Reddit reviews Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary

Well, there are a lot of different ways to tackle philosophy. Here are two: you can approach it by topic or you can approach it historically. I prefer the topical approach, but it seems like you want a historical understanding, so I'll base my recommendation on that.

Also, the readings you choose can either be primary or secondary. Purists will tell you to stick with primary readings. I strongly disagree; especially for ancient philosophy. Secondary texts help in a number of ways: they provide social, cultural, and historical context; they can summarize vast quantities of scholarship; they can point out translation difficulties; they can indicate where a fragmentary record might be misleading; they can provide valuable comparisons and contrasts to contemporary background knowledge; and so on. Yes, they're biased, but most of my students get more out of a secondary text that has some bias than out of a primary text they can't understand. The value of secondary is especially great if you're studying on your own. I'll provide both primary and secondary recommendations and leave it up to you how to proceed.

As it's usually taught, the Presocratics are at the beginning of Western philosophy -- people like Thales, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides.

I like the presocratics, but I wouldn't blame you for skipping them and starting with Plato. There are a lot of dialogues, so you might want to be selective. Choose something from his early period: The Apology. Some dialogues from his middle period: The Meno and Phaedo. And something from his later period: The Republic. There are a lot of decent translations out there; however, avoid Jowett at all costs.

Now for Aristotle. There are a number of worthwhile works, but whatever else you do, you should read Nicomachean Ethics. Also, if you have time, read Topics, Physics, Metaphysics, and De Anima; however, I warn you that I don't think these works are as accessible as the Nicomachean Ethics. And since you're studying biology, so you might get a kick out or reading Parts of Animals.

For all of the above you could get one primary text, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, (Fourth Edition): from Thales to Aristotle. This is a great reader; it has selections from the presocratics and sophists, it has the Plato dialogues I recommended, it has several works from Aristotle too.

Let me also suggest some secondary texts. For the Presocratics I suggest something like Philosophy Before Socrates (Second Edition): An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. For Socrates I recommend Vlastos' Socratic Studies. For Aristotle I recommend two books: first, Ackrill's Aristotle the Philosopher; second, Urmson's Aristotle's Ethics.

Next up: the Hellenistic philosophers, which includes the Epicureans, Stoics, Academics, and Pyrrhonists. Long and Sedley's collection The Hellenistic Philosopher's, Volume 1 is very good. It has a well organized selection of primary readings with some commentary. But don't get volume 2 unless you speak Greek and Latin. For a secondary text, the Sedley and Long could be paired with Long's Hellenistic Philosophy.

For comprehensive collection of helpful secondary sources, you might want to try the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Aristotle was not one of the original philosophers; far from it in fact.

McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates is a really good source for the original thinkers that lay claim to the title philosophers, and contains their writings (what little has survived).

Been a while since I commented around these parts (reddit generally I think), but I figured I'd give a go at answering your question since I'm currently doing a seminar on the Presocratics. Hopefully something that follows will be of use to you.

First, we have to determine what you mean by "other Greek philosophers". Let's just say we're talking about the Presocratics, the Sophists (a controversial choice, I know), and Aristotle. How many of these people can be said to have lived their philosophy, by which I assume you mean that there is no sharp distinction between the theory and the practice of said philosophical system?

Well, we're not in a good position to say whether or not any of the Milesian or Ionian philosophers lived or did not live their philosophy, simply because of the sparsity of extant fragments. The farther back we go in time, the less we have, until finally we have no direct quotations from Thales at all (that are reliable, at any rate).

But even if we were to press on with the claim that none of the Presocratics/Sophists/Aristotle lived their philosophy, we'd be wrong. Pythagoras, for instance, clearly fits the description of someone who lived his philosophy (assuming the fragments we have are reliable). I doubt one could construct a religious cult around a philosophical system without some aspect of it being "lived". But even if we discount Pythagoras, we still have ethical accounts in Empedocles and Democritus. Empedocles supposedly jumped into a volcano because he had to test whether or not he was truly a god (an unfortunate result of his unique blend of religion and philosophy, but probably an unreliable story anyway). And Democritus had a rich ethical account that accompanied his epistemological and metaphysical theories (most of what we have fragment-wise are his fragments of ethics). Even if that doesn't convince you, one can still appeal to the Sophists, who did nothing except live according to their beliefs (though we're not in a very good position to evaluate whether or not they truly believed the things that are in the fragments for somewhat complicated reasons).

So, maybe it's something else? /u/Lanvc suggests that perhaps it's the fact that Socrates is the only Ancient Greek (barring Aristotle) to have a full account of all areas of what we might consider philosophy proper, i.e. metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. That's not true though. As far back as Xenophanes we have people who have philosophical fragments dealing with epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, though obviously in smaller quantities. /u/GWFKegel suggests it's just that Plato's dialogues survived while the fragments of the Presocratics did not. That's one way of distinguishing between Socrates and the Presocratics, albeit a philosophically uninteresting way (but obviously true).

Frankly, I'm not sure there is a helpful way of distinguishing Socrates from other Greek philosophers. Nietzsche in his lectures on the Presocratics here suggests that each Presocratic represents a particular and unique philosophical type, with Plato being the final philosophical type that we're familiar with, an individual who comes along and synthesizes the various philosophical types of those before him. Not sure whether that's a helpful way of making a distinction or not. I suppose it depends on whether or not you buy Nietzsche's account of Presocratic philosophy.

For myself, I'd say it's not really worth your time trying to draw a line around Socrates. It might simply be the case that there is nothing that makes him distinct in any meaningful way, and we only feel that there might be something because he's seen as the first real philosopher, or because we're all taught that he's very important. I'm not really sure.

As an afterthought, /u/confusedrone suggests you read Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. I wouldn't. It's a historical curiosity unless you're really interested in Greek thought. Even then, Diogenes Laertius isn't a reliable source because he isn't very careful about where he gets his information from. He just throws every story he picks up into one book and leaves the reader to sort through it. Instead, if you're interested in Presocratic thought, I'd read Richard McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates. McKirahan gives a pretty thorough account of Presocratic thought, and even devotes some space to the Sophists, which is nice. You can find it here if you're interested.

Hey, political science / philosophy majors of the DT, I have a question.

Suppose I wanted to take a bog-standard course in liberal political philosophy. Sure, I could read all the primary works: Hobbes, Locke, Mill, etc. But if I wanted to read a textbook, what textbook would I read?

For comparison, if I wanted to learn about pre-Socratic philosophy, I could read something like this. If I wanted to learn about modern philosophy (Descartes to Kant), I could read this.

If I wanted to learn about political philosophy, what would I read? Is it this book?

Bonus: what about moral philosophy and ethics? I could read Parfit and work backwards, but that is a bit too difficult to recommend to other people.