This monograph by S. (an English translation of the Italian original published in 2009) consists of an introduction and five chapters: (1) ‘Thales, Father of Philosophy?’, (2) ‘Philosophy in the Cosmogonies’, (3) ‘Writing Experiments’, (4) ‘Adventures of the Soul’ and (5) ‘Voices of Authority’.
Chapter 1, ‘Thales, Father of Philosophy?’, focuses on the problem of the ‘beginning’ or origin of Greek philosophy, which has been the subject of innumerable publications and heated debates, primarily concerned with the relationship between rational thought (logos) and mythopoetic tradition, as well as with the problem of supposed oriental sources of early Greek philosophy and science. The central question raised by S. is ‘whether philosophy was born as an autonomous exercise of critical reasoning bursting into an arena governed by religious and mythical wisdom, or whether this very wisdom was its deeper and more propelling source’ (p. 6). While expressing ‘respect and admiration’ for the work of W. Burkert and F.M. Cornford, S. acknowledges the limitations of the ‘anthropological’ approach. In the section ‘Back to Aristotle’ (p. 19) she returns to Aristotle's view and argues that ‘the search for the arche started by Thales and continued by other Ionians represents a truly new contribution to the understanding of the nature of things’ (p. xv). This conclusion is generally sound, but one should beware of attributing to Thales Aristotle's own term ἀρχή inextricably linked with the problem of first principles in the Academy. It is not attested before Philolaus in the late fifth century (44B6 DK) and by its origin is a term of Western speculative metaphysics. The authentic Ionian term was φύσις, not ἀρχή. Anaximander speaks of φύσις ἄπειρος, while Democritus uses φύσις as a collective term for atoms (B168).
Chapter 2, ‘Philosophy in the Cosmogonies’, is a comparative study of Hesiod's and Anaximander's accounts of the origin of the world followed by a discussion of ‘mixed’ theologoi like Pherecydes. Despite the correct general recognition of the dividing line between mythopoetic and naturalistic cosmogonies, S. shows inconsistency in admitting that ‘the apeiron is indebted to Hesiod's chaos’ (incidentally, τὸ ἄπειρον is an Aristotelian term, see Lebedev, VDI 1 [1978], 39–54). However, unlike the ‘Infinite nature’ of Anaximander, Chaos is a chasm, not a material substance; Hesiod does not derive Earth and Eros from Chaos, he only says that they came into being after Chaos (ἔπειτα). As regards the emergence of naturalistic cosmogonies, S. attaches too much weight to J.-P. Vernant's model of historical transition from the mythical to philosophical cosmogonies as a shift from a hierarchical ‘sovereignty’ model to egalitarian isonomia: (p. 48). There is something mysterious in the sociology of knowledge of Vernant's school: it leaves unexplained how exactly the ‘forms of thought’ ‘emanate’ from the ‘forms of society’. In the conclusions of The Origins Greek Thought (1982, p. 130) Vernant asserts that ‘the Milesian school did not witness the birth of Reason’, but ‘an early form of rationality …’ that was ‘rooted in the political thought’. This conclusion, shared by S., is flawed. Vernant was misguided by the Platonising reconstruction of Anaximander's cosmology in C. Kahn's monograph (1960) as well as by the denial of the well-attested authenticity of the infinite Universe with innumerable worlds, which are nowadays rightly recognised genuine by many scholars. From which political model could such a type of cosmology ‘emanate’?
Chapter 3, ‘Writing Experiments’, addresses the topic of the impact of writing on the process of genesis of critical thought with reference to the work of the anthropologists J.R. Goody and I. Watt. This might be supplemented by the impact of alphabet on analytical thought and the alphabet analogy in Heraclitus (see Lebedev in E. Fantino [ed.], Heraklit im Kontext [2017], pp. 231–67).
Next S. turns to the topic of the way in which Greek philosophers communicated with their audiences, selecting as case studies Anaximander, Xenophanes and Heraclitus. In the section on Anaximander (pp. 81–93) a hypothesis is advanced of the possible influence of legislative prose on the language of fragment B1. This hypothesis is plausible, but W. Jaeger's fanciful suggestion of a ‘scene in courtroom’ with personified Chronos as a judge passing verdicts, quoted by S. with approval on p. 86, should be rejected. The consensus of independent paraphrases of this fragment in doxography leaves no doubt that χρόνου is an objective genitive and that χρόνου τάξις is equivalent to χρόνος τεταγμένος. Fragment B1 is the first formulation of the law of conservation of matter (ex nihilo nihil fit) based on the analogy from borrowing and repaying a debt at a prefixed term (see Lebedev in N. Kazansky [ed.], Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology 24 [2020], 860–62).
Chapter 4, ‘Adventures of the Soul’, deals with Pre-Platonic theories of the soul (ψυχή), relying on a developmental model ‘From Breath to the Self’. S. rightly emphasises the pivotal role of Pythagoras and Heraclitus in this transformation. More questionable is G. Betegh's distinction of two models of interrelation between individual soul and cosmos that S. adopts: the ‘portion model’ (which Betegh ascribes to Anaximenes and Heraclitus) and the ‘journey model’. This division does not work in all cases: in Heraclitus individual souls are portions (μοῖρα in Sextus’ exposition) of the cosmic psyche, but they also travel between heaven and earth in a kind of lampadedromia (Lebedev, ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑ 17–18 [1987], 233–57). More logical would be a fundamental division of all Greek concepts of the soul into two types, naturalistic and spiritualist or mentalist. In the first type the soul as a rule is corporeal and mortal, in the second incorporeal and immortal. The first is typical for all Ionians, the second for the Western Greek tradition originating from Pythagoras and continued by Plato.
Chapter 5, ‘Voices of Authority’, focuses on the comparative study of the ways in which philosophical poetry and philosophical prose appeal to ‘authority’ that provides warranty of the truth of the narrative or doctrine. The section ‘Farewell to Muse’ (pp. 142ff.) contrasts the ‘pessimistic’ assessment of the human condition in the juxtaposition of ‘divine and human knowledge’ in archaic poets, exemplified by Semonides, fr. 1, with the more ‘optimistic’ evaluation of human cognitive ability in philosophers, exemplified by Alcmaeon B1, Xenophanes B34 and Heraclitus B40. The contrast indicated by S. seems to be true in some cases, but not in all. The two giants of archaic Greek speculative philosophy, Heraclitus and Parmenides, remain firmly in the grips of the ‘pessimistic’ archaic antithesis between superior divine and inferior human knowledge: ‘human nature lacks insights, but the divine has them’ (Heraclitus B72). The translation of τεκμαίρεσθαι as ‘judge by conjecture’ in Alcmaeon is incorrect: both in this text and in early Greek science in general this is a term for valid empirical inference from evidential ‘proofs’, τεκμήρια (see Lebedev in C. Vassallo [ed.], Physiologia [2017], pp. 227–57).
It is hard to understand why S., while correctly insisting on looking at early philosophers ‘at their places’, i.e. in their local sociocultural context, is sceptical about the validity of the important ancient distinction of two early local traditions, the Ionian and the Italian (p. 168). Despite some artificial affiliations this division is not a late cliché invented by Diogenes Laertius: it was known to Aristotle, who contrasts the Ionian physikoi with ’Ιταλικοί, Pythagoreans and Eleatics, in Metaphysics. It is alluded to by Plato in Sophist 246a in the context of a philosophical ‘Gigantomachia over being’ (‘Ionian Muses’ vs ‘Sicilian Muses’). The two traditions were also known to the author of Dissoi logoi (Chapter 6) c. 400 bc: ‘Anaxagoreioi, i.e. Ionians, and Pythagoreioi’, i.e. Italians.
S.'s volume reveals extensive erudition and knowledge of the literature of the problem, including research from allied disciplines. Anyone interested in the issue of the origin of Greek philosophy will read it with interest and benefit. Speaking of its shortcomings, one may point out to the occasional blurring of the dividing line between philosophy and myth, philosophy and poetry, religion and science. Another methodological shortcoming is the absence of a clear-cut typology of philosophical theories, for example of two conflicting metaphysical paradigms: Ionian naturalistic monism versus Italian mentalism and substance dualism. One should pay attention not only to geographical ‘places’, but also to intellectual ‘homes’ and traditions: Anaxagoras’ philosophy was essentially a continuation in Athens of the Milesian περὶ φύσεως ἱστορία, while Plato's theory of two worlds, the intelligible and the sensible, was an Athenian version of the Eleatic dualist metaphysics. Despite these shortcomings, S.'s volume retains its value as a problem-raising and thought-provoking work.
