The Greek Philosophers Top Ten Booklist

The Greek Philosophers

Ancient Greek Philosophers living from the 6th century BCE until the demise of Plato's famed academy in 529 CE has a profound influence on Western though. What is amazing is how their influence was able to survive and influence societies even during a time of great religious and social transformations. Understanding why such philosophies had great impact is not easy but there are a good number of books that help make sense of how the philosophers developed their ideas, competed with each other and for students, and created institutions that we still try to replicate, to some extent, today. The following lists the top ten books on the ancient Greek philosophers. As usual, there is no particular order but the books are recent and have helped scholars and others to understand this key time in history and its transformative effects.

Top Ten Books

Blackson, Thomas A. 2011. Ancient Greek Philosophy from the Presocratics to the Hellenistic Philosophers. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. If you want a modern book and overview of this great age of Greek philosophers then this is your book. It begins with Presocratics, arguably the first great wave of thinker who begin the foundation of inquiry and what becomes scientific thinking, and ends with the final destruction of the Academy.

Cohen, S. Marc, Patricia Curd, and C. D. C. Reeve, eds. 2011. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle. 4th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. This work is considered the standard introductory book on Greek philosophers. If you want to know how the philosophers developed and some of the key thinks, including Plato and Aristotle, then this book explains a lot of this story and how the philosophers developed their schools in a time of great change in Greece.

Russell, Bertrand. 1996. History of Western Philosophy. Reprinted. Routledge Classics. London: Routledge. This is perhaps the best selling book on Western and Greek philosophy in the 20th century. It was reprinted time and time again. It helps to explain, using clear description, how Western philosophy developed, particularly influenced by the Greek philosophers.

Roochnik, David. 2004. Retrieving the Ancients: An Introduction to Greek Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. A good introduction into Greek philosophy and its development. The book is not highly detailed but focuses on explaining the key ideas and knowledge developed by the philosophers of Greece.

Miller, Patrick L. 2011. Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy. London ; New York: Continuum. The Greek philosophers treated God or the gods very differently. While Aristotle did not see their importance, others, like Plato, saw the central role of religion and the gods in our lives. This book is key to understanding these various ideas when it came to religion.

Sedley, D. N., ed. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philosophy. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. This book provides a survey approach for some of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, covering Pythagoras, one of the early philosophers, to Cicero, one of the important Roman thinkers and theorists in the 1st century BCE.

Graham, Daniel W., ed. 2010. The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. What is striking to those who study Greek Philosophy is how little of their works actually survived and often we have passed on testimonials rather than first hand writing to describe what the philosophies were. The Presocratics were the first set of important philosophers and their fragmentary writings are very important to reconstructing their early thoughts. This work presents the key fragments.