Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentaries, 2nd ed., by Richard D. McKirahan

Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. 2nd ed. (Hackett, 2010), 494 pages.

This work contains the primary texts containing information about the presocratic philosophers, with introductory notes and commentary on the texts. He organizes the material by topic to attempt to present each thinker in an organized fashion. The beauty of this book, as opposed to other “readers,” is that McKirahan presents “most, and in many cases all, of the fragments of the philosophers discussed, as well as other important evidence on their thought” (ix). There are cases where he cannot do this, for example, Hesiod’s Theogony, which is too long for full inclusion. But to have nearly all the allusions to and testimonia of the presocratics collated in one book, along with a presocratic scholar to walk you through it, makes this the perfect book for your library.

This second edition is an update from the 1994 edition. The impetus was important newly discovered material from Empedocles, but he has made edits in almost every chapter, even changing some of his conclusions (xii).

Contents

The first chapter explains the most important sources for the presocratics, from Plato (427-347 BC) to Simplicius (6th century AD). He explains each author’s biases and how to carefully read and interpret the references to the presocratics. There are indeed problems with reading these allusions and testimonia naïvely, but he believes it is “reasonable to suppose that in some cases at least we can attain an approximation to what the philosopher actually thought” (6).

Each chapter covers either a specific philosopher or socio-political conditions in the time and location of those philosophers. His chapters contain helpful illustrations. So, for example, chapters cover Hesiod, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, etc. Other chapters interspersed at relevant junctures cover, for example, Miletus in the Sixth Century, which provides information relevant for understanding Thales and his successors, and early Greek moral thought and the fifth-century Sophists, which is required for understanding much of Plato’s writings.

The final chapter covers the Nomos-Phusis debate, covering the major players such as Antiphon, Callicles, Thrasymachus, and others. A chapter like this is perhaps the most helpful, since it brings in all the testimony of various pre-socratics on the topic, which would be hard to gather for oneself.

Evaluation

McKirahan has provided for philosophy students and those in other fields an indispensable work. This volume is comprehensive, includes primary texts in order to read the philosophers for oneself, and McKirahan’s commentary is excellent. For example, his commentary on Hesiod’s Theogany is helpful in many ways. He explains the main point of each section of Theogany (at least the sections he is able to include from this long poem), and he does well to contrast the worldview of the poem from other similar religious or cultural expressions, such as Enuma Elish (8).

His exegesis is concise, but meaty enough to give the reader a framework within which to understand the poem and its ideas. On page 12, he provides an image that represents the realm of heaven, Tartaros, ocean, earth, and the gates that supposedly allow for transport between the realms. Such a simple visual allows the reader a hook on which to hang the ideas of Theogany, an image apart from which the ideas might quickly fall into obscurity. The book is filled with such helpful diagrams and illustrations.

The most helpful aspect of this book is the inclusion of all fragments available for most writers. I had never studied Philolaus before reading chapter 18 of this book, but it becomes simple to do so when all the fragments of his writings are collated in two pages for you (352-353). McKirahan then provides a couple paragraphs on his life and writing, followed by thematic expositions of his fragments (nature of reality, cosmogony and cosmology, etc.).

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Relevance for Biblical Studies

Most of you are probably students and scholars of biblical studies or pastors. Why would you want this book? As you probably know, one major question in NT studies is how much of the surrounding culture influenced the writings of the NT authors. Paul is frequently compared with the Stoics. Hebrews is frequently charged with borrowing from Platonism. Aristotelian vocabulary and concepts are sometimes found in various places (e.g., μορφή in Phil 2:6). The Greek culture in which Christianity evolved was always exerting its ideas and worldview on its citizens. If we want to understand the NT in its cultural milieu, we need to understand the pre-Socratics, from whom all of Western philosophy took shape.

More than the cultural history, however, biblical students, pastors, and theologians must be conversant with philosophy. Much of Heidegger, for example, is a reshaping of Plato’s metaphysics, and we know how much Heidegger’s philosophy has influenced NT studies through the likes of Bultmann. Western ethical theory began in ancient Greece, as did speculation on being and knowing. Since we are so concerned with God’s being and how we can know the world around us, metaphysics and epistemology are fields in which we must at least be conversant.

If you’re starting philosophy from scratch, you may want to start with a book that will introduce you to the various realms of philosophy. For that, from a Christian perspective there may be no better book than Doing Philosophy As a Christian by Garrett DeWeese (which I’ve reviewed here). But while knowing the divisions of philosophy and various positions are important, one also needs a historical understanding of Western philosophy as it developed. For a comprehensive sweep of Western philosophy, I would recommend W. T. Jones’ History of Western Philosophy, but one could begin with a shorter history such as An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. But if you want to simply dive right in to the pre-socratics, you can pick up on the categories of debate within the divisions of philosophy intuitively, and there’s no better book for that than Philosophy Before Socrates.

Find it on Amazon here.

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