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Best resources to learnAncient Philosophy

Study sheet

This topic explores the foundational philosophical traditions of the ancient world, focusing on Greek and Roman thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. You will examine early inquiries into ethics, metaphysics, and politics.

Where to start

Start with Ancient Philosophy, the University of Pennsylvania's free Coursera survey taught by Susan Sauve Meyer, which pairs each thinker from the Presocratics to Plato with primary-text readings. If you only use one resource, make it Peter Adamson's free podcast History of Philosophy Without Gaps, which covers major and lesser-known figures in their historical context. Then read Kirk and Raven's The Presocratic Philosophers or Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

14 resources · · How we curate

📹Videos(1)

video

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave - Alex Gendler

An animated TED-Ed lesson written by Alex Gendler that walks through the cave allegory from Plato's Republic, explaining how its prisoners, shadows and ascent represent the difference between appearance and reality and the philosopher's duty to educate others.

beginner🇬🇧

🎓Courses(3)

course

Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics

What is philosophy? How does it differ from science, religion, and other modes of human discourse? This course traces the origins of philosophy in the Western tradition in the thinkers of Ancient Greece. We begin with the Presocratic natural philosophers who were active in Ionia in the 6th century BCE and are also credited with being the first scientists. Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximines made bold proposals about the ultimate constituents of reality, while Heraclitus insisted that there is an underlying order to the changing world. Parmenides of Elea formulated a powerful objection to all these proposals, while later Greek theorists (such as Anaxagoras and the atomist Democritus) attempted to answer that objection. In fifth-century Athens, Socrates insisted on the importance of the fundamental ethical question—“How shall I live?”—and his pupil, Plato, and Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, developed elaborate philosophical systems to explain the nature of reality, knowledge, and human happiness. After the death of Aristotle, in the Hellenistic period, Epicureans and Stoics developed and transformed that earlier tradition. We will study the major doctrines of all these thinkers. Part I will cover Plato and his predecessors. Part II will cover Aristotle and his successors.

intermediate🇬🇧
course

Ancient Philosophy

University of Pennsylvania survey tracing Greek thought from the Presocratics and Parmenides through Plato's dialogues on virtue, knowledge, justice, and the Forms. Susan Sauve Meyer's lectures pair each thinker with primary-text readings so you can argue from the sources.

beginner🇬🇧
course

Greek History: The Ancient World

Discover the literature and heroes of ancient Greece through the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey , the tragedies of Sophocles, the dialogues of Plato, and more.

intermediate🇬🇧

📚Books(6)

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bookPaid

Meditations

Private notebooks a Roman emperor wrote to himself on duty, mortality, anger, and self-control. Reading them gives a first-hand view of Stoic practice as applied ethics rather than theory, and a sense of how Stoics reasoned through daily difficulty.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

The Presocratic Philosophers

Kirk and Raven's critical history of Greek thought from Thales to the Atomists, built around roughly six hundred source fragments printed in Greek with facing English translation. Standard reference for reading the Presocratics in their own words.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle's treatise on virtue, habituation, friendship, and the good life, unabridged in an inexpensive Dover paperback. Reading it gives you the vocabulary behind most later ethical theory: virtue as a mean, practical wisdom, and eudaimonia as an activity.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

The Republic

Plato's dialogue building an ideal city in order to define justice, containing the theory of forms, the allegory of the cave, and the argument for philosopher-rulers. Working through it teaches how Socratic questioning constructs and tests a political theory.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

A History of Greek Philosophy

The fifth-century volume of Guthrie's history of Greek philosophy, issued separately: a close assessment of Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias and the shift from cosmology to human affairs. Dense scholarly prose that expects you already know the Presocratics.

intermediate🇬🇧
bookPaid

Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

Julia Annas introduces ancient philosophy thematically rather than chronologically, taking up happiness, reason, logic, and the self across Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans. Short, argumentative, and useful for deciding which ancient texts to read next.

intermediate🇬🇧

🌐Websites(3)

website

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Presocratics

Peer-reviewed encyclopedia article on the Presocratics, tracing Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, and the atomists. Readers come away understanding the arguments about change, being, and material origins that Plato and Aristotle later answered.

beginner🇬🇧
website

Perseus Digital Library

Tufts University's Perseus Digital Library, a long-running collection of Greek and Latin texts with translations, plus catalogued images of ancient art, coins, sculpture, and archaeological sites. Learners can study classical artworks alongside the primary sources describing them.

beginner🇬🇧
website

classics.mit.edu

MIT Classics hosts the Internet Classics Archive, a free collection of public-domain translations of ancient Greek and Roman texts. It provides full-text HTML editions of major philosophical and literary works, including Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

intermediate🇬🇧

🎙️Podcasts(1)

podcast

History of Philosophy Without Gaps

Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King’s College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, ”without any gaps.” The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition. www.historyofphilosophy.net. NOTE: iTunes shows only the most recent 300 episodes; subscribe on iTunes or go to a different platform for the whole series.

beginner🌐
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Frequently Asked Questions

Where should I start learning Ancient Philosophy?

Start with Ancient Philosophy, the University of Pennsylvania's free Coursera survey taught by Susan Sauve Meyer, which pairs each thinker from the Presocratics to Plato with primary-text readings. If you only use one resource, make it Peter Adamson's free podcast History of Philosophy Without Gaps, which covers major and lesser-known figures in their historical context. Then read Kirk and Raven's The Presocratic Philosophers or Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

What are the best free resources to learn Ancient Philosophy?

Dantes has curated 14 resources for Ancient Philosophy, including 1 videos, 6 books, 3 courses, 3 websites, 1 podcasts. All resources are hand-picked for quality — no algorithmic filler. Browse the full list above to find the format that works best for you.

Is Ancient Philosophy hard to learn?

Ancient Philosophy is approachable at the beginner level — there are resources here specifically for those starting from scratch. As you progress, intermediate and advanced material is also available to take your skills further.

What types of Ancient Philosophy learning resources are available on Dantes?

For Ancient Philosophy, Dantes has curated 1 videos, 6 books, 3 courses, 3 websites, 1 podcasts. Each resource type serves a different learning style: videos and YouTube for visual learners, books for depth, courses for structured progression, and websites for quick reference.

How does Dantes select Ancient Philosophy resources?

Dantes is an algorithm-free learning directory. Resources are hand-curated based on quality, accuracy, and usefulness — not engagement metrics or paid placements. The goal is to surface the best learning material for Ancient Philosophy, whether it's a free YouTube series, a classic textbook, or an open courseware from a top university.

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