ABSTRACT
In the English-speaking world everybody who knows even a little about philosophy is familiar with the names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel and Mill. Someone who knows who these philosophers are and has some notion of what they stand for will in all likelihood be familiar with a host of others: Heraclitus, Parmenides and Epicurus, for example, to name just three from classical antiquity. On the other hand, unless one has done some serious reading in ancient philosophy, one is likely to be quite in the dark about Speusippus, Strato, Cleanthes, Damascius and quite a few others.
