
Classical philosophy
by Peter Adamson · first published 2014
3mentions
1recommended by
2HN commenters
2022–2023first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Peter Adamson aims ultimately to present a complete history of philosophy, more thoroughly but also more enjoyably than ever before. He offers an accessible, humorous, and detailed look at the emergence of philosophy with the Presocratics, the probing questions of Socrates, and the first full flowering of philosophy with the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle. The story is told 'without any gaps', discussing not only such major figures but also less commonly discussed topics like the Hippocratic Corpus, the Platonic Academy, and the role of women in ancient philosophy. Within th
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

I'm in the slow process of reading through Peter Adamson's A History of Western Philosophy without any gaps. Going through his Classical Philosophy volume, he contextualizes how the philosophers were responding to each other and developed their ideas from each other and their society, and gives easy, simple examples to illustrate these ideas. I could…
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗…other hand, Adamson is primarily trying to interpret these authors and speculate and relate how they might have arrived at the conclusions they might have arrived at. I've not read Adamson beyond the Classical Philosophy volume, so I hope that the quality remains just as good.
on “Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in?” ↗…<https://historyofphilosophy.net/thales> That particular episode was first released in January, 2010, over 13 years ago... And Adamson's own book covering the presocratics (along with other classic philosophy & philosophers) is Classical Philosophy (2014): <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/classical-philosophy...>
on “The Presocratic Philosophers [pdf]” ↗