Socrates, his student Plato, and Plato's student Aristotle are often credited with founding Western philosophy. Nevertheless, even great thinkers do not emerge ex nihilo, but rather are born into an existing context and paradigm that the build from, respond to, and react against. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place looks at the Pre-Socratic philosophers and how their ideas created the ground from which Socrates' own thought emerged.
