The writings of the eminent French scholar and philosopher André Laks have long turned on a double axis: the study of ancient and especially Presocratic thought, and reflection on modern interpretations of the ancients. In The Concept of Presocratic Philosophy, first published in French in 2006 as Introduction à la “philosophie présocratique,” he has bottled the intense distillate of decades of work in both areas.
Holding the thinkers we are pleased to call “the Presocratics” at arm’s length Laks asks, “What is a ‘Presocratic’ philosopher, anyway?” The question quickly ramifies: “Where does the term, ‘Presocratic’, come from, and what does it mean?” “In what sense were the thinkers so called philosophers?” “What might the history of this concept—‘Presocratic Philosophy’—tell us about our own condition as philosophers considering our discipline’s past?” In short, Laks is not here interested in the philosophy of the thinkers before Socrates per se, but...
