Hermann Alexander Diels
| Hermann Alexander Diels | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | May 18, 1848 Wiesbaden-Biebrich |
| Died | June 4, 1922 (aged 74) Berlin-Dahlem |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Classics |
| Institutions | University of Berlin |
| Alma mater | University of Bonn |
| Doctoral advisor | Hermann Usener |
| Doctoral students | Felix Jacoby |
| Other notable students | Walther Kranz |
| Known for | Diels–Kranz numbering |
Hermann Alexander Diels (German: [diːls]; May 18, 1848 – June 4, 1922) was a German classical scholar.
He was educated at the universities of Bonn and Berlin and in 1886 became professor ordinarius of classical philology at the latter institution.
He is now known for a collection of quotations from and reports about Presocratic philosophers. This work, entitled Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the Presocratics), is still widely used by scholars. It was first published in 1903, was later revised and expanded three times by Diels, and was finally revised in a 5th edition (1934–7) by Walther Kranz and again in a sixth edition (1952). It consists of three volumes that present, for each of the Presocratics, both quotations from their (now mostly lost) works transmitted by later writers, and secondary-source material known as testimonia.
Based on Diels' enumeration of the fragments, the testimonia in the Diels collection are known as the "A-fragments", while the quotations from the Presocratics are known as the "B-fragments". Diels's method of labeling the fragments has become the standard way of referring to the works of the Presocratics.
For example, what is thought to be the introductory section of Parmenides' poem on the Ways of Truth and Opinion was quoted by Sextus Empiricus and Simplicius; in Diels–Kranz this is labeled as fragment 28B1 — i.e., chapter 28, section B, fragment 1. The "28" stands for Parmenides (to whom Diels–Kranz devote chapter 28 in the numeration of the current edition), the "B" indicates that it is a quotation, and the "1" means that it is the first quotation in Diels' ordering of quotations of Parmenides. On the other hand, the beginning of Plato's account (in his Parmenides 127ff.) of an alleged visit of Parmenides and Zeno to Athens is labeled by Diels as fragment 29A11. "29" stands for Zeno (the next Presocratic after Parmenides in Diels' collection), since this particular passage in Plato has more directly to do with Zeno than Parmenides; the "A" indicates that it is a "testimonium", a story about the philosopher(s) in question, not a quotation; and the "11" means that it is the 11th testimonium about Zeno in Diels. The ordering of Presocratics in Diels is roughly chronological (from Orpheus to the author of the dissoi logoi); the numbering of the fragments themselves, within each chapter, is determined generally by the alphabetic order of the names of the sources. The usual way of citing fragments in Diels' edition is to append "Diels–Kranz" or the letters "DK" to the fragment-number; so for example "28B1 Diels–Kranz" or "28B1 DK" (discussed above).
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