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2 - Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

A. A. Long
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Summary

DOXOGRAPHI GRAECI

Because the works of the early Greek philosophers have been lost, our knowledge of their content is entirely dependent either on sparse verbatim quotations (though less sparse than for instance those relating to the early Stoics) or on various forms of reportage in all sorts of ancient authors. It has thus become customary to begin books of this kind with a critical review of our sources of information.

What is at stake is the reliability of these sources. The ideal of an objective history of philosophy is a nineteenth-century invention. In antiquity history of philosophy was part of systematic philosophy, serving a variety of purposes. The ideas of earlier philosophers were used and interpreted in many ways, and, more often than not, served merely as springboards. This holds not only for the attitude of major thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle but also for the far humbler works consisting of collections of doctrines, with or without some biographical detail, that circulated on a fairly extensive scale. Such works were used, it would seem, in the context of a primary education in philosophy and also as quarries to be exploited whenever someone writing about a philosophical issue felt he should set off his own view against those of others, to improve upon an already existing view or to replace it with another.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

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  • Sources
  • Edited by A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521441226.002
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  • Sources
  • Edited by A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521441226.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Sources
  • Edited by A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
  • Online publication: 28 May 2006
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521441226.002
Available formats
×