(1) How to study ancient thought processes: theories, assumptions. Major component of debate on nature of the ancient economy is question of presence or absence of
‘economic rationality’: did the ancients think like us (or, to be precise, like the
‘economic man’ of economic theory)? Similar issues in study of Greek thought, birth of philosophy, history, tragedy etc. Triumph of reason ( logos ) over myth ( muthos ), or more complicated than that? Are ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’ universal constants, so that we simply measure their presence or absence, or do different societies have different rationalities which we need to study in their own right?
(2) Innumerable approaches to choose from; focus on three. Firstly, psychoanalysis; set of theories developed by Sigmund Freud in first half of C20 (other key names:
C.G. Jung, pupil of Freud who broke away and developed different ideas; Jacques
Lacan, French psychoanalyst also influenced by structuralism
— see below
— and influential on many postmodern approaches to psyche). Freud develops idea of the unconscious, repository of forbidden thoughts and desires, above all (or in some versions, entirely) sexual, repressed in the course of our childhoods but re-emerging in dreams, jokes, slips of the tongue, mental illness.
(3) Developed above all as form of therapy, but can be applied to study of literary texts and past culture — note Freud’s belief that all civilisation is founded on repression and hence fundamentally neurotic. Classic example is study of Oedipus myth, but one might also consider Athenian mysogyny and autochthony, Odysseus’ wanderings etc. Assumes that theories are true for all societies; one might dispute relevance for any society, or question application to ancient rather than modern society.
(4) Secondly, structuralism; one of many approaches to study of myth. Draws on modern linguistic theory (key name: Ferdinand Saussure) which studies underlying structure of languages; since language is basis of all thought, Claude Lévi-Strauss and others argue that similar structures found in myths, food customs, marriage and kinship relations etc. Begins as branch of anthropolgy, hence focus on ‘primitive’ societies, but more widely applicable; arguably, all human thought is structure in regular ways. Particularly influential in French classics: Jean-Paul Vernant, Pierre
Vidal-Naquet, Marcel Detienne et al . Myth seen as a way of elaborating and then resolving key conflicts in society; emphasis on oppositions (polarities), mediation between categories. Greece is particularly interesting as example of society in process of abandoning myth in favour of conscious reasoning.
Lévi-Strauss sees unconscious categories, far from being irrational or merely functional, as having so to speak an immanent rationality. The code is unconscious — and rational.
Consequently, nothing is more natural than his seeing in the phonological system of structural linguistics the most comprehensive, transparent and universal model of that unconscious reason which underlies all social phenomena, whether we are dealing with kinship systems or mythological inventions. He was certainly not the first to think of linguistics as a model for anthropological research. But whereas Anglo-American anthropologists considered it a branch of anthropology, Lévi-Strauss maintains that anthropology is (or will be) a branch of linguistics.
Octavio Paz,
Claude Lévi-Strauss: an introduction
(1970)

The logic of the story reflects the ambiguous character of the human condition in which, as a result of the “hiding” action taken by the gods, good things and evils, whether given or not given, always turn out to be indissolubly linked together. At the same time the story defines the status of man, midway between that of the beasts and that of the gods: it is characterised by sacrifice, fire for culinary and technical operations; the woman seen both as wife and as bestial stomach, and cereal foods and agricultural labour . . . Pandora corresponds to Bios , the cereal food which Zeus “hides” when he also hides his celestial fire, just as Prometheus hid the food in the form of meat in the gaster and the seed of stolen fire in the hollow stem.
The belly of the woman, which man must plough if he wishes to have children, is like the belly of the earth that he must plough if he wishes to have wheat . . .
J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece (1980), on the myth of Prometheus
1 O. marries his mother 2 O. kills his father 3 O. kills the Sphinx 4 O. is swollen-footed.
1 Overrates blood ties 2 Underrates blood ties 3 Denies autocthony 4 Affirms autocthony
1 : 2 :: 3 : 4 The myth mediate the contradictions. Lévi-Strauss on the Oedipus myth
(4) Thirdly, the idea of mentalité . Another form of ‘structuralism’, this time associated with the French Annales school of historians which flourished from 1930s onwards. Initially focused on physical structures (key work: Fernand Braudel’s study of the Mediterranean), including the physical environment, climate, biology, which set limits on human action; associated with idea of different levels of time, from history of events to medium-term social and economic changes to la longue durée
, environmental and biological changes. Later historians in this tradition focus instead on mental structures which set limits on human thought; detailed studies of mentalities of particular societies or even villages (for example, Le Roy Ladurie’s classic study of a single village in the Pyrenees, based on records from the inquisition). Seek to establish dominant ideas, key themes, semantic range of concepts, ‘world view’. Distinguish between different levels of ideas; for example, one might contrast ephemeral ideas of literary fashion (or any other sort of fashion) with constants of Western tradition from Plato onwards.
(5) Tendency to focus on description of mentalities at a particular moment; less on process of change (though might draw on theories from history of ideas and of science, in particular the idea developed by Thomas Kuhn of ‘paradigms’ in scientific thought). Inevitably, a tendency to focus on elite, simply because they produce most texts; less of a problem in more modern periods (even so, considerable debate on validity of sources for Montaillou), major problem for antiquity. Raises question of relationship between dominant ideology and subordinate ways of thinking; how much is held in common? Limited influence, though possible to see some effects in e.g. work of Peter Brown on late antiquity, builds up impressionistic picture of thoughtworld of early Christianity.
We have no statistics on the subject, but it may be that the people of Montaillou wept slightly more easily than we do, both in happiness and in sorrow. People cried, of course, at the prospect or reality of misfortune, or for the death of someone dear to them, in particular for the death of a child, even when it was very young. Both men and women grew pale, trembles and wept when afraid that they were about to be betrayed to the Inquisition. Among the shepherds, we see men bursting into tears at a breach of friendship or solidarity, especially when accompanied by threats foreshadowing arrest by the Inquisitors.
E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French village (1978)