The Origins of European Thought
About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate

This remarkable work of scholarship sought to deal with the very roots of European civilisation and thought

R. B. Onians (Author)

9780521347945, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 February 1988

602 pages
21.5 x 13.9 x 4.5 cm, 0.705 kg

This remarkable work of scholarship sought to deal with the very roots of European civilisation and thought: the fundamental beliefs about life, mind, body, soul and human destiny which were embodied in the myths, legends and customs of the ancients and later emerged, often unrecognized, in literature, philosophy and science. Professor Onians adduces an extraordinary range of comparative evidence, predominantly from Greece and Rome, but also from Norse, Celtic, Jewish, Indian, Chinese and Christian sources. The volume remains a fascinating compendium of ideas, conjectures and explanations which can continue to stimulate and inform the anthropologist, historian of science and philosophy, and classicist.

Preface to the first edition
Preface to the second edition
Introduction
Part I. The Mind and the Body: 1. Some processes of consciousness
2. The organs of consciousness
3. The stuff of consciousness
4. Cognition - the five senses
5. The liver and the belly
Part II. The Immortal Soul and the Body: 6. The psyche
7. The Genius, Numen, etc
8. Anima and Animus
9. The knees
10. The strength
11. The stuff of life
12. River-worship and some forms of the life-substance
13. The world: beginnings of Greek 'philosophy'
14. Death and cremation
15. The offerings to the dead and to the Gods
16. Nectar and Ambrosia
Part III. Fate and Time: 17. 'On the knees of the Gods'
18. Peirata
19. Kairos
20. The ewaving of fate
21. Other peoples - fate and magic
22. Moiran epitithenal, pepromenos
23. Hyper moron and the relation of the Gods to fate
24. The Jars of Zeus, the scales of Zeus, and the Keres
25. Time - Emar
26. Lachesis, Klotho, and Atropos
27. Phases of body and mind, sorrow, sleep, death, etc
28. Telos
Addenda
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA]