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

by R. B. Onians

Overview

Onians' remarkable work of scholarship sought to deal with the very roots of European civilization and thought: the fundamental beliefs about life, mind, body, soul, and human destiny that are embodied in the myths and legends of the ancients. The volume is remains a fascinating collection of ideas and explanations of cultures as diverse as the Greeks and the Norse, the Celts and the Jews, and the Chinese and the Romans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521347945
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/11/1988
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	602
Product dimensions:	5.47(w) x 8.46(h) x 1.77(d)

Table of Contents

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.