pre-Socratic

• præ-Socratic (archaic)

pre- +‎ Socratic

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: prē'sŏkrăʹtĭk, IPA^(key): /ˌpɹiːsɒˈkɹætɪk/

pre-Socratic (not comparable)

1. (historical) Existing in Ancient Greece before the flourishing of the philosopher Socrates (circa 469–399 BCE).

pre-Socratic (plural pre-Socratics)

1. (historical) Any of the pre-Socratic philosophers, viz. Thales (circa 624–546 BCE), Anaximander (circa 610–546 BCE), Anaximenes (circa 585–525 BCE), Pythagoras (circa 576–495 BCE), Xenophanes (circa 570–480 BCE), Heraclitus (circa 535–475 BCE), Parmenides (early-5^th century BCE), Anaxagoras (circa 500–428 BCE), Empedocles (circa 490–430 BCE), and Democritus (circa 460–370 BCE).
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 97:

     Hers is the philosophy that stood before the speculations of the presocratics; she is the "Holy Mother Church" which Descartes challenged when he cut the umbilical cord between philosophy and the Church and split reality into the res externa and the res cogitans.