With revised introductions, annotations, suggestions for further reading, and more, the second edition draws on the wealth of new scholarship published on these fascinating thinkers over the past decade or more, a remarkably rich period in Presocratic studies.

At the volume’s core, as ever, are the fragments themselves—but now in thoroughly revised and, in some cases, new translations by Richard D. McKirahan and Patricia Curd, among them those of the recently published Derveni Papyrus.

On the First Edition:

“One of the virtues of A Presocratics Reader is that students seeking to learn about Presocratic philosophy will be able to go directly to the primary materials without having to extract them from a surrounding commentary. The introductory essays place the philosophers in their historical setting, and identify the main interpretive questions, but let the philosophers speak for themselves. . . . A Presocratics Reader provides an excellent way into the study of Presocratic philosophy.”
—J. H. Lesher, University of Maryland

Patricia Curd is Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University.
Richard D. McKirahan is Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College.  less