Cover of The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature

The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature

The present translation is based on the second edition of Die Entdeckung des Geistes(Claassen und Goverts, Hamburg, 1948), with the addition of the essay which here appears as Ch. 7: Human Knowledge and Divine Knowledge.

Read more

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.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 323 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. What Is Ancient Philosophy? Shares philosophy, filosofia, history
  2. The Greeks and the Irrational Shares philosophy, history, ancient history
  3. The Big Questions: How Philosophy Can Change Your Life Shares philosophy, filosofia, psychology
  4. Free onlineFree
    The Apology Shares philosophy, greek, history

“People who read The Discovery of the Mind: In Greek Philosophy and Literature tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Origins of Greek Thought
  2. The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World
  3. Greek Art
  4. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus

“If you want more of the same (philosophy), start with these.”

  1. Free onlineFree Menexenus
  2. Outlines of Scepticism
  3. Lysis/Symposium/Gorgias
  4. Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, 3 Vols

“If it was the greek that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists
  2. Early Greek Philosophy
  3. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito
  4. Conversations of Socrates

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Cambridge Companion to Plato
  2. Notes to Literature, Volume 1
  3. Goethe's Poems
  4. The Love Poems of Lord Byron: A Romantic's Passion