The Discovery of the Mind

Bruno Snell

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780486143460
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Essays

"An illuminating and convincing account of the enormous change in the whole conception of morals and human personality which took place during the centuries covered by Homer, the early lyric poets, the dramatists, and Socrates." — The Times (London) Literary Supplement.
European thinking began with the Greeks. Science, literature, ethics, philosophy — all had their roots in the extraordinary civilization that graced the shores of the Mediterranean a few millennia ago. The rise of thinking among the Greeks was nothing less than a revolution; they did not simply map out new areas for thought and discussion, they literally created the idea of man as an intellectual being — an unprecedented concept that decisively influenced the subsequent evolution of European thought.
In this immensely erudite book, German classicist Bruno Snell traces the establishment of a rational view of the nature of man as evidenced in the literature of the Greeks — in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, and in the drama. Here are the crucial stages in the intellectual evolution of the Greek world: the Homeric world view, the rise of the individual in the early Greek lyric, myth and reality in Greek tragedy, Greek ethics, the origin of scientific thought, and Arcadia.
Drawing extensively on the works of Homer, Pindar, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Sappho, Heraclitus, the Greek tragedians, Parmenides, Callimachus, and a host of other writers and thinkers, Snell shows how the Homeric myths provided a blueprint for the intellectual structure the Greeks erected; how the notion of universality in Greek tragedy broadened into philosophical generalization; how the gradual unfolding of the concepts of intellect and soul provided the foundation for philosophy, science, ethics, and finally, religion.
Unquestionably one of the monuments of the Geistegeschichte (History of Ideas) tradition, The Discovery of the Mind throws fresh light on many long-standing problems and has had a wide influence on scholars of the Greek intellectual tradition. Closely reasoned, replete with illuminating insight, the book epitomizes the best in German classical scholarship — a brilliant exploration of the archetypes of Western thought; a penetrating explanation of how we came to think the way we do.

CHAPTER 1

HOMER’S VIEW OF MAN

SINCE the time of Aristarchus, the great Alexandrian scholar, it has been the rule among philologists not to base the interpretation of Homeric words on references to classical Greek, and not to allow themselves to be influenced by the usage of a later generation when investigating Homeric speech. To-day we may expect even richer rewards from this rule than Aristarchus hoped to glean for himself. Let us explain Homer in no terms but his own, and our understanding of the work will be the fresher for it. Once the words are grasped with greater precision in their meaning and relevance, they will suddenly recover all their ancient splendour. The scholar too, like the restorer of an old painting, may yet in many places remove the dark coating of dust and varnish which the centuries have drawn over the picture, and thus give back to the colours their original brilliance.

The more carefully we distinguish between the meanings of Homer’s words and those of the classical period, the clearer grows our vision of the gulf which lies between the two epochs, and of the intellectual achievement of the Greeks. But aside from the interpretive-aesthetic approach to the richness and beauty of the language, and the historical approach to the history of ideas, there is a third side to the Homeric phenomenon which we might call the‘philosophical’. It was Greece which produced those concepts of man as an intellectual being which decisively influenced the subsequent evolution of European thought. We are inclined to single out the achievements of the fifth century for special praise, and attribute to them a validity beyond time. How far Homer is removed from that stage can be shown from his language. It has long been observed that in comparatively primitive speech abstractions are as yet undeveloped, while immediate sense perceptions furnish it with a wealth of concrete symbols which seem strange to a more sophisticated tongue.

To cite one example: Homer uses a great variety of verbs to denote the operation of sight:

ρ

ν,

δε

ν, λε

σσειν,

θρε

ν, θε

σθαι, σκ

πτεσθαι,

σσεσθαι, δ

ρκεσθαι, παπτα

νειν. Of these, several have gone out of use in later Greek, at any rate in prose literature and living speech: δ

ρκεσθαι, λε

σσειν,¹

σσεσθαι, παπτα

νειν. Only two words make their appearance after the time of Homer: βλ

πειν and θεωρε

ν. The words which were discarded tell us that the older language recognized certain needs which were no longer felt by its successor. δ

ρκεσθαι means: to have a particular look in one’s eyes. δρ

κων, the snake, whose name is derived from δ

ρκεσθαι, owes this designation to the uncanny glint in his eye. He is called ‘the seeing one’, not because he can see particularly well, not because his sight functions exceptionally well, but because his stare commands attention. By the same token Homer’s δ

ρκεσθαι refers not so much to the function of the eye as to its gleam as noticed by someone else. The verb is used of the Gorgon whose glance incites terror, and of the raging boar whose eyes radiate fire: π

ρ

φθαλμο

σι δεδορκ

ς. It denotes an ‘expressive signal’ or ‘gesture’ of the eyes. Many a passage in Homer reveals its proper beauty only if this meaning is taken into consideration, as is shown by Od. 5.84 and 158: (Odysseus) π

ντον

π’

τρ

γετον δερκ

σκετο δ

κρυα λε

βων. δ

ρ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1 - HOMER’S VIEW OF MAN
• CHAPTER 2 - THE OLYMPIAN GODS
• CHAPTER 3 - THE RISE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE EARLY GREEK LYRIC
• CHAPTER 4 - PINDAR’S HYMN TO ZEUS
• CHAPTER 5 - MYTH AND REALITY IN GREEK TRAGEDY
• CHAPTER 6 - ARISTOPHANES AND AESTHETIC CRITICISM
• CHAPTER 7 - HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND DIVINE KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE EARLY GREEKS
• CHAPTER 8 - THE CALL TO VIRTUE: A BRIEF CHAPTER FROM GREEK ETHICS
• CHAPTER 9 - FROM MYTH TO LOGIC: THE ROLE OF THE COMPARISON
• CHAPTER 10 - THE ORIGIN OF SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT
• CHAPTER 11 - THE DISCOVERY OF HUMANITAS, AND OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE GREEKS
• CHAPTER 12 - ART AND PLAY IN CALLIMACHUS
• CHAPTER 13 - ARCADIA: THE DISCOVERY OF A SPIRITUAL LANDSCAPE
• NOTES
• INDEX
• A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST