How they changed the world, and how they can change it again.
This is the best book on philosophy I have ever read, and I have four master’s degrees. —Philip van Heusen for Readers’ Favorite

For better or worse, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle engineered the Western mind.

Above all, they formed part of a movement that stood at the crossroads of mythological and scientific-rational thought, at the crossroads of mythos and logos. Although the path of logos had already been beaten by the pre-Socratics, and would be paved by the Stoics, it is they, the Gang of Three, who forced the carriage to turn.

This book sets out to do three things: trace the journey from mythos to logos; outline the lives and thought of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; and consider their legacy, and what can still be gained from them, especially in the universal fields of mental health and human flourishing.

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were not philosophers in the narrow sense that we understand today, but in the broader, historical, etymological sense of being lovers of wisdom. They knew logic and dialectic, but they also knew how to live, and how to die—and it is in this, perhaps, that their greater strength lies.

Anyone who loves philosophy, history, and the history of ideas will thoroughly enjoy reading Burton’s book. —The US Review of Books

Contents

Preface
Introduction

Part I: The Presocratics and Sophists

1. The Pre-Socratic Movement
2. The Milesian School: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes
3. The Second Pre-Socratic Phase: Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides
4. The Third Pre-Socratic Phase: Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus
5. The Sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias

Part II: Socrates

6. History of Athens up to the Time of Socrates
7. The Socratic Question
8. Socrates at First
9. Socrates on a Mission
10. Socrates at War
11. Socrates in Love
12. Socrates on Trial

Part III: Plato

13. Life and Works
14. Meno
15. Phaedo
16. Phaedrus
17. Republic
18. Theaetetus

Part IV: Aristotle

19. Life, Biology, and Works
20. Practical Sciences: Ethics and Politics
21. Organon: Logic and Dialectic
22. Productive Sciences: Rhetoric and Poetics
23. Theoretical Sciences: Physics and Metaphysics

The Gang of Three