(Goodreads me deixando na mão, apagou o que havia escrito). Enfim, acompanhei pelo podcast em https://historyofphilosophy.net/series/classical-greek-philosophy . É divertido e simples, bom de acompanhar fazendo outras pequenas tarefas, e vai dos pré-socráticos aos seguidores imediatos de Aristóteles, ficando um bom tempo neste e em Platão, como era de se esperar, em 51 episódios de mais ou menos 25 minutos. As entrevistas aprofundam um pouco, mas infelizmente sofrem em termos de qualidade de áudio. É legal como um complemento que ajuda a localizar um pouco mais as correntes filosóficas (é uma empreitada em vários volumes). ( )

Classical Philosophy is the first book in Peter Adamson’s series “A History of Philosophy without any Gaps”. The aim of this series is, unsurprisingly, to tell the history of philosophy without any gaps; that is, without passing over less well known traditions, authors or works. This alone makes it a valuable addition to the existing histories of philosophy, since even a professional philosopher like myself will find much that is unfamiliar or completely unknown. The continuous story made possible by Adamson’s approach makes it much easier to understand how humanity’s ideas have actually evolved – something that is hard to grasp when one jumps from Aristotle to Augustine with little discussion of what came in between.

In some ways, this first volume is the least representative of the series, since its focus is squarely on authors that do form part of the standard histories of philosophy. It is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the Presocratics from Thales to Empdocles, while also paying some attention to the medical writings of Hippocrates and the ideas of the sophists. The second part is about Socrates and especially Plato; while the third part tackles Aristotle. The book ends with a chapter on early women philosophers and a chapter on the immediate followers of Plato and Aristotle.

Although most of the attention goes to the Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle, the without-any-gaps approach is still in evidence. Adamson tackles Plato and Aristotle by discussing many of their individual works, and he picks up a generous amount of them. For instance, the discussion of Plato doesn’t stop with the usual suspects like the Republic and the Symposium, but extends to less famous dialogues like the Gorgias, the Sophist, the Cratylus and even the Charmides and Euthydemus. The part about Aristotle ranges widely over the logic, the biology, the physics, the metaphysics, the ethics and even works like On the soul and the Politics. Anyone but a specialist will discover much that is new.

Of course, none of this would be worth much if the quality of the work were poor. In fact, it is superb. Adamson manages to be at the same time accessible and authoritative, funny and engaged in serious philosophy. He is excellent at conveying the main ideas of the works he discusses, while also touching on contemporary issues of interpretation. It is no mean feat to write a text that is useful both to the general reader with an interest in philosophy and to the professional academic philosopher, but I have not hesitation in saying that Adamson pulls it off.

Nevertheless, the book does have a weakness. It is based very closely on a series of podcasts by the same title; and because of this background, it consists entirely of approximately 7-page chapters that mostly focus on a single work and are thus relatively self-contained. For a podcast, this is the perfect format; I love the podcast without any reservations and would award it 5 stars. But for a book, this format makes less sense, since it makes it harder to keep a general overview of a philosophical system and almost impossible to discuss issues that can only be understood by linking up ideas from multiple works. Thus, the book doesn’t take full advantage of what the book format has to offer. It is still very good; but it fully comes into its own only as a companion piece to the podcast, allowing one to reread the material one has previously heard and benefit from references in the footnotes. ( )

I suppose you wouldn't even know this book existed unless you were the kind of person who hangs out in the philosophy section of the bookstore (which I do). And "the history of philosophy" may sound impressive to the point of being off-putting, and the book is from Oxford University Press, which adds to the whole why-would-you-read-this-unless-it-was-assigned-in-class feeling. Well, it's a lot more readable—and enjoyable—than that sounds. It's based on a series of podcasts, so it's written in a casual style, almost conversational. Each chapter is fairly short and self-contained, probably because of its podcast ancestry. But Adamson does an excellent job of linking each chapter to earlier ones so that you get the sense that this really is a continual, gap-less history.

Okay, minor quibble here: I would have liked a pronunciation guide for the unfamiliar Greek names that pepper this book. I'm not that familiar with this period in philosophic history beyond the big names of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and a pronunciation guide—obviously not needed with the original podcasts!—and maybe a short list of the lesser-known philosophers would have been helpful. But overall, I'd highly recommend this as a readable introduction to early philosophy, at least for readers who'd be interested in philosophy in the first place. ( )

Makes the history of philosophy a living discipline. An imaginative way of presenting these ideas so as to appeal to aspiring specialists and lay persons. The examples Adamson uses to explain complex ideas are both amusing and informative. Can't wait for the next book in the series. ( )