes that Parmenides did NOT believe that only one thing existed; instead, he believed that whatever exists can have only one nature. Yet, is it really likely that this is all that Parmenides believed? The author mentions the passage at Parmenides 128c-d where Zeno talked about how Parmenides had been ridiculed by others, but seems unconcerned by it, yet is it really likely that believing that everything has one nature would have elicited ridicule? Moreover, she seems unaware of the Commentary by Proclus, where he tells what these people said: "if being is one, then Parmenides and Zeno do not both exist at the same time" (619). Naturally, we don't know if Proclus was right about this, but Prof. Curd seems totally unaware of it. The reasonable conclusion is that Parmenides believed that only one thing existed. By going against this, Prof. Curd has taken us two steps backwards, even though she has taken us a step forward by pointing out a major flaw in the standard interpretation.

The big question for those who accept either the standard interpretation or Prof. Curd's revision of it is: Did Parmenides have an enormous influence on his successors? To see that he did not, it is sufficient to mention just a single name: Cratylus. Cratylus was a Heraclitean and paid no attention whatsoever to the strictures developed by Parmenides. People who accept the standard interpretation almost never say anything about Cratylus, for obvious reasons. Prof. Curd herself mentions him just once, in a footnote. But not talking about Cratylus will hardly make him go away.

In addition, here are just a few of the facts about the standard interpretation that I find troubling: Protagoras is said to have written a book refuting Parmenides, Plato hardly mentioned Parmenides in his early and middle periods, Aristotle did not record that Plato was influenced by Parmenides, Plato seems to have a refutation of Parmenides at Euthydemus 286a-d (which is long before the refutation in the Sophist), and finally, the movement begun by Parmenides DIED with Melissus. Why? Why would a viable and powerful philosophical movement just die?

I invite Prof. Curd or anyone else to give a convincing explanation of these points.