The theories of some of the so-called pre-Socratic philosophers were considered by leading avant-garde artists and thinkers as fundamental elements of (as characterized by Yatromanolakis) the formation of their own ontological past—elements that for them were associated with an archaic, “dark” era.

Written by an international team of prominent scholars, "Archaic Ontological Past" is the first book to investigate the multifaceted influence of the pre-Socratic on avant-garde thought and art of the second quarter of the twentieth century. It examines the ways in which pre-Socratic thought, particularly Heraclitean thought—typically mediated through, or carefully related to, the works of later philosophers and writers such as Berkeley, de Sade, Hegel, Engels, and Nietzsche—contributed to the highly complex political and aesthetic of Georges Bataille, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, and André Masson.

This book focuses on significant chapters of this still unwritten history of the pre-Socratic elements of the ontological past of European avant-garde. "Archaic Ontological Past: Pre-Socratic Philosophy and European Avant-Garde Art and Thought" navigates a new territory in the history of the avant-garde, in the history of art, and in European intellectual history.