The Presocratics in Context

Abstract

book is intended be the starting-point from which new work on the will derive impetus and inspiration (p.vii). It stands ... as the beginning of a new programme of reading and interpretation of the Presocratics (p.13). It pretends to justify a new method of approach the reading of the Presocratics (p. 183).1 Audacious claims, iconoclastic and ambitious. The title is itself something of a boast. The argument is uncompromising. There is a swashbuckling vigour of thought, and a willingness an eagerness address folly by its proper name. And is there really room for a new approach the Presocratics? Can we really set about rethinking early Greek philosophy? Humph, the sceptical reader will mutter, such pretensions can only puff themselves into falsehoods or else deflate into familiar truths. Not so, not so. The boast is firmly grounded, the audacity a proper pride. This is be blunt the best book on the I have seen for years. I am minded rank it alongside Reinhardt's Parmenides and is there higher praise? Dr Osborne says some new things. She says some true things. She says some interesting things. She says some important things. And therefore for most of this review I shall growl and grumble.2