Ranging from ancient mythography to the present-day, and covering a period of 3000 years, this book provides a phenomenology of the Western mind. It examines the emergence of philosophical ideas within the context of the cross-pollination among the perceptual, cognitive, cultural and value orders. As such, it argues against a naturalist, reductivist approach, which pays insufficient attention to the social dimensions of emergence, while simultaneously reclaiming the idea of cognitive emergence for philosophy, as well as science. Its scope is wide, and includes considerable references to all cultural aspects of relevance to philosophy. Its conversational style will appeal to philosophers and graduates, historians of ideas and science, and to all readers with a deep interest in the culture of western philosophy.This volume, the first of three, explores the origins of philosophy up to its first high-water mark in ancient Greece, including a brief study in contrasts with classical Chinese philosophy.