Read Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill. At the very least, Section V, 'The Philosopher - How to Think'. I just finished Zen and the Art, and Cahill's summation of the Greek philosophers was helpful. From the moving afterword in Zen and the Art comes this incredible addendum of Greek insight by Robert Pirsig:
This book has a lot to say about Ancient Greek perspectives and their meaning but there is one perspective it misses. That is their view of time. They saw the future as something that came upon them from behind their backs with the past receding away before their eyes.When you think about it, that's a more accurate metaphor than our present one. Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?