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This History of Ancient Philosophy Reader was developed as an Open Textbook (OER, Open Educational Resource) for use in a lower-level Philosophy course at Golden West College (a California Community College). It contains all of the important works with some background biographical information from Thales, through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to some of the Hellenistic thinkers (see below for the full content). All of the works contain licenses that allow this work to be used and distributed freely and openly and may be printed (even for commercial purposes). Please contact the editor for comments, feedback, or suggestions. This work is effectively an anthology of free translations of the most important works of Ancient Western Philosophy. It meets accessibility requirements as well. The Table of Contents is listed below:

UNIT ONE: THE START OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND THE PRE-SOCRATICS     1. Introduction to Philosophy and the Ship of Theseus     2. Greek Language, Religion, and Thales (the start of it all!)     3. Anaxagoras (Fragments)     4. Heraclitus (Fragments)     5. Parmenides and Zeno’s Paradoxes     6. Pythagoras     UNIT TWO: SOCRATES AND PLATO     7. Introduction to Plato and Socrates (Gorgias)     8. The Socratic Method and the Role of Philosophy (Apology and Allegory of the Cave)   9. The Nature of Things (Euthyphro)     10. Philosophy and Relativism (Theaetetus)     11. Methods of Analysis (Meno)     12. The Forms (Phaedo and Parmenides)     13. Metaphysics and Epistemology (The Republic, Book VII)     14. The Forms (The Republic, Book VI)     UNIT THREE: ARISTOTLE     15. The Role of Philosophy (Categories)     16. Aristotle’s Naturalism (Physics)     17. Aristotle’s Essentialism (Topics; Categories)     18. The Four Causes (Physics; Parts of Animals)     19. Aristotle’s Categories (Categories; De Interpretatione)     20. Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Metaphysics)     21. Aristotle's Ethics (Nicomachean Ethics)     UNIT FOUR: POST-SOCRATICS AND HELLENISTIC THOUGHT     22. Pyrrhonism     23. Epicurus     24. Epictetus     25. Philo of Alexandria     26. Clement of Alexandria     UNIT FIVE: OTHER PARTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD AND PARALLELS TO THE WEST     27. Laozi (Tao Te Ching)     28. Confucius (Analects)     29. Hinduism (Bhagavad-Gita)     30. Buddhism (Lankavatara Sutra)   

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