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Angela Hobbs's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Angela Hobbs recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Angela Hobbs's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
Beginning with a revised introduction surveying the predecessors of the Presocratics, this new edition traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the early 6th century B.C. to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides and the physical theories of Anaxagoras and the Atomists of the fifth century. less
Recommended by Angela Hobbs, and 1 others.

Angela HobbsAn erudite tome which is the result of proper scholarship but not so dauntingly forbidding that you can’t get into it. (Source)

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2

Ecce Homo

In late 1888, only weeks before his final collapse into madness, Nietzsche (1844-1900) set out to compose his autobiography, and Ecce Homo remains one of the most intriguing yet bizarre examples of the genre ever written. In this extraordinary work Nietzsche traces his life, work and development as a philosopher, examines the heroes he has identified with, struggled against and then overcome - Schopenhauer, Wagner, Socrates, Christ - and predicts the cataclysmic impact of his 'forthcoming revelation of all values'. Both self-celebrating and self-mocking, penetrating and strange, Ecce Homo... more
Recommended by Angela Hobbs, and 1 others.

Angela HobbsNietzsche particularly loves Heraclitus. (Source)

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3

The Sophistic Movement

This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and... more
Recommended by Angela Hobbs, and 1 others.

Angela HobbsThis book really put the sophists on the map as serious and interesting thinkers, and not just as specious fraudsters. (Source)

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4

Early Greek Philosophy

This anthology presents the early sages of Western philosophy and science who paved the way for Plato and Aristotle and their successors. Democritus's atomic theory of matter, Zeno's dazzling "proofs" that motion is impossible, Pythagorean insights into mathematics, Heraclitus's haunting and enigmatic epigrams-all form part of a revolution in human thought that relied on reasoning, forged the first scientific vocabulary, and laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Jonathan Barnes has painstakingly brought together the surviving Presocratic fragments in their original contexts, utilizing... more
Recommended by Angela Hobbs, and 1 others.

Angela HobbsBarnes is a great expert on Presocratic philosophy. Early Greek Philosophy is a lively, clear, and sparkling introduction. (Source)

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5

Theaetetus

Set immediately prior to the trial and execution of Socrates in 399 BC, Theaetetus shows the great philosopher considering the nature of knowledge itself, in a debate with the geometrician Theodorus and his young follower Theaetetus. Their dialogue covers many questions, such as: is knowledge purely subjective, composed of the ever-changing flow of impressions we receive from the outside world? Is it better thought of as 'true belief'? Or is it, as many modern philosophers argue, 'justified true belief', in which the belief is supported by argument or evidence? With skill and eloquence,... more
Recommended by M M McCabe, Angela Hobbs, and 2 others.

M M McCabeThe great contemporary translation is by M J Levitt, with a magisterial introduction by Myles Burnyeat (Source)

Angela HobbsPlato’s Theaetetus asks what knowledge is, and several possible definitions are explored in depth. (Source)

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