Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker

Hermann Diels (1848–1922), professor of classics at Berlin, published this first edition of his authoritative collection of quotations from, and reports about, Presocratic philosophers in 1903. It was designed to enable students taking courses on the beginnings of Greek philosophy to engage with evidence that was fragmentary and unstandardised.

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Hermann Diels (1848–1922), professor of classics at Berlin, is chiefly remembered for this collection of quotations from, and reports about, Presocratic philosophers; his system of numbering was later adopted as the scholarly standard. This reissue reproduces the original, single-volume edition of 1903, though the book was revised and expanded three times during Diels' lifetime, and again after his death, and new fragments continue to be discovered. Designed as a reference tool to underpin university classes on the beginnings of Greek philosophy, the book sought to enable students to engage with original evidence. Diels aimed to provide a complete corpus of fragments rather than an arbitrary selection. He intentionally reproduced the texts exactly rather than standardising the language, in order to provide a foundation for future research. While admitting he found the material obscure at times, Diels provided German translations to help make the content more accessible to his readers.