| Preface | xi |
| Introduction | 1 |
| I | A Phenomenological Analysis of Myth | 17 |
| The General Framework | 17 |
| Origins | |
| Lived World | |
| Culture | |
| Sacred and profane | |
| Mystery | |
| Existential transcendence | |
| Myth and Sense | 29 |
| Myth and Conceptual Reason | 30 |
| General Themes | 39 |
| Myth and the establishment of world | |
| The existential circle | |
| Consciousness and the self | |
| Myth, art, and appearance | |
| Myth and reflection | |
| II | Greek Myth and Religion | 47 |
| General Characteristics | 47 |
| Religion of the earth | |
| Mortality | |
| Gods and humans | |
| Festivity | |
| The Olympian-Titan distinction | |
| The Nonrational and Nonconscious in Greek Religion | 56 |
| Sacred madness | |
| The shaman | |
| Hesiod's Theogony | 63 |
| III | Epic Poetry | 69 |
| The World in Epic Poetry | 69 |
| The Self in Epic Poetry | 72 |
| The heroic ideal | |
| The noncentralized self | |
| The divine-human relation | |
| The Beginnings of a Break with the Epic World | 88 |
| IV | Lyric Poetry in the Archaic Age | 97 |
| The Archaic World View | 98 |
| The Emergence of Self-Consciousness in Lyric Poetry | 103 |
| Pindar: Heroism's Refrain | 108 |
| V | Tragic Poetry | 113 |
| Tragedy and Greek Religion | 113 |
| Nietzsche on tragedy | |
| The link with epic poetry Dionysus | |
| Tragedy and the Dionysian Tradition | 130 |
| The Self in Tragic Poetry | 132 |
| The Tragic Poets | 134 |
| Aeschylus | |
| Sophocles | |
| Euripides | |
| Tragedy and Myth | 149 |
| VI | The Advent of Philosophy | 157 |
| The Beginnings: Hesiod and Thales | 160 |
| The First Philosophers | 164 |
| Xenophanes | |
| Anaximander | |
| Heraclitus | |
| Parmenides | |
| Time and Process | 191 |
| Early Philosophy and Myth | 193 |
| Consciousness, Unity, and Philosophy | 199 |
| Cultural Resistance to Philosophy | 202 |
| VII | Plato | 207 |
| Revolutionary Elements in Platonism | 208 |
| The reflective individual | |
| A new view of the soul | |
| New intellectual criterial | |
| Philosophy | |
| Morality | |
| Traditional Elements in Platonism | 223 |
| A correlation between knowing and doing | |
| The social self | |
| The rejection of Sophistic relativism and humanism | |
| Aristocracy in platonism | |
| Intuition in platonism | |
| Plato and Myth | 237 |
| The Timaeus | |
| Plato's criticism of traditional myth | |
| Mythical and phenomenological aspects of Plato's Philosophy | |
| VIII | Aristotle | 259 |
| The Origins of Natural Philosophy | 262 |
| Aristotle's Philosophy | 266 |
| General principles | |
| Individuation and desacralization | |
| Aristotle's conception of time | |
| Aristotle's Revolution | 282 |
| Traditional Elements in Aristotle's Though | 286 |
| The soul | |
| The social self | |
| Virtue | |
| Teleology | |
| Intuition | |
| IX | The Relationship Between Philosophy and Myth | 293 |
| Summary Conclusions and Reflections | 293 |
| Platonic philosophy | |
| Philosophy and existential meaning | |
| Consciousness | |
| Myth and Nonobjective Aspects of Thought | 304 |
| Myth, fact, and mystery | |
| Subjectivity, objectivity, and pluralism | |
| Myth, science, and explanation | |
| Myth, Truth, and Certainty | 317 |
| Notes | 329 |
| Selected Bibliography | 365 |
| Index | 371 |
