The origin and role of Pre‑socratic philosophic text : Aletheia and Askesis

Recent scholarship has re-introduced the proposition that ancient philosophy’s primary purpose was to serve as ‘spiritual exercise’. This perspective has produced important new insights into key texts and philosophers, from Plato through Late Antiquity. Somewhat surprisingly, however, this understanding has been applied only marginally to philosophic texts composed prior to Plato, despite the fact that this body of texts constitutes arguably the wellspring of Western philosophy. These texts continue to be interpreted mostly as fractious speculations on cosmology and other proto-scientific issues, or as early forms of rationalistic argument about philosophic topics.
This thesis examines several of the key so-called Pre-Socratic texts to assess whether a hypothesis might be sustained that at least some of these, too, were intended as assistants to, or artefacts of, ‘spiritual exercise’. It undertakes a close philological reading of the key fragments, seeking evidence that a practical spiritual purpose is present in the text, as well as any evidence that might invalidate such a hypothesis. It then explores differences in interpretation of these texts that might flow from reconsideration of their original purpose.