Socrates' ancestor
Socrates' Ancestor is a rich and poetic exploration of architectural beginnings and the dawn of Western philosophy in preclassical Greece. Drawing as much on the power of myth and metaphor as on philosophical, philological, and historical considerations, McEwen first reaches backward: from Socrates to the earliest written record of Western philosophy in the Anaximander B1 fragment, and its physical expression in Anaximander's built work -- a "cosmic model" that consisted of a celestial sphere, a map of the world, and the first Greek sun clock. The investigation then moves forward to a discussion of the polis and the first great peripteral temples that anchored the meaning of "city."