This coursebook addresses key presocratics from Heraclitus to the
sophists, who stand at the origin of philosophy as cornerstone of
European spirituality. Readers might find that already at this point we
encounter timeless and actual questions concerning the human condition
in the world, limits of our knowledge, or the problem of adequate
articulation of reality. Later thinkers did not philosophised from
scratch, but criticised or were inspired by their predecessors. The
coursebook thus provides an introduction to presocratic thought as an
important field of our spiritual history.