The Beginning of Knowledge brings together almost all of Gadamer`s essays on the Presocratics. In each of the essays Gadamer discusses the origins of knowledge in the western philosophical tradition. Beginning with a hermeneutical and philological investigation of the Heraclitus fragments he moves on to a discussion of the Greek Atomists and the Presocratic cosmologists. In the final two essays he elaborates on the profound debt that modern science owes to the Greeks and shows how their works have shaped modern day physics, mathematics and medicine. The philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Anaximander, Heraclitus and Parmenides. This is a major work from one of the 20th century`s greatest thinkers.

Table of contents
Translator`s Preface

Author`s Preface

1. On the Tradition of Heraclitus

2. Hearaclitus Studies

3. Ancient Atomic Theory

4. Plato and Presocratic Cosmology

5. Greek Philosophy and Modern Thought

6. Natural Science and the Concept of Nature

Publication History

Index

Hans-Georg Gadamer was born on 11 February 1900 and died on 13 March 2002. He was the author, most notably, of Truth and Method, and, more recently, of The Beginning of Philosophy and The Beginning of Knowledge.