Reddit reviews The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (Oxford World's Classics)
We found 4 Reddit comments about The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (Oxford World's Classics). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Oxford University Press, USA
I would say 100 times yes, most people never read the Presocratics as their ideas are mentioned frequently by Plato and Aristotle (Zeno for example, is known primarily thru Aristotle), but the fragments they left us are too fascinating not to read imo, basically everything in metaphysics begins with them, especially Heraclitus and Parmenides. Nietzsche lectured on the Presocratics and wrote a (sadly, unfinished) book about them http://cnqzu.com/library/Philosophy/neoreaction/Friedrich%20Nietzsche/Friedrich_Nietzsche%20-%20Philosophy_in_the_Tragic_Age_of_the_Greeks_(tr._Marianne_Cowan_1996).pdf
As far as I know this is the best book on the Presocratics. Imo, Plato will be far more enjoyable after reading the Presocratics and sophists, here are the surviving Parmenides fragments. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy is a big help with understanding them, particularly with concepts that don't translate exactly into English.
If you want to discuss this intelligently you should start with an understanding of the actual scholarly position you're challenging instead of haphazardly constructing it out of incomplete shreds from some random man you talked to. Read this: The First Philosophers: the presocratics and the sophists. Then attempt to formulate what you mean to say.
The First Philosophers
For original texts this reader might be a good place to start. Oxford has a handbook out on presocratic philosophy. And this book by Waterfield seems like a good place to look as well. A nice place to start is almost always the SEP, the bibliography there would be a nice place to look