Synopsis
Edited with New Translation by Richard McKirahan
With a New Preface by Malcolm Schofield
This book is a revised and expanded version of A.H. Coxon's full critical edition of the extant remains of Parmenides of Elea—the fifth-century B.C. philosopher by many considered "one of the greatest and most astonishing thinkers of all times." (Karl Popper) Coxon's presentation of the complete ancient evidence for Parmenides and his comprehensive examination of the fragments, unsurpassed to this day, have proven invaluable to our understanding of the Eleatic since the book's first publication in 1986. This edition, edited by Richard McKirahan and with a new preface by Malcolm Schofield, is released on the 100th anniversary of Coxon's birth.
This new edition for the first time includes English translations of the testimonia and of any Ancient Greek throughout the book, as well as an English/Greek glossary by Richard McKirahan, and revisions by the late author himself. The text consists of Coxon's collations of the relevant folios of manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus, Proclus and Simplicius and includes all extant fragments, a commentary, the testimonia, a complete list of sources, linguistic parallels from both earlier and later authors, and the fullest critical apparatus that has appeared since Diels’ Poetarum Philosophorum Fragmenta (1901). The collection of testimonia includes the philosophical discussions of Parmenides by Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, most of which had been omitted by Diels. The introduction discusses the history of the text, the language and form of the poem, Parmenides’ use and understanding of the verb ‘to be’, his place in the history of earlier and later philosophy and the biographical tradition. In the commentary Coxon deals in detail with both the language and the subject matter of the poem and pays full attention to Parmenides’ account of the physical world. The appendix relates later Eleatic arguments to those of Parmenides.
About the Author
Allan H. Coxon (22 November 1909 - 27 October 2001) Born in Derby, England, Allan Hartley Coxon was educated first at Derby Grammar School and then at Oriel College Oxford under Sir David Ross. He went on to study in Germany with Julius Stenzel and then Austria with Heinrich Gomperz before being appointed to Edinburgh University in 1933. A keen mountain photographer as a boy, Coxon had taken a lively interest in world politics, joining the new League of Nations at the age of 14. Except for a wartime break in Naval Intelligence he taught at Edinburgh, first as Senior Lecturer in Greek and then in Ancient Philosophy, where he took over the then one-man department from D. J. Allen in 1958. Coxon was a much respected teacher, and in 1964 was promoted to Reader. In 1980 he retired at the age of 70 and within five years completed the present work, a definitive study of perhaps the most challenging of Presocratic thinkers, Parmenides of Elea. His second book, The Philosophy of Forms: an analytical and historical commentary on Plato's Parmenides, was published in 1999, and stands as an eloquent testimony that his mental vigour remained undiminished to the end of his life. In addition to his scholarly achievements, Coxon was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable art collector. He is survived by his wife, Carolyn, three children, John, Edmund, and Alice, and four grandchildren.
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