Archaeology and the Origins of Philosophy
Detailed study of how Anaximander's cosmological and philosophical conceptions were affected by architectural technologies.
Promoting a new way to study and illuminate early Greek philosophy, Archaeology and the Origins of Philosophy explores archaeological resources and art historical evidence to contribute to the ongoing debates concerning the origins of philosophy. Focusing on the philosopher Anaximander, Robert Hahn addresses the history of scholarship surrounding ancient philosophy, which has often overlooked archaeology, as he unearths the importance of both a historical and cultural context in the study of philosophy. Weaving together the significance of ancient building sites in ancient Greek culture to the empirical inspiration for Anaximander's cosmology, this distinctive and encompassing study reveals new possibilities for the origins of Greek philosophy.
Robert Hahn is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author of Anaximander and the Architects: The Contributions of Egyptian and Greek Architectural Technologies to the Origins of Greek Philosophy and the coauthor (with Dirk L. Couprie and Gerard Naddaf) of Anaximander in Context: New Studies in the Origins of Greek Philosophy, both also published by SUNY Press.