The Great Western Unravelling

Western civilization, as we now know it, begins with Plato dividing mind and body. Out of that split came philosophy. Out of philosophy science, and out of science technology. There was no necessity that this development take place. The world could have been left to Homer and the Greek poets or patterns of social stability developed, in the manner of classical Chinese civilization, without our ever building up these elaborate conceptual structures that make up science. It happened nevertheless; and we are today working out the consequences of that historical eruption.

~ William Barrett, Time of Need (1972), p. 182.