Ralph Dumain: "The Autodidact Project": George Thomson: The First Philosophers: Contents & Prefaces

The First Philosophers:
Studies in Ancient Greek Society
(Contents & Prefaces)

by George Thomson

CONTENTS
		Page
	INTRODUCTION	13
PART ONE
THE TRIBAL WORLD
Chapter I. Speech and Thought
1.	Man and the Animals	21
2.	Hand and Brain	24
3.	Consciousness	26
4.	Co‑operation	33
5.	The Sentence	35
Chapter II. Tribal Cosmology
1.	Natural and Social Relations	42
2.	Magic and Myth	45
3.	The Tribal Order and the Natural Order	49
4.	Amerindian Cosmogonies	52
PART TWO
THE ORIENTAL DESPOTISM
Chapter III. China
1.	Greece and China	61
2.	The Great Society	63
3.	Natural Philosophy	68
Chapter IV. The Near East
1.	Agriculture	71
2.	The Egyptian Kingship	74
3.	The Mesopotamian Kingship	79
4.	The Babylonian New Year	86
5.	The Primeval Pair	89
6.	The Function of the Kingship	91
7.	The Hebrew Prophets	95
PART THREE
FROM BABYLON TO MILETOS
Chapter V. The Greek Calendar
1.	Syria and Crete	105
2.	The Egyptian and Mesopotamian Calendars	109
3 .	The Greek Calendar: its Ultimate Origin	111
4.	The Greek Calendar: its Immediate Origin	114
5.	Intercalation	117
6.	The Farmer's Almanac	125
7.	The Octennium and the Kingship	127
Chapter VI. The Kadmeioi
1.	The Origins of Greek Rhetoric	131
2.	The Thelidai	135
3.	Prehistoric Boeotia	137
Chapter VII. The Greek Theogony
1.	The Evidence	140
2.	The Birth of the Gods	141
3.	Strife between the Gods	143
4.	The King of the Gods	145
5.	The Hesiodic Cosmogony	148
6.	The Separation of Society and Nature	153
Chapter VIII. The Milesian School
1.	Ionian Cosmology	156
2.	Thales and Anaximander	158
3.	Anaximenes	164
4.	Burnet and Cornford	165
PART FOUR
THE NEW REPUBLICS
Chapter IX. The Economic Basis
1.	Commodity Production	175
2.	Basis and Superstructure in the Bronze Age	179
3.	The Phoenicians	181
4.	The Growth of Greek Trade	189
5.	The Coinage	194
6.	Slavery	196
7.	The Individual	205
Chapter X. The Democratic Revolution
1.	Ancient Democracy	208
2.	Oligarchy	210
3.	Tyranny	216
4.	The Revolution of Kleisthenes	223
Chapter XI. Democratic Ideology
1.	Social Justice	228
2.	Moira and Metron	231
3.	Orphism	234
4.	The Origin of Dualism	240
PART FIVE
PURE REASON
Chapter XII. Number
1.	The Pythagoreans of Kroton	249
2.	Pythagorean Religion	254
3.	Theory of Number	258
4.	The Mean	264
Chapter XIII. Becoming
1.	Herakleitos: his Political Posi	271
2.	Herakleitos: and the Mysteries	273
3.	The Logos	275
4.	Objective Dialectics	280
5.	Tragedy	282
Chapter XIV. Being
1.	The Eleatic School	288
2.	Parmenides and the Mysteries	289
3.	The One	291
4.	The Second Isaiah	295
5.	Parmenides and Herakleitos	297
6.	Ideology and Money	299
Chapter XV. Materialism and Idealism
1.	Philosophy and Science	302
2.	The Atomic Theory	308
3.	Subjective Dialectics	314
4.	The Battle of Gods and Giants	321
5.	The End of Natural Philosophy	328
Chapter XVI. False Consciousness
1.	Theory and Practice	336
2.	The Illusion of the Epoch	342
	BIBLIOGRAPHY	349
	GENERAL INDEX	357
MAPS
I.	Egypt	75
II.	Mesopotamia	81
III.	The Middle East	97
IV.	Syria and Palestine	99
V.	The Western Mediterranean	185
VI.	The Northern Aegean	199
VII.	The Southern Aegean	203
VIII.	Southern Greece	212
IX.	Attica and Boeotia	217
X.	Southern Italy and Sicily	250

PREFACE

THIS second volume follows the same plan as the first. It is a further expansion of Aeschylus and Athens, dealing with the growth of slavery and the origin of science.

I have not attempted a systematic study of slavery. That is a task for collective research based on all the material now available. It becomes increasingly clear that such a study will never be undertaken by bourgeois scholars, whose acquiescence in colonial oppression renders them incapable of understanding the degradation either of the slave or still more of the slave-owner. I hope, however, that enough has been said to show that Greek civilisation cannot be understood without it.

Nor have I investigated the technical origins of Greek science. That too is a matter for specialists. My aim has been to examine the ideas underlying the work of the natural philosophers, which forms a link between primitive thought and scientific knowledge. When studying the economic basis of tragedy, with the results given in Aeschylus and Athens, I realised that my conclusions must apply equally to other ideological products of ancient democracy. Accordingly, in the present volume, I have examined the part played by commodity production and the circulation of money in the growth of Greek philosophy.

In this I am greatly indebted to Dr. Alfred Sohn‑Rethel, whose study of Kant had led him independently to similar conclusions, to he published in his Intellectual and Manual Labour. Not only has he permitted me to read his book in manuscript, but in discussing my own he has helped me to appreciate the profound philosophical importance of the opening chapters of Capital.

The chapter on China is a tentative approach to a comparative study of Greek and Chinese philosophy, which I hope to pursue in the third volume. I had intended to say something also about Indian philosophy, but was deterred by the chronological difficulties of Indian history. It is to be expected that, with the spread of Marxism in India, these problems will be solved.

My thanks are due to Professor Benjamin Farrington and Mr. Maurice Cornforth for their criticisms, and also to my colleagues in the Department of Classical Philology at the Charles University, Prague, to whom, after participating with them in many long and lively discussions, I owe more than I can say.

Birmingham, January 1955 GEORGE THOMSON

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

THIS book has been widely discussed among Marxists, some of whom are not yet convinced of its main thesis, concerning the role of commodity production. Whatever the final conclusion may be on this and other disputed questions, the book has, I believe, drawn attention to the need for a less dogmatic, more dialectical approach to the history of philosophy.

In bourgeois circles, where new ideas are not so welcome, its influence has been less apparent. It seems that most university teachers either ignore it or (less prudently) denounce it; but this has not saved the library copies available to students from becoming dog‑eared. Moreover, in recent discussions on slavery some of the ideas put forward in Chapter IX have been reproduced, albeit without acknowledgement. The preceding volume has been treated in the same way, especially the chapters on Homer. I take this as a compliment.

This edition includes a number of additions and corrections, which have already been incorporated in the Czech, Russian, Spanish and German editions, but not the Japanese.

Birmingham, 1961 GEORGE THOMSON

SOURCE: Thomson, George. The First Philosophers: Studies in Ancient Greek Society. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1972. (First published 1955, 2nd ed. 1961, reprinted with corrections, 1972.) Contents, pp. 9-12; prefaces, pp. 7-8.

The First Philosophers: Studies in Ancient Greek Society: Chapter XIV: Being (§5 & 6) by George Thomson

The First Philosophers: Studies in Ancient Greek Society: Chapter XV: Materialism and Idealism by George Thomson

The First Philosophers: Studies in Ancient Greek Society: Chapter XVI: False Consciousness by George Thomson

Intellectual and Manual Labor: Contents by Alfred Sohn-Rethel

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CONTACT Ralph Dumain

Uploaded 29 June 2005