I have to admit that I’ve already read this book one and a half times already. This will be my second and a half time through. It’s not easy to read, but is worthwhile. I read the first half of the book on a Christmas break—just before I took MDDE 696 (now MDDE 702), Research Proposal Writing. It was fortunate timing. I found the background helpful in discussions about epistemology, ontology, and a few other -ologies in the course. The book, I have since learned, is a top-seller:

Tarnas, R. (1991). The passion of the western mind: Understanding the ideas that have shaped our world view. New York: Ballantine Books.

While reading the book, I was not blown over by the concepts presented. Rather, I was stunned by how the various philosophies and ideas are so deeply embedded in my own way of thinking. The different viewpoints all make sense, though I may or may not agree with the various philosophies presented.

Now, to get down to business, Tarnas starts with the Ancient Greeks and how they ordered their world, their ontology. It is interesting that we are now so accustomed to viewing the world in such a different way though our roots reach directly back to Greek philosophy. When we classify our world today, we naturally look at the particulars and construct general categories within which to place specific examples. (Hmmm . . . we use both deductive and inductive practices in research.) Either way, this practice has its problems: where does a hill start and a valley begin?. (Yes, yes, at the inflection point—as one of our computer guys so courteously pointed out.) The earliest Greek thinkers worked from the opposite point. They viewed their world through dominating and pre-existing forms or archetypes:

The archetypal Horse, which gives form to all horses, is to Plato a more fundamental reality than the particular horses, which are merely specific instances of the Horse, embodiments of that form. (p. 8)

These archetypes represented the perfect source of all things and ideas in existence. These forms were the basis of the gods. Zeus, Hera, Hermes and the like were considered immortal forms. The forms were also the foundation for ethics. Ethics and philosophy appear to have originated in the philosophers’ desire to ascertain the best way to live, to understand archetypal concepts such as good and evil—ideas that were of particular importance to Socrates.

Much of what is presumed about Greek philosophy is derived from Greek literature. Tarnas cites Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as examples in which “historical persons lived out a mythic heroism in war and wandering, while Olympian deities watched and intervened over the plain of Troy” (p. 17).  The world from the Greek literary point of view was represented as ordered with a sense of the individual and the universal bound together into a predetermined destiny. Not even the gods were free of an overarching destiny. Interestingly, as Greek mythology progressed, the gods showed signs of imperfection. Hmmm . . . I wonder how that happened?

Along this voyage of thought, the Greeks began to observe the world around them. They wanted to understand the “basic substance” of the world (p. 19). Some of the great Greek thinkers of this era included Empedocles who is credited with citing the four main elements of earth, water, air, and fire. Even today, one can find books that still cite these elements—ranging from astrology to Chinese medicine. Thales and those following him began to conceptualize “a self-animated substance that continued to move and change itself into various forms” (p. 19).  Later Democritus described atoms and proposed how tiny particles made up matter and could reorganize to make up different forms. Prior to Democritus, Anaxagoras proposed that these particles were tiny seeds. The human mind refers to what it already knows to understand and classify new concepts. (Years ago when I was teaching ESL, I had the pleasure of teaching an Ethiopian refugee who had recently arrived in Canada. I had given the class an assignment; I had asked them each to write a brief paragraph about their first experiences in Canada. He chose to write about snow which he described as “arctic dust.” He used the familiar concept of dust or sand to understand a new and unfamiliar environment.)  

The Greeks began to observe the world around them. They wanted to explain existence. Some found mythology and archetypes to supply the answers; others needed more. This is the first hint of what is to follow in Western philosophy—a struggle between observation and mythology, between science and religion—a dichotomy that is still with us today and transcends cultural boundaries; it is not just an issue of the Western mind.