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.

With an new foreword by James Warren Long renowned as one of the clearest and best introductions to ancient Greek philosophy for non-specialists, W.K.C Guthrie's The Greek Philosophers offers us a brilliant insight into the hidden foundations of Greek philosophy - foundations that underpin Western thought today. Guthrie explores the great age of Greek Philosophy - from Thales to Aristotle - whilst combining comprehensiveness with brevity. He unpacks the ideas and arguments of Plato and Aristotle in the light of their predecessors rather than their successors and describes the characteristic features of the Greek way of thinking, emphasising what he calls the 'cultural soil' of their ideas. He also highlights the achievements of thinkers such as Pythagoras, who in contemporary accounts of Greek philosophy are frequently overlooked. Combining philosophical insight and historical sensitivity, The Greek Philosophers offers newcomers a brilliant introduction to the greatest thinkers in ancient Greek philosophy and the very origins of Western thought.

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.

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.

With this book, Professor Guthrie completed his six-volume A History of Greek Philosophy in the course of which he surveyed the whole field of Greek philosophy from the Presocratics to Aristotle. The History has won acclaim for the author's ability to take on a vast and challenging subject and to produce an account of it remarkable for its combination of learning with clarity of exposition. This is a book for students of classics and Greek philosophy, and indeed for anyone interested in reading a clear account of Aristotle's thought.

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.

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.

The third volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought, entitled The Fifth-Century Enlightenment, deals in two parts with the Sophists and Socrates, the key figures in the dramatic and fundamental shift of philosophical interest from the physical universe to man. Each of the two parts is available as a paperback with the text, bibliography and indexes amended where necessary so that each part is self-contained. Socrates dominated the controversies of this period, as he has dominated the subsequent history of western philosophy. He was the first to identify and grapple with some of the most intractable and persistent logical and philosophical problems; but he was also and has remained a highly controversial figure because of his extraordinary personal qualities and his remarkable career. Professor Guthrie offers a balanced and comprehensive picture of the man, his life, and his thought.

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.

A famous highly praised work is considered definitive by many scholars of classical philosophy. Socrates and the Sophists, which comprise Vol. 3 of the History, are available as two separate paperbacks, with text, bibliographies and indices amended so that each is self-contained.

With this book, Professor Guthrie completed his six-volume A History of Greek Philosophy in the course of which he surveyed the whole field of Greek philosophy from the Presocratics to Aristotle. The History has won acclaim for the author's ability to take on a vast and challenging subject and to produce an account of it remarkable for its combination of learning with clarity of exposition. This is a book for students of classics and Greek philosophy, and indeed for anyone interested in reading a clear account of Aristotle's thought.

A famous highly praised work is considered definitive by many scholars of classical philosophy. Socrates and the Sophists, which comprise Vol. 3 of the History, are available as two separate paperbacks, with text, bibliographies and indices amended so that each is self-contained.

The third volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought, entitled The Fifth-Century Enlightenment, deals in two parts with the Sophists and Socrates, the key figures in the dramatic and fundamental shift of philosophical interest from the physical universe to man. Each of these parts is now available as a paperback with the text, bibliography and indexes amended where necessary so that each part is self-contained. The Sophists assesses the contribution of individuals like Protagoras, Gorgias and Hippias to the extraordinary intellectual and moral fermant in fifth-century Athens. They questioned the bases of morality, religion and organized society itself and the nature of knowledge and language; they initiated a whole series of important and continuing debates, and they provoked Socrates and Plato to a major restatement and defence of traditional values.

With an new foreword by James Warren Long renowned as one of the clearest and best introductions to ancient Greek philosophy for non-specialists, W.K.C Guthrie's The Greek Philosophers offers us a brilliant insight into the hidden foundations of Greek philosophy - foundations that underpin Western thought today. Guthrie explores the great age of Greek Philosophy - from Thales to Aristotle - whilst combining comprehensiveness with brevity. He unpacks the ideas and arguments of Plato and Aristotle in the light of their predecessors rather than their successors and describes the characteristic features of the Greek way of thinking, emphasising what he calls the 'cultural soil' of their ideas. He also highlights the achievements of thinkers such as Pythagoras, who in contemporary accounts of Greek philosophy are frequently overlooked. Combining philosophical insight and historical sensitivity, The Greek Philosophers offers newcomers a brilliant introduction to the greatest thinkers in ancient Greek philosophy and the very origins of Western thought.

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367 47); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias s relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343 2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip s death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of Peripatetics ), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander s death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows: I. Practical: "Nicomachean Ethics"; "Great Ethics" ("Magna Moralia"); "Eudemian Ethics"; "Politics"; "Oeconomica" (on the good of the family); "Virtues and Vices."

II. Logical: "Categories"; "On Interpretation"; "Analytics" ("Prior" and "Posterior"); "On Sophistical Refutations"; "Topica."

III. Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc.

IV. "Metaphysics" on being as being.

V. On Art: "Art of Rhetoric" and "Poetics."

VI. Other works including the "Athenian Constitution"; more works also of doubtful authorship.

VII. Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics. The Loeb Classical Library(r) edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

This is a 1950 collection of eight essays about Plato and the Presocratic philosophers who were F. M. Cornford's particular interest in the field of Greek thought. In the essay that gives the collection its title Cornford develops the two complementary themes which run through much of his writing: the effects of individual style and human character which must be reckoned with in reconstructing a philosopher's system from fragments or interpreting a complete philosophic work; and the influence of abstract schemes of conception which the philosopher assumes within his cultural tradition. These themes recur in essays discussing Pythagoras, Hesiod and Plato. Cornford's enthusiasm for his subject will communicate itself to any reader. In the memoir of Cornford which accompanies the essays Professor W. K. C. Guthrie describes the Hellenic qualities of Cornford's writing: 'the living symmetry of form, the grace and delicacy of the details, the humour, irony and occasional fantasy enlivening a fundamentally serious theme'.

The primary aim of this book is to serve as a kind of religious companion to the Greek classics. It does not so much set out to interest specialists as to be useful to those who enjoy Greek literature, whether original or in translation, and have made the inevitable discovery that almost every branch of it is permeated by religion.