Doxography Tradition of Ancient Greek Philosophers (with Reference to Hermann Diel's View)

In the sixth century BC, pre-Socratic philosophers introduced different research methods in the realms of science and philosophy, wrote the first scientific treatises, and presented the basic concepts in the process of deduction. However, we do not have access to any of their independent works except for some extracts which have been quoted in the works of post-Socratic scholars. Nevertheless, this method lacks the required efficiency in understanding and evaluating the words of pre-Socratic scientists at all times. Hermann Alexander Diels presented a new method of doxography in his book of Doxographi Graeci (Greek Doxographers). He returned the tradition of doxography to the one adopted in a book by Theophrastus, who was a student of Aristotle. Diels’ method was criticized by later scientists, such as Mansfield. Based on his critique, the effects of Sufists’ ideas, Aristotle’s theory of edited collections and books of principles, tradition of genealogy writing, and commentators’ glosses on the formation of doxographical texts have not been much appreciated in Diels’ method.