PREFACE xi
ABBREVIATIONS AND BRIEF REFERENCES xv
Chapter 1: The Ionian Program 1
1.1 Anaximander's Project 4
1.2 Anaximander's Project as a Scientific Program 14
1.3 Toward an Understanding of the Ionian Tradition 18
Chapter 2: Anaximander's Principles 28
2.1 Out of the Boundless 28
2.2 Powers in Conflict 34
2.3 Elements and Powers 39
Chapter 3: Anaximenes' Theory of Change 45
3.1 The Theory of Change 45
3.2 Material Monism 48
3.3 Problems with Material Monism 50
3.4 Anaximenes and the Generating Substance Theory 67
3.5 Anaximenes' Achievement 82
Chapter 4: The Generating Substance Theory as an Explanatory Hypothesis 85
4.1 GST Formalized 85
4.2 A Compromise View? 88
4.3 GST as a Paradigm of Explanation 91
4.4 Advantages of GST 98
4.5 Disadvantages of GST 106
Chapter 5: Heraclitus's Criticism of Ionian Philosophy 113
5.1 Extreme Interpretations 113
5.2 Barnes's Argument for Heraclitus-F 118
5.3 The Unity of Opposites 122
5.4 The Flux Thesis 129
5.5 Heraclitus and GST 137
Chapter 6: Parmenides' Criticism of Ionian Philosophy 148
6.1 Parmenides' Response to Heraclitus 148
6.2 Parmenides' Criticism 155
6.3 Properties of What-Is 162
6.4 Deceptive Cosmology 169
6.5 Parmenides' Scientific Discovery 179
6.6 Parmenides' Response to GST 182
Chapter 7: Anaxagoras and Empedocles: Eleatic Pluralists 186
7.1 The Standard Interpretation 186
7.2 Questions about the Standard Intepretation 188
7.3 The Elemental Substance Theory 195
7.4 Parmenides and Origins of the Elemental Substance Theory 201
7.5 Two Theories of Elements 208
7.6 Empirical Advances 220
Chapter 8: The Elemental Substance Theory as an Explanatory Hypothesis 224
8.1 EST Formalized 224
8.2 EST and Eleatic Theory 227
8.3 EST with and without Emergence 229
8.4 Advantages of EST 233
8.5 Disadvantages of EST 241
Chapter 9: The Atomist Reform 250
9.1 The Challenge 250
9.2 Foundational Arguments 256
9.3 Atomism and EST 269
9.4 Birth of the Cosmos 271
Chapter 10: Diogenes of Apollonia and Material Monism 277
10.1 Diogenes in Modern Accounts 277
10.2 Diogenes in a New Light 279
10.3 Diogenes in Historical Context 284
10.4 A New Theory of Matter 290
Chapter 11: The Ionian Legacy 294
11.1 Paradigms of Explanation 294
11.2 Explanatory Progress 298
11.3 The Primacy of Ionian Research 302
REFERENCES 309
INDEX LOCORUM 327
GENERAL INDEX 337

Explaining the Cosmos is a major reinterpretation of Greek scientific thought before Socrates. Focusing on the scientific tradition of philosophy, Daniel Graham argues that Presocratic philosophy is not a mere patchwork of different schools and styles of thought. Rather, there is a discernible and unified Ionian tradition that dominates Presocratic debates. Graham rejects the common interpretation of the early Ionians as "material monists" and also the view of the later Ionians as desperately trying to save scientific philosophy from Parmenides' criticisms.
In Graham's view, Parmenides plays a constructive role in shaping the scientific debates of the fifth century BC. Accordingly, the history of Presocratic philosophy can be seen not as a series of dialectical failures, but rather as a series of theoretical advances that led to empirical discoveries. Indeed, the Ionian tradition can be seen as the origin of the scientific conception of the world that we still hold today.

Daniel W. Graham is A. O. Smoot Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University. He is the author of Aristotle's Two Systems; editor of the two-volume collected papers of Gregory Vlastos, Studies in Greek Philosophy (Princeton); and translator of and commentator on Aristotle: Physics, Book VIII. He is a member of the editorial boards of Apeiron and History of Philosophy Quarterly.