The discovery of the mind
the Greek origins of European thought
by Bruno Snell · first published 1953
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if you are interested in such theories, you might also enjoy Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind.
on “Early modern humans experienced thoughts as commands from external "gods"” ↗I wonder if he read Bruno Snell's "The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought." A lot of what's described in the article about the Greeks and the Iliad/Odyssey is akin to Snell's approach. Though Snell didn't use the idea of the bicameral…
on ““There Is Only Awe” – on Julian Jaynes” ↗…describe the boxer Kleomedes, who massacred dozens of kids because he was upset over losing a match. When I first started reading classical literature I was struck by an idea I found in Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind, that Homer, apart from having no words corresponding to our "mind" or "soul," didn't even refer to the body as a single whole--more as a collection of limbs. The article here talks about this: https://intertheory.org/torrente.htm…
on “First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo CS student” ↗…invalidated, like Bruno Snell's idea of archaic Greeks lacking a concept of an integrated body because they painted what appear to be individual limbs on vases from the geometric period. Snell wrote _The Discovery of the Mind_ in 1946. Since then archaeology has found amazing art like the Pylos Combat Agate from before the geometric period, demonstrating lifelike, realistic bodies rather than assemblages of limbs: the aesthetic…
on “The Origin of Consciousness (2008)” ↗