Available soon from Archaeopress

Nick -- I'm holding off on purchasing, but I really enjoyed the excerpts online! There was a lot new, thought-provoking stuff in there. I'm not familiar with pre-Socratic philosophy (now I'm very curious!), but as someone with a background in sociology, it's always interesting to see how arguments with historical materialism / (neo) Marxian epistemology play out in other fields.

I didn't know about Seaford, but I can see how he might be very seductive to numismatists -- and to anyone favorably disposed toward Marx. Wouldn't it be really neat, though, if the beginning of all philosophy -- or how about all abstract thought, why not? -- really was caused by the invention of coinage?

For some reason that theory makes me think of Julian Jaynes. Maybe the combination of grandiosity with the "how cool would it be" factor followed by the "oh, wait..." reaction a moment later!

 

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Glad you find the topic interesting. Obviously I disagree with the Marxians’ ultimate position but there are some things Seaford and I do agree on. Hopefully he is gentle with his review!

 

Yeah, it does sound very interesting (I probably sounded more dismissive than I meant to!), I've got Seaford on my next-to-read list. Your intro makes clear that his work is important & about an important moment in the history of thought.

 

Just curious, would you be allowed to charge money for emailing the PDF? Or, are authors themselves even restricted by copyright laws in the interest of publishers?

I checked out the details page and was a bit confused by this tidbit:

"most importantly, reintegrates beauty and love as philosophy’s ultimate source"

Not sure what "source" means here. But if the core of philosophy is a search for fundamental truths, then wouldn't emotions (love) and neural responses to visual stimuli (beauty) be among the first things to be eliminated from the analysis?

 

You can order the eBook from the publisher for about 16GBP I think.

You’re other question is a bit more complex—not love as an emotion. Love and beauty in the Platonic sense such as we see in the Phaedrus, if you’re familiar with that work.

 

I managed to trudge my way through Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" about 5 years ago, as I figured it'd be a good way to get exposure to an overview of the subject. That's all the reading that I've done on the topic though, as the rest of my exposure has been YouTube videos and podcasts. It almost sounds like a self-deprecating joke to make about oneself, but in truth, a lot of knowledge can be gained by passively listening to that stuff while playing video games!

I'll look into the Platonic sense of love and beauty. Don't want to jump the gun, but I'm guessing that I'll land on the opinion that they should have been called something else just to avoid confusion.

 

Good luck!