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g_pepper comments on Open Thread, May 4 - May 10, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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When studying history I sometimes find the hardest thing for me is wrapping my brain around how people actually thought back then. I'm so ingrained with modern Western science-based thinking that it's really hard for me to envision how people outside that box actually think. Can anyone suggest some books or articles that explain the differences in modes of thought between us modern educated Westerners and other cultures / time periods?
Edit 1: I think what I'm looking for is something like the following book, just on current vs. past cultures and/or cultures other than just Asian vs. Western:
Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why.
Edit 2: As some commenters have alluded to, a lot of what confuses me about past cultures would probably also apply to non-scientific cultures today.
Eric Havelock's Preface to Plato is basically about the differences between pre-literate cultures and literate cultures. It is also a very engaging read. Ditto for Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy. And a very engaging novel about a contemporary pre-literate culture is Mario Vargas Llosa's The Storyteller.
O. Neugebauer's The Exact Sciences in Antiquity is a great overview of mathematical and astronomical thinking in ancient times, particularly in Babylon.
For an exceptionally engaging account of a melding of scientific discovery and religion in ancient times, there is David Ulansey's The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries.
And Karen Armstrong is an engaging writer on religious thought in times past; especially The Great Transformation.