ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ways in which the alphabetised textualisation of ancient Greek epic poetry permitted the emergence of an analytical mode of thinking as manifested in Plato's theory of the Forms and of the pure mathematical nature of the perfect shapes of these Forms. Precision of meaning here is the service of writing commentaries on the ancient texts for the purpose of elaborating on the nature of Christian theology. Clearly owing much to Plato, this ontologisation of an eternally living ideality superior to a mortal fleshy body would feed into the dualistic ontology of Descartes. Aristotle serves corrective extravagances of the analytical thinking, in spite of his 'bookishness'. It is because of his bookishness that he could invent the logical syllogism. Radical distinction between the modest analytics practised by Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece and by scholastics in medieval western Europe and the analytics which began to turn its attention to the sphere of physicality and techne.
