ABSTRACT
Heraclitus and Xenophanes are so-called ‘Presocratic’ philosophers, which simply means ‘before Socrates’. Is this any more than a convenient chronological label? ‘Hellenistic’ is a temporal adjective marking out more or less the historical period in the Greek world running from the establishment of kingdoms by the successors of Alexander the Great to the eventual conquest of the Greek domains by Rome (‘Hellenistic sculpture’, ‘Hellenistic literature’, ‘Hellenistic philosophy’); but ‘Presocratic’ claims to make a division that is intrinsic to philosophy, not borrowed from political periodisation. Why should one fix on Socrates as a boundary? And even if that choice is well-motivated, do those who come before him share anything in common beyond lacking whatever is reckoned uniquely Socratic?
