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La filosofia prima dei Greci. Concezioni del mondo in Mesopotamia, nell'antico Egitto e presso gli Ebrei
Questo libro, frutto di una serie di conferenze tenute presso l'Università di Chicago, affronta quella che possiamo definire una delle prime grandi avventure del pensiero umano: le concezioni filosofiche del mondo, così come si svilupparono tra i popoli della Mesopotamia, gli egizi, e gli ebrei, prima della grande "svolta" segnata dal pensiero greco.
450 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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April 2, 2012
Not essential, perhaps, but really fascinating. I had to track down a copy after reading a reference to it in a Guy Davenport essay. In Before Philosophy, Henri Frankfort and Co. attempt to re-enter the mind of pre-rational man through a study of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian metaphysics, politics, and ethics. “Pre-rational” may not be the right term. What the book illustrates (rather successfully) is the transition from an “I-Thou” relationship between man and the world to an “I-It” relationship – the movement, that is, from a place where all experience is conceived in terms of encounters with living forces to one where a subject-object perspective is possible and natural phenomena can be understood in terms of non-volitional cause and effect.
A few thoughts:
First, the de-enchantment of the world must have been painful. I’m reminded how the Native Americans were dismayed at the white man’s vision of the cosmos. Where the Indians saw the material elements of the earth (not only animals and plants but rocks and winds and stars) as living things, the white man treated the earth as if it were something dead. That, for me, has always been a key point of fascination with the European settlement of the Americas. There’s some food for thought here in Frankfort’s book. Where the process from an I-Thou to an I-It perspective was gradual in the old world, the two came into conflict at the European settlement of the Americas, Australia, Africa, etc. (There’s a counter-current within western cultures too, of course. You see that especially in heavily sacramentalized Christian traditions, like Catholicism and Orthodoxy, for example, where pantheism is definitely gone but a form of panentheism still persists).
Second, I’m struck by how much more western culture owes the ancient Mesopotamians than the Egyptians. I’ve read my Will Durant and had some inkling of this before, but the marshalling of documentary evidence from Babylonian texts is striking. Some of this was carried over into western culture through the Judeo-Christian adoption of the Old Testament and Hebrew perspectives. Some of it must also have been a natural pollination since the border between Mesopotamian and Mediterranean cultures was more porous, and the Egypitians were more isolated and less interested in sharing ideas with their neighbors.
Finally, after making your way through the rest of the book, the concluding chapter really drives the point home. Frankfort identifies two historic exits from the I-Thou perspective: the monotheistic Jewish exit, where deity is conceived as starkly transcendent and the world is seen as God’s work but never God’s self; and the Greek exit, where the personification of phenomena breaks down in the pre-Socratic philosophers and a proto-scientific perspective becomes possible for the first time. And there you have it, of course: the birth and basic building blocks of western culture for the past 2,500 years.
A few thoughts:
First, the de-enchantment of the world must have been painful. I’m reminded how the Native Americans were dismayed at the white man’s vision of the cosmos. Where the Indians saw the material elements of the earth (not only animals and plants but rocks and winds and stars) as living things, the white man treated the earth as if it were something dead. That, for me, has always been a key point of fascination with the European settlement of the Americas. There’s some food for thought here in Frankfort’s book. Where the process from an I-Thou to an I-It perspective was gradual in the old world, the two came into conflict at the European settlement of the Americas, Australia, Africa, etc. (There’s a counter-current within western cultures too, of course. You see that especially in heavily sacramentalized Christian traditions, like Catholicism and Orthodoxy, for example, where pantheism is definitely gone but a form of panentheism still persists).
Second, I’m struck by how much more western culture owes the ancient Mesopotamians than the Egyptians. I’ve read my Will Durant and had some inkling of this before, but the marshalling of documentary evidence from Babylonian texts is striking. Some of this was carried over into western culture through the Judeo-Christian adoption of the Old Testament and Hebrew perspectives. Some of it must also have been a natural pollination since the border between Mesopotamian and Mediterranean cultures was more porous, and the Egypitians were more isolated and less interested in sharing ideas with their neighbors.
Finally, after making your way through the rest of the book, the concluding chapter really drives the point home. Frankfort identifies two historic exits from the I-Thou perspective: the monotheistic Jewish exit, where deity is conceived as starkly transcendent and the world is seen as God’s work but never God’s self; and the Greek exit, where the personification of phenomena breaks down in the pre-Socratic philosophers and a proto-scientific perspective becomes possible for the first time. And there you have it, of course: the birth and basic building blocks of western culture for the past 2,500 years.
October 15, 2018
Answers to so many questions
This book explains how utterly different ancients were from us in how they saw the world and themselves in it. And how - without assistance by unnatural applications of reason and science – we’re precisely the same if allowed to be. It raises questions of how we can possibly save our natural world and truly believe in a spiritual reality if we and the natural world are subjected to modern thinking found to be so successful.
Focusing on Sumer and Egypt we find the ancients didn’t separate man from nature. Man was part of society embedded in nature, dependent on cosmic forces. Long before scriptural declarations of conquest over nature, man was not in opposition. They obviously struggled “against” a “hostile” environment, but this account is our language describing their situation, not their state of mind. Reminiscent of Campbell’s clarification between modern and ancient perspectives as “it” vs. “thou,” our authors describe this difference as “subject” vs. “object.” The ancients had one mode of expression, thought, and speech – the personal. Everything had a will and personality revealing itself. The ancients could reason logically, but such intellectual detachment was hardly compatible with their experience of reality. Impersonal laws (physics) did not satisfy their understanding. When the river doesn’t rise, it’s not due to lack of rain – the river refused to rise. You’d not hurt yourself in a fall – the ground chose to hurt you, or not. The ancient view was qualitative and concrete, not quantitative and abstract.
In science we apply a procedure, progressively reducing phenomena until subjected to universal laws. We “de-complicate” systems to understand them. There’s a hierarchy of complexity making planetary motions simpler systems than say, living cells, thus more or less complete theories of each, but we’ve proven since Galileo initiated modern science that we’re so close to the truth of nature (the judge of our understanding) that our theories earn acceptance through success of their predictions. We really did build Voyager to that understanding and it really did what we thought it would when released to nature’s command - eight billion miles from earth, still obeying our grasp of nature. Furthermore, accurate theories are able to predict things never dreamed possible when created. Relativity still yields such surprises. We see phenomena as manifestations of general laws, not by what makes them peculiar.
The authors term the ancient mind as “mythopoetic.” That perspective is why scriptures were written when they were and not anymore - writings imbibed with mystery and inflation of life, assumed lost to critical reason and economic forces. But the mythopoetic mind is still here, the natural mind we are born with. It’s why we have palm readers, cults, astrologers, ghosts, Creationists, pet psychics, TV conversations with the dead, best selling books on how to “know” God, and beliefs that flying jets into buildings will send their pilots to heaven. All expanding lives otherwise sterilized by 9-to-5, traffic jams, poverty. In Mexico, women are advised to remain inside during a solar eclipse, lest they become spontaneously pregnant. As my Aunt said of the Space Shuttle Columbia, “If God wanted us to be in space he’d given us wings.” If God wanted us to drive cars he’d given us wheels, or to live under roofs, he’d have put shingles on our head. What some battle as absurd is also quite natural, dangerous and capable of elevating life, avoiding deconstruction and reductionism applied to humans made of more than carbon and water. A dilemma revealed by this book. And if evolutionary biologists are correct, this behavior may have a lot to do with our messy brain structure, a condition we’re stuck with.
This book explains how utterly different ancients were from us in how they saw the world and themselves in it. And how - without assistance by unnatural applications of reason and science – we’re precisely the same if allowed to be. It raises questions of how we can possibly save our natural world and truly believe in a spiritual reality if we and the natural world are subjected to modern thinking found to be so successful.
Focusing on Sumer and Egypt we find the ancients didn’t separate man from nature. Man was part of society embedded in nature, dependent on cosmic forces. Long before scriptural declarations of conquest over nature, man was not in opposition. They obviously struggled “against” a “hostile” environment, but this account is our language describing their situation, not their state of mind. Reminiscent of Campbell’s clarification between modern and ancient perspectives as “it” vs. “thou,” our authors describe this difference as “subject” vs. “object.” The ancients had one mode of expression, thought, and speech – the personal. Everything had a will and personality revealing itself. The ancients could reason logically, but such intellectual detachment was hardly compatible with their experience of reality. Impersonal laws (physics) did not satisfy their understanding. When the river doesn’t rise, it’s not due to lack of rain – the river refused to rise. You’d not hurt yourself in a fall – the ground chose to hurt you, or not. The ancient view was qualitative and concrete, not quantitative and abstract.
In science we apply a procedure, progressively reducing phenomena until subjected to universal laws. We “de-complicate” systems to understand them. There’s a hierarchy of complexity making planetary motions simpler systems than say, living cells, thus more or less complete theories of each, but we’ve proven since Galileo initiated modern science that we’re so close to the truth of nature (the judge of our understanding) that our theories earn acceptance through success of their predictions. We really did build Voyager to that understanding and it really did what we thought it would when released to nature’s command - eight billion miles from earth, still obeying our grasp of nature. Furthermore, accurate theories are able to predict things never dreamed possible when created. Relativity still yields such surprises. We see phenomena as manifestations of general laws, not by what makes them peculiar.
The authors term the ancient mind as “mythopoetic.” That perspective is why scriptures were written when they were and not anymore - writings imbibed with mystery and inflation of life, assumed lost to critical reason and economic forces. But the mythopoetic mind is still here, the natural mind we are born with. It’s why we have palm readers, cults, astrologers, ghosts, Creationists, pet psychics, TV conversations with the dead, best selling books on how to “know” God, and beliefs that flying jets into buildings will send their pilots to heaven. All expanding lives otherwise sterilized by 9-to-5, traffic jams, poverty. In Mexico, women are advised to remain inside during a solar eclipse, lest they become spontaneously pregnant. As my Aunt said of the Space Shuttle Columbia, “If God wanted us to be in space he’d given us wings.” If God wanted us to drive cars he’d given us wheels, or to live under roofs, he’d have put shingles on our head. What some battle as absurd is also quite natural, dangerous and capable of elevating life, avoiding deconstruction and reductionism applied to humans made of more than carbon and water. A dilemma revealed by this book. And if evolutionary biologists are correct, this behavior may have a lot to do with our messy brain structure, a condition we’re stuck with.
April 19, 2013
I read this book during high school. It taught me to be more respectful in my reading of ancient religions and of mythology general.
May 19, 2020
This book puts together some of the most important myths and perceptions of Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization and provides speculations about the order of their world and what a good life means in their state of affairs. Egyptians, with their relatively stable conditions, pursued perfection and symmetry and pushed men to realize their individual potentials. Mesopotamians, on the other hand, were overwhelmed by the abundant parameters that were beyond their control and were at the mercy of the benevolence of their personal gods. The relationship with nature was quite similar in both the cultures in terms of personification of all entities. They had to request nature to work with them by appealing to the personalities of the objects around them. While Egyptians had a theocratic monarchy, Mesopotamians had a relatively democratic government. The former had an overall optimistic outlook of life while the latter was fraught with pessimism. Both faced the difficult questions of death and justice with their dissimilar myths.
The conclusion of the book ties the summary of these two civilization with instances of Hebrew culture and the foundation of the Ionian school of thought. I'm quite jarred by how primitive our beliefs and philosophies still are. I feel the need to bring back the speculative thoughts of primitive civilizations and club them with the sui generis technological advancements of our present-day, without allowing the beliefs we have accumulated since to cloud our judgment.
The conclusion of the book ties the summary of these two civilization with instances of Hebrew culture and the foundation of the Ionian school of thought. I'm quite jarred by how primitive our beliefs and philosophies still are. I feel the need to bring back the speculative thoughts of primitive civilizations and club them with the sui generis technological advancements of our present-day, without allowing the beliefs we have accumulated since to cloud our judgment.
December 28, 2010
This book contrasts the thought (and worldview) of two important pre-Greek civilizations, Egypt and Mesopotamia, with Greece. The overall theme is that Egypt and Mesopotamia saw the world as a "Thou". This means that these cultures saw the world as alive, with other wilful beings full of individuality that interact with the "I". This stands in contrast to the modern view of an "I-It" relationship where the object is distinct from the subject, and where the world is ruled by universal laws that make its operation more predictable. In an "I-Thou" relationship, each event has "an individual character" with an agent who caused it to happen for some specific reason as opposed to the modern "impersonal explanation."
In the "I-Thou" relationship, space,time and causality are personal and real, not external or abstract, and they tie the self to cosmic events and history. Sacred space did not represent the divine. It was sacred and "each morning the sun defeats darkness and chaos." In ancient Egypt, the authors talk about "a continuing substance across the phenomena of the universe" where the elements were expressions of "one substance." These elements were "consubstantial," which is "the principle of free substitution, interchange, or representation." Thus, an "image or the animal was a representative of divinity or was divinity itself" or "the image was the god for all working purposes." In this characterization for the early Egyptian, "the king of Egypt was himself one of the gods" and pictures of bread or words about bread could serve to feed the deceased "in the next world."
The authors wrote that whereas "primitive" thought used imagination to provide "order, coherence and meaning," the Greeks began to do the same by splitting the world into an "I-It" relationship. Where in Egypt and Mesopotamia the gods were in nature, the world for the Greeks could be explained without the intervention of the gods. This view, ironically, was also supported by the Hebrews who saw God as transcendentally above nature. For the authors of this book, these two approaches began the process of emancipating thought from myth.
While the overall theme in this book fits a story we have of ourselves, it may too starkly create and foster its own mythology. Even if their explanations were mythical, were primitive agriculturalists that ignorant about cause and effect relationships (i.e., what it took to survive)? While we pride ourselves today on technological control, we also pray for divine intervention, protection and external life. Rather than having emancipated ourselves from myth, have we continued and extended primitive patterns into contemporary life?
In the "I-Thou" relationship, space,time and causality are personal and real, not external or abstract, and they tie the self to cosmic events and history. Sacred space did not represent the divine. It was sacred and "each morning the sun defeats darkness and chaos." In ancient Egypt, the authors talk about "a continuing substance across the phenomena of the universe" where the elements were expressions of "one substance." These elements were "consubstantial," which is "the principle of free substitution, interchange, or representation." Thus, an "image or the animal was a representative of divinity or was divinity itself" or "the image was the god for all working purposes." In this characterization for the early Egyptian, "the king of Egypt was himself one of the gods" and pictures of bread or words about bread could serve to feed the deceased "in the next world."
The authors wrote that whereas "primitive" thought used imagination to provide "order, coherence and meaning," the Greeks began to do the same by splitting the world into an "I-It" relationship. Where in Egypt and Mesopotamia the gods were in nature, the world for the Greeks could be explained without the intervention of the gods. This view, ironically, was also supported by the Hebrews who saw God as transcendentally above nature. For the authors of this book, these two approaches began the process of emancipating thought from myth.
While the overall theme in this book fits a story we have of ourselves, it may too starkly create and foster its own mythology. Even if their explanations were mythical, were primitive agriculturalists that ignorant about cause and effect relationships (i.e., what it took to survive)? While we pride ourselves today on technological control, we also pray for divine intervention, protection and external life. Rather than having emancipated ourselves from myth, have we continued and extended primitive patterns into contemporary life?
February 3, 2010
I read this book during my second year at university (studying Egyptology and many years ago) and was completely absorbed (if that is right word). I could not stop reading and finished it in one evening and although I have read a few books on this subject since I still think Frankfort wrote an incredible and intelligent book. His view on the "I" and the "Thou" is so simple and yet so well thought through that a lot of things about "the ancients" suddenly made sense to me. If one book helped me understand the way the ancient mind worked this has to be the one.
January 10, 2019
So glad to have read this. Many gems. One of my favorites.
June 4, 2024
FOUR ACADEMICS PROVIDE AN EXCELLENT OVERVIEW OF THE FIELD
At the time this book was published in 1946, the four authors were members of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The Preface states, “This book is an attempt to understand the view which the ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia took of the world in which they lived. They were the most civilized people of their time; and they have left us a rich and varied literature which has been deciphered to a large extent during the last hundred years. But the modern reader… will in most cases feel that the deeper meaning eludes him. This is true even of many texts dealing with the norms of human behavior---the so-called ‘wisdom literature’ … in the Old Testament [for example]. It is certainly true of the great official inscriptions in which rulers define their task or record their achievements. And it is most conspicuously true of those writings which claim to elucidate the nature of the universe. For these assume throughout the form of myths… Yet nothing is more misleading… that their myths represent a charming but immature way of answering [problems]. We have tried to show … that such an assumption simply ignores the gulf which separates our habits of thought, our modes of experience, from those remote civilizations…. We have attempted to penetrate into this alien world of … myth-making… thought and to analyze its peculiar logic, its imaginative and its emotional character.”
In the first chapter, they explain, “If we look for ‘speculative thought’ in the documents of the ancients, we shall be forced to admit that there is very little indeed … which deserves the name of ‘thought’ in the strict sense of that term… The thought of the ancient Near East appears wrapped in imagination… two correlated facts become apparent. In the first place, we find that speculation found unlimited possibilities for development; it was not restricted by a scientific … search for truth. In the second place, we notice that the realm of nature and the realm of man were not distinguished… The fundamental difference between the attitudes of modern and ancient man as regards the surrounding world is this: for modern, scientific man the phenomenal world is primarily an ‘IT’; for ancient---and also primitive---man it is a ‘Thou.’” (Pg. 12)
They observe, “In telling … myth, the ancients did not intend to provide entertainment. Neither did they seek… for intelligible explanations of the natural phenomena. They were recounting events in which they were involved to the extent of their very existence… They are products of imagination, but they are no mere fantasy. It is essential that true myth be distinguished from legend, saga, fable, and fairy tale… The imagery of myth is therefore by no means allegory. It is nothing less than a carefully chosen cloak for abstract thought. The imagery is inseparable from the thought. It represents the form in which the experience has become conscious. Myth, then, is to be taken seriously, because it reveals a significant, if unverifiable, truth… But myth has not the universality and the lucidity of theoretical statement… It claims recognition by the faithful; it does not pretend to justification before the critical.” (Pg. 15-16)
They suggest, “Meaningless… is our contrast between reality and appearance. Whatever is capable of affecting mind, feeling, or will has thereby established its undoubted reality. There is, for instance, no reason why dreams should be considered less real than impressions received while one is awake. On the contrary, dreams often affect one so much more than the humdrum events of daily that they appear to be more, and not less, significant than the usual perceptions.” (Pg. 20)
They state, “Mythopoeic thought substantializes a quality and posits some of its occurrences as causes, others as effects… Evil spirits are often no more than the evil itself conceived as substantial and equipped with will-power…We may even go further and say that the gods as personifications of power among other things fulfill early man’s need for causes to explain the phenomenal world.” (Pg. 25-26)
They argue, “We cold modern analysts view the doctrines of the divinity, the blighting majesty, and the mystery of the Egyptian king as mere propaganda devices to bolster the person of a man who was solely responsible for the state. But they cannot be brushed aside for that reason. They had the reality of long-continuing success. They were as real in ancient Egypt as in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem---or as in modern Japan.” (Pg. 86-87)
They summarize, “Did ancient Egypt contribute any significant element to the continuing philosophy, ethics, or world-consciousness of later times? No, not directly in fields which one may specify, as in the case of Babylonian science, Hebrew theology, or Greek or Chinese rationalism. One might critically say that the weight of ancient Egypt was not consonant with her size, that her intellectual and spiritual contributions were not up to her length of years and her physical memorial, and that she herself was unable to realize on her promising beginnings in many fields. But the very size of Egypt left its mark on her neighbors. The Hebrews and the Greeks were deeply conscious of a past power and a past stability of this colossal neighbor and had a vague and uncritical appreciation of ‘all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’” (Pg. 130-131)
They point out, “When we read in Psalm 19 that ‘the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork,’ we hear a voice which mocks the beliefs of Egyptians and Babylonians. The heavens… were to the Mesopotamians the very majesty of godhead, the highest ruler… In Egypt and Mesopotamia the divine was comprehended as immanent: the gods were in nature… But to the psalmist the sun was God’s devoted servant … The God of the psalmist and the prophets was not in nature. He transcended nature---and transcended, likewise, the realm of mythopoeic thought. It would seem that the Hebrews, no less than the Greeks, broke with the mode of speculation which had prevailed up to their time.” (Pg. 237)
They note, “the doctrines of the early Greek philosophers are not couched in the language of detached and systematic reflection. Their sayings sound rather like inspired oracles. And no wonder, for these men proceeded, with preposterous boldness, on an entirely unproved assumption. They held that the universe was an intelligible whole. In other words, they presumed that a single order underlies the chaos of our perceptions and, furthermore, that we are able to comprehend that order.” (Pg. 251)
They conclude, “the cosmologies of mythopoeic thought are basically revelations received in a confrontation with a cosmic ‘Thou.’ And one cannot argue about a revelation; it transcends reason. But in the systems of the Greeks the human mind recognizes its own. It may take back what it created or change or develop it.” (Pg. 262)
This is an excellent and sympathetic overview of pre-philosophical thought, that will be of great interest to those studying this topic.
At the time this book was published in 1946, the four authors were members of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The Preface states, “This book is an attempt to understand the view which the ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia took of the world in which they lived. They were the most civilized people of their time; and they have left us a rich and varied literature which has been deciphered to a large extent during the last hundred years. But the modern reader… will in most cases feel that the deeper meaning eludes him. This is true even of many texts dealing with the norms of human behavior---the so-called ‘wisdom literature’ … in the Old Testament [for example]. It is certainly true of the great official inscriptions in which rulers define their task or record their achievements. And it is most conspicuously true of those writings which claim to elucidate the nature of the universe. For these assume throughout the form of myths… Yet nothing is more misleading… that their myths represent a charming but immature way of answering [problems]. We have tried to show … that such an assumption simply ignores the gulf which separates our habits of thought, our modes of experience, from those remote civilizations…. We have attempted to penetrate into this alien world of … myth-making… thought and to analyze its peculiar logic, its imaginative and its emotional character.”
In the first chapter, they explain, “If we look for ‘speculative thought’ in the documents of the ancients, we shall be forced to admit that there is very little indeed … which deserves the name of ‘thought’ in the strict sense of that term… The thought of the ancient Near East appears wrapped in imagination… two correlated facts become apparent. In the first place, we find that speculation found unlimited possibilities for development; it was not restricted by a scientific … search for truth. In the second place, we notice that the realm of nature and the realm of man were not distinguished… The fundamental difference between the attitudes of modern and ancient man as regards the surrounding world is this: for modern, scientific man the phenomenal world is primarily an ‘IT’; for ancient---and also primitive---man it is a ‘Thou.’” (Pg. 12)
They observe, “In telling … myth, the ancients did not intend to provide entertainment. Neither did they seek… for intelligible explanations of the natural phenomena. They were recounting events in which they were involved to the extent of their very existence… They are products of imagination, but they are no mere fantasy. It is essential that true myth be distinguished from legend, saga, fable, and fairy tale… The imagery of myth is therefore by no means allegory. It is nothing less than a carefully chosen cloak for abstract thought. The imagery is inseparable from the thought. It represents the form in which the experience has become conscious. Myth, then, is to be taken seriously, because it reveals a significant, if unverifiable, truth… But myth has not the universality and the lucidity of theoretical statement… It claims recognition by the faithful; it does not pretend to justification before the critical.” (Pg. 15-16)
They suggest, “Meaningless… is our contrast between reality and appearance. Whatever is capable of affecting mind, feeling, or will has thereby established its undoubted reality. There is, for instance, no reason why dreams should be considered less real than impressions received while one is awake. On the contrary, dreams often affect one so much more than the humdrum events of daily that they appear to be more, and not less, significant than the usual perceptions.” (Pg. 20)
They state, “Mythopoeic thought substantializes a quality and posits some of its occurrences as causes, others as effects… Evil spirits are often no more than the evil itself conceived as substantial and equipped with will-power…We may even go further and say that the gods as personifications of power among other things fulfill early man’s need for causes to explain the phenomenal world.” (Pg. 25-26)
They argue, “We cold modern analysts view the doctrines of the divinity, the blighting majesty, and the mystery of the Egyptian king as mere propaganda devices to bolster the person of a man who was solely responsible for the state. But they cannot be brushed aside for that reason. They had the reality of long-continuing success. They were as real in ancient Egypt as in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem---or as in modern Japan.” (Pg. 86-87)
They summarize, “Did ancient Egypt contribute any significant element to the continuing philosophy, ethics, or world-consciousness of later times? No, not directly in fields which one may specify, as in the case of Babylonian science, Hebrew theology, or Greek or Chinese rationalism. One might critically say that the weight of ancient Egypt was not consonant with her size, that her intellectual and spiritual contributions were not up to her length of years and her physical memorial, and that she herself was unable to realize on her promising beginnings in many fields. But the very size of Egypt left its mark on her neighbors. The Hebrews and the Greeks were deeply conscious of a past power and a past stability of this colossal neighbor and had a vague and uncritical appreciation of ‘all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’” (Pg. 130-131)
They point out, “When we read in Psalm 19 that ‘the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork,’ we hear a voice which mocks the beliefs of Egyptians and Babylonians. The heavens… were to the Mesopotamians the very majesty of godhead, the highest ruler… In Egypt and Mesopotamia the divine was comprehended as immanent: the gods were in nature… But to the psalmist the sun was God’s devoted servant … The God of the psalmist and the prophets was not in nature. He transcended nature---and transcended, likewise, the realm of mythopoeic thought. It would seem that the Hebrews, no less than the Greeks, broke with the mode of speculation which had prevailed up to their time.” (Pg. 237)
They note, “the doctrines of the early Greek philosophers are not couched in the language of detached and systematic reflection. Their sayings sound rather like inspired oracles. And no wonder, for these men proceeded, with preposterous boldness, on an entirely unproved assumption. They held that the universe was an intelligible whole. In other words, they presumed that a single order underlies the chaos of our perceptions and, furthermore, that we are able to comprehend that order.” (Pg. 251)
They conclude, “the cosmologies of mythopoeic thought are basically revelations received in a confrontation with a cosmic ‘Thou.’ And one cannot argue about a revelation; it transcends reason. But in the systems of the Greeks the human mind recognizes its own. It may take back what it created or change or develop it.” (Pg. 262)
This is an excellent and sympathetic overview of pre-philosophical thought, that will be of great interest to those studying this topic.
February 23, 2025
Bit of a deceptive title, then again not at all. I thought the book was mostly supposed to get into the head and heart and worldview of ancient man before the domination of more logical philosophy. Perhaps common traits about how ancient man viewed the world with a more symbolic and meaningful lens that archetypal myths explained and sustained for centuries or millennia. But this talk is mostly confided to the first chapter where it is noted that ancient man saw everything and anything in the world not just as an “it” but as a “Thou.” Something with animating spirit and desires and motives and action, that needed to be related-to & worked-with etc. The bulk of the book then went into particulars of this with the two dominant ancient civilizations of the ancient Middle East: Egypt & Mesopotamia. In totality, getting into the shoes of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian was actually achieved, and I reinforced much previous tidbit knowledge and learned more. The writing too was thorough and solid content, and even at points exciting writing for academics. But I had a sense the whole time reading that this all wasn’t quite what I was looking for in the title “Before Philosophy.” What was I looking for? I can’t particularly say besides something like M Pageau’s Language of Creation book, but maybe something more academic and more anthropologically broad (potentially applicable to a majority of ancient and/or prehistoric cultures), and not ‘just’ two long particular case studies of nations I have a mild curiosity about but not really the desire to put “time into” a deeper dive right now. Because of this sense, perhaps too because I only read here-or-there on a tiring mission trip, the book rarely ever flowed or swept, every chapter was a bit of grind like roads of the Massif Central at the Tour de France. But I don’t want to be too hard on it, there is a lot of valuable info on Egypt & Mesopotamia that then becomes universally applicable, & it was particularly interesting to track shifts in each worldview over 2000-3000 year periods (which is bonkers to conceptualize). Finally, the last chapter was how the Hebrews and Greeks were different. The Hebrews notably had a God that transcended all of nature at His being associated with none of it in particular and all of it as its Creator. The only quickly speculated reason given for their significant originality is compared to the two big agrarian cultures dominating around them, the Hebrews were an opposite nomadic desert people etc. Sounds like an interesting jumping off point for another book. Then the Ionian Philosophers (Thales & company) were truly different. When they were first assessing origins and fundamental starting points of the universe, instead of associating fundamental substances such as water or air with a god, they called these elements “things,” as in divinely detached material “things,” not personal “thous.”
November 21, 2019
This extremely interesting book explains how pre-speculative man thought by examining Egyptian and Assyrian civilizations. It is not only an interesting guide through the way of understanding things each had, it shows the difference that Hebrew civilization enjoyed and then how Hellenic civilization achieved speculative thought. It also has an extended explanation of the Assyrian mythology--part of demonstrating how the idea of the cosmos as the State makes sense of their stories.
I ran across a reference in C. S. Lewis's Discarded Image and followed it up.
I ran across a reference in C. S. Lewis's Discarded Image and followed it up.
September 13, 2023
Ottimo libro per la sociologia e ideologia egiziana
October 1, 2024
Really enjoyable overview of the intellectual life in Ancient Egypt & Sumeria. Recommend for those interested in such topics.
July 25, 2025
1st half > 2nd half
November 20, 2025
3'5/5⭐
August 21, 2021
A study of the primitive myths, beliefs, and speculations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, out of which grew the religions and philosophies of the later world.
December 14, 2013
A fascinating account that goes into the depths of how the Egyptian and Mesopotamian dealt with the world around him as opposed to the Hebrew and the Greek portrayed in the last chapter. The I-Thou vs. I-It is simple, clear and to the point.
July 8, 2019
Myth and magic, religion and science, these are the stages in man's intellectual development to date. Frankfort looks at the earlier phases.
March 22, 2013
This book was a really insightful look into Egyptian/Mesopotamian metaphysics, politics and philosophy.
April 10, 2017
Aproveché para terminar este librito al que le faltaban pocas páginas. La realidad es que la primer parte, la de los egipcios, está muy buena, pero la segunda (Mesopotamia), deja bastante que desear. Sin embargo es corto y sencillo, no está de más leerlo, debido a que contiene algunos datos copados, y más aún si lo conseguís por 50 pe en Parque Patricios.
Conseguí también el tomo que le sigue, que es sobre los hebreos, vamos a ver qué onda ese después.
Conseguí también el tomo que le sigue, que es sobre los hebreos, vamos a ver qué onda ese después.
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