Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy

by Daniel W. Graham

Explaining the Cosmos is a major reinterpretation of Greek scientific thought before Socrates. Focusing on the scientific tradition of philosophy, Daniel Graham argues that Presocratic philosophy is not a mere patchwork of different schools and styles of thought. Rather, there is a discernible and unified Ionian tradition that dominates Presocratic debates. Graham rejects the common interpretation of the early Ionians as "material monists" and also the view of the later Ionians as desperately trying to save scientific philosophy from Parmenides' criticisms.


In Graham's view, Parmenides plays a constructive role in shaping the scientific debates of the fifth century BC. Accordingly, the history of Presocratic philosophy can be seen not as a series of dialectical failures, but rather as a series of theoretical advances that led to empirical discoveries. Indeed, the Ionian tradition can be seen as the origin of the scientific conception of the world that we still hold today.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published July 17, 2006

Reviews

[Sanjay Prabhakar · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books so well argued it's a bit difficult to recall exactly what one thought about the topic before reading it.

[Dawson Escott · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as my presocratic reading project goes, this is definitely the best full book so far. Graham focuses pretty tightly on the early Greek development of cosmology, theories of the physical structure of the world. Even though from time to time he slips into articulating systems in a very formal logic way, the book as a whole uses pretty accessible language and has an appealingly broad scope across thinkers and centuries. The language and tone was actually so accessible that I was at times confused who the audience for this book was, because while he seems to want to capture a more general reader, the book really is about him dismantling or revolutionizing the classical approach to Presocratic interpretation, and he often addresses previous writers' theories directly, almost presupposing some familiarity on the part of the reader. It's both general in tone and really academically specific in content.

As far as his interpretation of these thinkers goes, it's convincing and appealing, especially since he places every writer into a dialectic where they are aware of and responding lucidly to each others work in an overarching narrative that makes sense. I'm not sure how well it holds up and how all of the writers whose opinions he wished to overthrow responded to this book, but it seems to reframe old opinions in a pretty radical way (e.g. interpreting the pluralists as followers of Parmenides rather than challengers). My only instinctual criticism is that maybe some of the tenets he used in his interpretation seek to make things make a little too much sense-- Not every early philosopher's system necessarily has to make total sense, which Graham presupposes. These guys were hashing out a totally new way of viewing the world, I would expect things to not be airtight. I also don't think that every philosopher necessarily HAD to be in conversation with each other and it could be fallacious to assume that- we don't know what each writer had access to.

I liked the approach that Graham took as far as writing style and swinging big. But the focus on cosmology made the book a little less interesting just for me personally, as I'm also interested in the development of ethics, epistemology, ontology, etc. from these writers, although I understand that's out of the scope of what Graham wanted to discuss. Still overall a pretty great primer text on these early philosophers in general.