John Burnet

John Burnet (1863–1928) was a Scottish classical scholar, born in Edinburgh and educated at Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford. From 1892 until 1926 he was professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews. His Early Greek Philosophy of 1892 set the terms for the study of the Presocratics in English by insisting on their scientific rather than mystical character, and his Oxford edition of the complete text of Plato, published between 1899 and 1906, remained the standard for a century. He also wrote Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato, commentaries on Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, and essays on Greek education.