From the Origins to Socrates: A History of Ancient Philosophy

Storia della filosofia / Reale-Antiseri #1

by Giovanni Reale, John R. Catan (Translator)

Giovanni Reale is full Professor and holder of the Chair in History of Ancient Philosophy at the Catholic University of Milan. His The Systems of the Hellenistic A History of Ancient Philosophy, Volume III and The Concept of First Philosophy and the Unity of the Metaphysics of Aristotle , both edited and translated by John R. Catan, are also published by SUNY Press. John R. Catan is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York College at Brockport. He is the editor of The Collected Papers of Joseph Owens and Saint Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of The Collected Papers of Joseph Owens , both published by SUNY Press.

Genres: Philosophy, History

452 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Reale was born in Candia Lomellina, Pavia. He attended the Gymnasium and the Liceo classico of Casale Monferrato, and was then educated at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where he graduated. He later continued his studies in Marburg an der Lahn and Munich.
After a period of teaching in high schools, he won a professorship at the University of Parma, where he taught courses in moral philosophy and the history of philosophy. He then returned to the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, where he was professor of the history of ancient philosophy for many years, and where he also founded the Centro di Ricerche di Metafisica. In 2005 he moved to teach at the new faculty of philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan.

Reviews

[s. ostrowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

thats the real arché

[Aljoša Toplak · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find this rather poorly argumented ... What, am I supposed to simply believe the author that greece is the one and only birthplace of philosophical thinking? I would prefer arguments instead of his rants.

Also, the point of his 2000 page long dip into ancient philosophy is to show that philosophers used to disperse myths and so we should also disperse modern scientism? What an oddly liminting goal ...

And finally, for a book promising to not merely explain what ancient philosophers were saying but also why they were saying it, it does dissapoint quite a lot when it does indeed say close to nothing about the why.

But it does explain ancient philosophies well enough, maybe I just should've skipped the preface. Funnily enough, I've read G. Reale's whole 5-book collection back in 2016 as a philosophy freshman -- and remembered it to be way better than it seems to me now.

[Sophiophilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion, this is the best textbook (or one of the best) covering the period from the beginnings of Greek philosophy to Socrates. It strikes a good balance between source texts (in this case, fragments of source texts) and the author's descriptions. Overall, I enjoyed reading it. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the next volume...

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un testo semplicemente bellissimo